How do you organize your extension cords?

[Ten Hammers]

Knob and spool ( tube ) like has been mentioned is fine when done properly. The 2 conductors are seperate and won't short. The problem however is the age of the copper and the insulation. I have replaced some over the years. As Junior said, hanging cords on a nail invites a place for the conductor/insulation to kink. I just wrap cords up on my arm and thread the ends through the bundle and then plug them together. Of course I sometimes hang this on a nail ( or hook ). We all have our ways. Spools work great. I would love to have an extension on a reel that has a ratchet. I usually don't have a major need for extensions. Recepticles in the ceiling work well. While I am NOT an electricain, I do have training and do all my own wiring. Yes, I have been bitten once or twice over 35 years but that was through carelessness on my part. For those who are not trained or live in an area that requires a licensed electrician to do their work, by all means hire one. Just a few more notes. A 200 amp service is not a hot service. Just a larger wire ( than say a 60 amp ) coming from the meter to the service panel to service the needs of the panel. Both conductors in the wire coming from the meter carry current. This is a standard 230 VAC service ( single phase ). This gives the panel more distribution space for more circuits. The purpose of the fuse ( breaker ) is to protect the wire. Wire is sized according to current needs. Types of insulation on the wire also make a difference in the given application. That's what all them funny letters are on the wire. A 200 amp main is just that. On down the buss bars, proper sized breakers are placed to proper sized wire for the needs of the given circuit. Appliances have amperage ratings and circuits should be wired for them accordingly. Commercial enterprises run welders ( 400 amp 3 phase welders ) on extensions from time to time. There are seldom enough plugs or space for everything although most times the intent is to have all bases covered. The extensions are of course properly sized wire and ends. I know of 30 year old welding machines that are running on extensions right now ( and the cords are probobly 20 years old ). Good quality welders and commercial grade extensions. I hope I have got all this typed correctly because I think the edit button is not working for now. Electricity is dangerous and working with it should not be attempted if you have no training. It wants to go to ground and if your body is between it and the ground, bingo, you are shocked. Your own body runs on electricity of a different type but none the less it is current. Adding external electricity accidentally ( in enough current ) will stop your heart ( and HIGH voltage will kill you dead ). If you are lucky, the EMS personnel will add their own electricity with a device called a defibrillator and may be able to re-start your heart. Be careful with electricity. It doesn't care if you stayed in a Holiday Inn last night, have watched every single episode of "ER " or if your wife ( or mom ) is a nurse. I am sure no expert. I just try to be safe. BTW, I am certain that we have licensed electricains that frequent this forum. Please feel free to correct any information I have posted. :)

[mcraigl]

That's a good point Jerry. My welder is one of the little lincoln 110v migs. And the "need" to run it off the 10ga. cord comes along fairly rarely, but does nonetheless. If I could afford a decent portable/gas engine welder that would surely be nice. Maybe some day. I figure the bigger issue for me right now than the 10ga. cord is the knob and tube feeding the cord. That's going to be remedied soon. What a pain in the butt trying to get the garage stripped to bare walls so the rewiring/insulating/sheetrock work can begin. I ended up building an 8x12 storage building behind the garage/shop to get rid of "storage" crap in the garage. It'll also end up holding all the tools etc. that can fit durring the remodel exercise. Everything except the table saw and the milling machine. I can see now that I was somewhat optimistic about the time table for this project. It was very depressing last weekend when I put all my smithing tools away in rubbermaid containers in the shed. Luckily Mike-hr said I could come out and use his shop if I was having withdrawls... Thanks Mike! I'll probably take you up on that in a couple of weeks. Anyway, once I get all the "crap" out of the garage, I'll start a new thread and post progress pix of the transformation of my garage into a blacksmithin/glass blowing shop/studio.

[Woody]

I have a Craftsman retractable reel 25 foot extension cord suspended from the rafters near the center of my garage. This allows me to reach a anywhere I need in the garage. The other extension cords in the garage are usually draped over what I am working on or wrapped around my ankles.

Woody

[waianvil]

how to organize shop is kind of up to you, My cords that I use all the time are for grinders and hand tools, for welders I make a recepaticle for it close to the location. On service size a lot has to be what outlets you use constantly.Because you can't operate more then one equipment at a time.
and to answer your question how I organize my cord I use a tire rim have lot of them around to store my cords. I be a electrician put me position that I put outlets where they are need. My shop is not that big. That i have 60 amp service for trip hammer and welder.

