Short answer: a life-size animatronic figure typically draws 2 to 4 kW while running, and the number that catches sites out is not the running load — it is the startup surge, the phase, and where the compressor can physically go. Most buyers hand the venue a single kW figure and then discover the site has no three-phase supply, the compressor cannot sit next to a quiet exhibit, or the generator trips every time the jaw snaps. This article gives the planning ranges by figure size, explains what changes when actions are pneumatic rather than electric, and lists the eight numbers worth putting in a specification.
Two Numbers the Site Electrician Actually Needs
Connected load and running load are different, and quoting only one of them causes problems in both directions.
Connected load is the sum of every nameplate on the figure — every servo drive, every heater, every control board. It is what the supply and the protective device must be sized to carry. It is usually conservative, because most axes never move at the same instant.
Running load is what the figure actually pulls during a programmed sequence, and it is typically 40 to 60 percent of the connected load on a well-designed routine. A figure with 14 axes that sequences head, jaw, neck, tail and breathing in overlapping but not simultaneous motion will sit well below the nameplate sum.
The third number is startup surge, and it is the one that trips breakers. A compressor motor draws three to five times its running current for a fraction of a second on start. Servo drives have inrush current on power-up as bus capacitors charge. If several of those line up, a supply that comfortably carries the running load will still trip.
Give the site all three: connected load in kW, running load in kW, and the highest simultaneous surge the control system can command. Any competent electrician can size a supply from those; most cannot from a single number.
How Power Scales With Figure Size
What drives consumption is the number of moving axes and how often they move — not the length of the dinosaur. A 12 m sauropod with a slow neck sweep and a blinking eye draws less than a 4 m raptor that lunges every 40 seconds.
| Figure class | Typical axes | Running load | Connected load | Supply usually specified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small, 2–3 m, static base | 3–6 | 0.4–1.0 kW | 0.8–1.5 kW | 230 V single phase, 10 A |
| Medium, 4–6 m, standing | 8–14 | 1.5–3.0 kW | 3.0–4.5 kW | 230 V single phase, 16–20 A |
| Large, 8–12 m, standing or walking pose | 14–24 | 3.5–6.5 kW | 7.0–9.0 kW | 400/230 V three phase, 16 A per phase |
| Ride unit with platform and passengers | 10–18 plus lift | 3.0–5.0 kW | 6.0–8.0 kW | 400/230 V three phase, 20 A per phase |
| Pneumatic figure, compressor included | 4–8 | 1.0–2.5 kW | 2.5–4.0 kW | 230 V single phase, 16 A |
These are planning ranges for the supply enquiry, not a substitute for the actual build sheet. The figure you order should come with a schedule listing each axis motor, its rated power and the control cabinet’s own consumption, and the site supply should be sized from that schedule.
Single Phase or Three Phase
The practical dividing line is motor size. Single-phase induction motors above roughly 2.2 kW become impractical — starting torque is poor, starting current is high, and the capacitors needed make them unreliable. Above that, three-phase is the only sensible choice, which is why large figures and ride units are specified three-phase almost without exception.
Voltage conventions differ by market and it is worth being explicit in the order. Europe, the Middle East, most of Asia and Australia use 400/230 V three-phase at 50 Hz. North America uses 208/230 V single phase or 480 V three-phase at 60 Hz. Japan uses 100/200 V at 50 or 60 Hz depending on region. A control cabinet built for 50 Hz will run on 60 Hz, but heaters, transformers and any AC motor will not behave identically, so state the destination supply at the quotation stage rather than at the shipping stage.
If a site only has single phase and the figure needs more than about 3 kW, there are two honest routes: specify a smaller figure, or accept a rotary phase converter with its own efficiency and reliability costs. Do not accept a supplier who says it will “work fine” without saying how.
What Changes When Actions Are Pneumatic
Electric actions need wire. Pneumatic actions need a compressor, a receiver, a dryer and a distribution line, and each of those is a site constraint that electric actions do not have.
