In my computer/media room, I have a lot of electronic equipment. There’s plenty of outlets, but in order to not have a million wires running across the floor and causing a trip hazard, I use power strips. All are heavy duty, 6-outlet types with built-in fuses. However, the power cords are only four feet long.
In fact, the majority of strips I’ve seen have four foot cords. Is this some sort of UL regulation? I could really use some with six foot cords.
Ever see any?
How about 12 feet? Or perhaps 15 feet of cord and 16 outlets on a 4-foot long strip?
Looks as if four feet’s become a default “cheapie” cord length, although the long one aren’t expensive. That long 16-outlet one is less than thirty bucks.
Whoa! Now THAT’S a power strip!
That 16 outlet model looks like what I need.
Thanks for the info.
Don’t forget to add up the amperage of all the things you plug into that, and make sure it’s less than the strip’s stated capacity and the capacity of any cords you have it plugged into (and preferably the circuit breaker the outlet is on). You can get away with ignoring this when you stick with “typical” scenarios (e.g. 6-outlet strip with a 4-foot cord) where the safety margin is big enough to cover your ass for most stuff you’d try to plug into it, but when you go to the trouble of seeking out 16-outlet monster strips, you suddenly gotta start paying attention to the power you’re trying to pull if you want to avoid starting fires.
I once had some maroon set up a rack of servers in my machine room, and then plug the rack’s power strip into the wall using one of those $2, 3-amp extension cords “temporarily”. Yeah, it was temporary, all right. All the servers suddenly shut off and that wimpy little extension cord was quite warm. 