[Woody]

AM I got my retractable extension cord at Sears. You might also try HF, or Grizzly Industires.

Woody

[Archie Zietman]

I just have one cord, with one plug, and plug it into whatever I need at the time. But I forge only in the daytime, and don't have a power hammer, so I only need either the blower on, or the sharpener at any one time. I just keep their spaghetti together so I can quickly unplug one and plug in the other.

[Ralph G Gilmore]

On the oil rigs I use a lot of extension cords some of the quite long, I roll them up and tie the roll with electrical tape, not always easy in freezing weather. Some times for convenience I make several rolls for the same cord ie divide the cord into sections and roll each section separately. The trick is to be neat and don't get the cord tangled. Once rolled and taped they can be stored where ever you feel they will not get damaged.

[Jacob]

My shop is 16x30 and I'm currently rewireing it. I'm putting a double outlet every 6' on the long walls, and a couple on the short walls. The short walls are the garage door at one end and a large window plus the forging area at the other end. I haven't got any clever ideas for extension cords that haven't already been mentioned. However, I just bought a 230V welder and wanted to have some flexibility in plugging it in. My breaker box is next to the garage door, and I want to be able to plug it in by the hot work area (opposite corner of the garage). I went to an electrical supply store and got parts for a 50' 50 amp cord cheaper than I had found pre-built cords. I have one 3 prong outlet near the breaker box, in line with a four prong outlet for a pottery kiln. The heavy extension cord will be hung up on the wall on hooks so that it can be removed when I need to take the welder out into the driveway or the yard. The rest of the time it will be just like being hard wired along the wall, without having to spend the money for the wire and outlets twice.

I have a dedicated 60 AMP breaker coming off the house for the outlets, and a branch off of one of the inside outlet breakers that I have powering overhead lights only.

[Phil Patrick]

I generally make sure I tie at least three of my cords into a really big terrific knot, then lose the other one. I wouldn't know what to do if they were organized.

Actually, I wrap them up and hang the bundle from a nail in the rafter above my head.
Then konck the bundle off with my head onto a hot work piece, ruin the cord and weld rubber onto the hot steel.
I give up on extension cords, same as my Sharpies.

[Dale Russell]

I hope youse blokes who use long extention leads remember to unwind them first before hookin' em up ta a welder ect , the electromagnetic field produced by a coiled leads will induce large amounts of heat , causin' the lead to catch fire , then maybe your shop ( destroyin' all your lovely tools ) .... not a fun thing to happen


Dale Russell

( just don't ask me how i know , ok )

[ralphy]

Hey, Mcraig, I've also used car rims and wire feed spools.
The nice thing about the spools is you can stack them when not in use.
I'm also thinking of hanging a sleeve with a rod bent 90 degrees and a brace, like a gib or boom. You run the cord along the boom and drop it down for easy reach! then swnig it out of the way when not in use, cause I got the same problem:)

[gerald]

Somebody posted a while (few months) back that they had one of the retractable cords catch fire. If I remember correctly, it was one of those that feeds into a basket for storage. I've never used one of these but this post caught my attention. I don't remember where I saw the post. Anybody out there ever hear of a similar happening?

[Phil H]

Had it happen myself years ago Gerald, set fire to a plastic wind-up cord holder connected to a heater in the hallway of my parent's home. The sad thing is that I'm an electrician and I knew all about the danger BEFORE I did it. However, there's nothing like an actual bad experience to set things in your memory!

[gerald]

Phil H,

Do you think this happened because the heater overloaded the extension cord beyond its rating? Or do these things just sort of spontaneously catch fire without regard to load?

[bear Hill]

Mcraigl - For the best cord storage I use those 6 inch ball o bungie ties that hold tarps to a frame. I pick them up from the cheap chinese store and one on each, cord, lead, hose, etc keeps them seperate - then you can put them on partial rims, or what ever large diameter hanger you prefer to keep the kinks out.

Ralph

[Dr Dean]

If you use or want to use one of those cord reels either spring loaded or hand wound DON'T leave it pluged in! A friend of mine lost his machine shed and 2 million dollars worth of farm machinery because of a cord reel. I immedatly threw out the one I had when he told me what the insurance ajuster told him. I roll my cords up in a 5 gal bucket. Each cord gets a loop of rope around it to keep them seperate so if I need the one at the bottom I can get to it.