Pneumatics are still a good choice for certain motions: a fast jaw snap, a breathing chest, a tail flick. Air accelerates quickly and the cylinders are cheap. What buyers underestimate is the support equipment. The compressor has to live somewhere with ventilation and drainage, it has to be reachable for service, and it makes noise continuously even when the exhibit is between cycles.
For a figure where only two or three actions are fast and the rest are slow and positional, a mixed build is usually the right answer: electric drives for the positional axes, pneumatics or a small air supply for the fast ones. This is common on large builds and the control cabinet simply coordinates both.
Sizing a Compressor for Pneumatic Actions
Compressor sizing is arithmetic, not guesswork, and the arithmetic is worth doing because undersized air is the most common cause of “the jaw doesn’t close properly” complaints.
Take a cylinder of 50 mm bore and 200 mm stroke. Its swept volume is π/4 × 0.05² × 0.20, which is about 0.39 litres per stroke at line pressure. Free air delivered is that volume multiplied by the pressure ratio — at 7 bar gauge, roughly eight times atmospheric — so about 3.1 litres of free air per stroke. At 20 strokes a minute that is 62 litres per minute for that one cylinder.
Add the other pneumatic axes, then add 20 to 30 percent for leakage through fittings and for the dryer purge. A small pneumatic figure with three active cylinders at moderate cycle rates usually lands somewhere between 100 and 200 litres per minute of free air delivery at 7 bar.
Three details follow from that number. The receiver tank should be large enough that the compressor cycles rather than runs continuously — a 100 to 200 litre tank is normal for a single figure, and the rule of thumb is that tank volume in litres should be roughly half the free air delivery in litres per minute. The dryer is not optional: condensate carried into solenoid valves causes sticking and corrosion, and a refrigerated dryer is cheaper than the service call it prevents. And the compressor should be sized with headroom, because a unit running at 100 percent duty cycle in a warm enclosure will not last its service life.
Noise: the Constraint Nobody Plans For
A compressor at 2 m is around 70 to 80 dB. That is fine in a safari park and unacceptable in a museum gallery, a shopping mall or a hotel lobby, where background levels are closer to 45 dB and any continuous mechanical hum becomes a complaint within a week.
If the site is noise-sensitive, there are three routes. Use electric actions instead, which are near-silent at rest. Move the compressor to a plant room and run an air line, which is the standard solution for indoor exhibits. Or specify a silenced, enclosure-mounted compressor and accept the cost and the reduced service access.
Decide this before the design, not after. A pneumatic figure specified for a quiet gallery is a rebuild, not an adjustment.
Generators and Temporary Sites
Touring exhibits, festivals and film sets run from generators, and generators introduce two problems that mains supplies do not have: surge capacity and waveform quality.
Surge first. A generator should be sized at roughly 1.5 to 2 times the total connected load when the site includes a compressor, and the surge rating matters more than the continuous rating. A 3 kW continuous generator that cannot deliver 9 kW for half a second will trip on every compressor start. For figures without pneumatics, 1.3 to 1.5 times connected load is usually workable, but the control cabinet’s inrush should still be confirmed.
Waveform second. Servo drives are sensitive to harmonic distortion and to voltage transients. A generator with total harmonic distortion above about 5 percent, or a modified sine wave inverter, can cause drives to fault intermittently in ways that look like a control problem and are actually a supply problem. Specify a generator with THD under 5 percent, and prefer an inverter-stabilised set for anything with digital drives.
Also confirm earthing. Many temporary supplies are IT or floating systems, and the figure’s protective earth arrangement has to match what the site provides. This is a two-minute question at the planning stage and a dangerous one to leave to the crew on site.
Cabling, Protection and Earthing
The figure end of the cable run needs a supply that is protected for people, not just for equipment.
Earth leakage protection at 30 mA is the normal requirement for equipment that the public can touch, and for outdoor exhibits it should be on every circuit rather than on the feed as a whole. The protective device should be upstream of the cabinet, lockable, and labeled in the local language with the figure’s identifier.
Cable sizing is driven by run length as much as by current. A 2.5 mm² cable carrying 10 A over 20 m is fine; the same cable over 80 m drops enough voltage to make a servo drive fault on startup. Keep voltage drop under about 3 percent for the run, and use armoured cable or conduit anywhere the public or a mower can reach it. Above-ground runs should be in rigid conduit, not clipped directly to the frame where they will flex.
Earth the steel frame. A metal skeleton inside a damp enclosure is exactly the kind of thing that becomes live when a cable is damaged, and bonding it to the protective earth costs one cable and one lug.
Finally, put the emergency stop where a member of the public or a staff member can reach it without entering the exhibit footprint, and make sure it removes power from the drives rather than only signalling the controller.
Multi-Unit Exhibits: Distribution and Control
A trail of twelve figures does not need twelve times the supply of one figure, and sizing it that way wastes money on the incoming supply.
Apply a diversity factor. Figures on a trail are triggered by visitor presence, and at any moment only a fraction are moving. A diversity factor of 0.5 to 0.6 on the connected load is realistic for a walk-through trail, higher for a static gallery where several figures run continuously. Confirm the factor with whoever writes the control logic, because it depends on the trigger design.
Distribution is usually a sub-board per zone, with each figure on its own circuit and its own earth leakage protection, so that a fault in one unit does not darken the whole trail. Control is normally a network: a central scheduler that starts and stops sequences, with each figure’s local cabinet holding its own program so that a network failure degrades the show rather than stopping it. Ask for that local fallback explicitly — plenty of exhibits fall silent when one network switch dies.
What to Put in the Specification
1. Running load and connected load in kW, listed per axis.
2. Highest simultaneous surge the control system can command.
3. Phase and voltage at the destination, stated explicitly (400/230 V 50 Hz, 208/230 V 60 Hz, and so on).
4. Whether actions are electric, pneumatic or mixed, and if mixed, which axes are which.
5. Compressor free air delivery at 7 bar, receiver volume, and dryer type.
6. Noise level at 1 m for every powered component, with the measurement condition.
7. Cable entry type, connector standard and IP rating at the figure.
8. Earth leakage protection rating per circuit, and the emergency stop location and action.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much power does an animatronic dinosaur use?
A typical life-size figure runs at 2 to 4 kW with a connected load of 3 to 4.5 kW on a single-phase 230 V supply. Large figures above about 8 m and ride units move to three-phase and sit in the 3.5 to 6.5 kW running range. The consumption is driven by the number of axes and the duty cycle, not by the figure’s length.
Can it run on a standard household supply?
Small and medium figures can, on a dedicated 16 to 20 A circuit with earth leakage protection. Anything above roughly 3 kW connected load should be three-phase. If the site only has single phase, either reduce the figure size or plan for a phase converter and its efficiency losses.
Do I need a compressor for a pneumatic figure?
Yes, plus a receiver tank and a refrigerated dryer. A single pneumatic figure typically needs 100 to 200 litres per minute of free air delivery at 7 bar, with a 100 to 200 litre receiver. Compressors are also the main noise source, so on quiet sites they belong in a plant room with an air line run to the figure.
What size generator do I need for a temporary installation?
Roughly 1.5 to 2 times the total connected load if the site includes a compressor, because compressor starting current is three to five times running current. Specify a generator with total harmonic distortion under 5 percent — servo drives fault intermittently on dirty supplies and the fault looks like a control problem rather than a power problem.
Why does my figure trip the breaker when it starts?
Almost always inrush. Servo drives charge their bus capacitors on power-up and compressor motors draw several times running current for a fraction of a second. The usual fixes are a higher-rated protective device with the correct curve, staggered power-up sequencing in the controller, or a soft starter on the compressor.
How long can the cable run be?
Keep voltage drop under about 3 percent. That typically means a 2.5 mm² cable is good for 20 to 30 m at 10 A, and longer runs need a larger cross-section. Undersized long runs show up as drives faulting on startup rather than as an obvious voltage problem, which makes them slow to diagnose on site.
Working out the supply for a site and want the load schedule against a real build? Send the figure dimensions, the site voltage and whether the site has three phase and we will come back with the load list. For what sits behind the power numbers, read the six systems inside an animatronic dinosaur; for drive selection, see brushless vs servo vs stepper motors.