[agsolder]

Some random thoughts on wires, but first: howcum the retractible cord reel should be kept unplugged when not in use? Now, wires: Welders come with manuals that specify the proper sizes and lengths for power cords and leads. Exceed the limits at the peril of burning out your machine. Welding texts have such charts, too, if you've lost the manual. Beware these retractible cord reels: they are usually only 16 gauge wire, just lamp cord, really, that has extremely low ampacity and this can burn out the motors on saws and drills in a jiffy. Hardware stores carry a handy-dandy wiring reference, by Richter as I recall, that has all the charts for what size wire can carry how many amps how far. Don't forget the distance has to be measured both ways-- from the plug and back to the plug. The amps the tool draws is or should be on a plate on the motor or tool. Shop wiring ought to be, and by code must be, inside conduit. Do it. Position your outlets up high, 4 or 5 feet above the floor, where you can reach them easily and handily without getting down on your hands and knees to feel around amongst the spider webs to get the plug into the bloody outlet. And put them as the code says, no farther apart than 12 feet from each other. Put a few along the bottoms of rafters, too, out in the middle of the room, if they are low enough to reach. Look out for these xxxxxx Chinese space heaters. They are cutting corners on everything, sizes of wires especially, and on the heater wires and plugs they can and do overheat to the point of melting down. I suspect they are faking the UL tags.

[Dr Dean]

Agsoldier, I agree about the wire size in the cord reels, Now that you mention it all my cords are 12 guage wire, and all my outlets are on 20 amp breakers so proper wire size is 12 guage. I have been known on service calls to cut the end off of a customers extension cord because of damage to the end or the cord. If it's just the end I do have replacement ends in my truck to give to the customer. I will also replace the end on a block heater cord if it's damaged. I'd rather have a customer mad at me than have a customer that just lost all his machinery because of something I could have prevented! So far every time I have felt the need to go to such drastic measures it has been appreciated.
Back to the cord reel, if it catches fire when you're there you have a heck of a lot better chance of putting it out than when you come home and wonder what the heck happened!

[tbrforge]

the best solution for all those cords in my shop involves a habit forming. All my power tools that require an extension are on a roll about cart along with abrasive supplies and blades and such. On the floor in the shop is one 4 way box (metal) 50 ft long. The habit is tool goes back to the cart when I put it down, and I unplug it then and there. I have reduced tripping over plugged in devices, I have not pulled a grinder off a table and ruined it, and I don't look around to find things near as much. The habit took several weeks to really set though.

[terry new smith]

please no pcv pipe for airlines it is a good thing. - terry

[me miller]

Depending on how many you have to store most of my 50 foot cords or the 100 foot one are in 5 gallon plastic buckets. Cut a hole in the side for the male plug and coil them down inside . Walk up to the outlet and plug it on then pull the female plug only as far as you need to use it. Nice even coils when you put it back in and doesnt have any kink problems.

[irnsrgn]

12 gauge or larger extension cords should be the only ones used in a shop, wiring elect code will not let you use less than 12 gauge wire in new construction except for low voltage control circuits.

What causes cords to overheat while in a coil is the magnetic field generated when they are in use, it causes heat.

[thisaw]

I use a wheeled garden hose reel, one for my cords and another for my air line. With the cords I put the lightest one on first and work out. I don't have to tote them and I always use the hever cords first.
With the air hose, I remove the water connections and put one end of the air line through the hole, Just reel of the length I need to use.

[LarryM]

Depending on how many you have to store most of my 50 foot cords or the 100 foot one are in 5 gallon plastic buckets. Cut a hole in the side for the male plug and coil them down inside . Walk up to the outlet and plug it on then pull the female plug only as far as you need to use it. Nice even coils when you put it back in and doesn't have any kink problems.

This a great idea to store a cord. The only addition I would make is to wire a 4 way outlet box and bolt it to the out side of the bucket. Then fed the cord so you would be pulling the male end of the cord back to the receptacle. That way you can have more than one power tool plugged in a once.

Larry

[RLD]

I have 3 heavy cords like this one. I took an idea from the stores that sell bulk chains. For this big a cord use a 3 1/2 gallon bucket with a lid. Cut a hole along one side of the top close to the edge, another in the center of the top. put the male end of your cord through the top going inside, then bring it back out from the other hole. snap the lid on your bucket and pull about 2 feet of cord out of the bucket. Know push the rest of the cord into the bucket leaving the female end exposed. Push the 2' tail back into the bucket. When you need this cord pull out the tail and plug it in,grab the female end and walk to the job site. no unwinding or untangeling needed.

Edited December 17, 2008 by RLD
spelling