HOW TO MAKE THE ULTIMATE EXTENSION CORD!

[Music] hey gang it's paul with stuttpack welcome back to our channel about four months ago joe and i were hanging out in the garage on a sunday afternoon and we decided we needed to fix one of my dad's old extension cords the end was bad so we cut it off put on this metal box ground fault protection here and this strain relief we posted that video and it got over 2 million views and we still don't know how but with all those views came thousands and thousands of comments and we read every single one the most common comment stud pack that ain't osha approved yeah we know that but we're not working at the new amazon facility they're building just down the road we're just simple residential contractors working on homes like this the job site i was referring to was the job site in your carport where you're trying to fix that truck at night or building that tree house in the backyard with your kids number two comment all these holes in the box there's probably over 12 of them everybody's concerned that if you dunk this in some water or leave it in a puddle it's going to fill up with water and yeah that's true but i don't dunk this in water or leave it in a puddle we did get some paint on it but it fared through that pretty good the number three comment everybody loved the ground fault protection but instead of being on this end they would have liked to seen it on this end so the whole cord is protected so in this video we're not going to build another super extension cord we are going to build the ultimate extension cord with nearly every improvement you suggested to us in the comments below and guys it has everything let's get started so first things first we need a cord right what are we going to use we thought about repurposing this one but this is like an old friend now and we use it every day at our residential job site so say hello to its big brother this one actually also belonged to my dad but check out that in right there pretty unsafe so why don't we start this project by replacing this end so what are we going to use to replace that in we are going to use a user attachable inline gfci in that thing cool we just cut that off we're going to wire it up like that and it's going to protect that whole cord let's show you how we hook it up first thing we're going to do we're just going to snip off that old plug i'm going to use my hi-vis clients and we're just gonna cut it off done next thing we gotta do is remove the sheathing from this cable how we're gonna do that i'm right-handed so i'm using my left hand and i'll bend it just like that so i'm stressing this part of it i've got a new blade in my utility knife and i'm not gonna cut i'm just gonna press and watch what happens see that i can just see the the braids inside i'm going to cut a little bit more on this side i'm not cutting i'm pressing i'm just opening it up i don't want that blade to cut the wires or the insulation inside so i moved it over a little bit i'm going to press again and because i'm flexing it it's just going to open up just like that and i'm not even damaging that part right there boom now we can pull that off now we can pull that off oh man this little cable i'm gonna have to slit it see i didn't go all the way through see i'm having to tear it which is what i want look at that stuff oh that's some old cable that's the good stuff all right let's cut all these off all right now that that's done let's put on the grommet the kit comes with three different sizes depending on the od of your cable obviously it's going to be the biggest one for our cable let's get rid of those two i'm gonna get a little spit get that sheathing wet and it's important to go on in the right direction the instructions will tell you which way it goes this is going to be fun a little more spit there we go let's put it through here just like that i need to go a little more because i want this clamp to clamp down on this sheathing you can make that work huh yep maybe come off a little bit we don't have much room in there all right let's call that good now we can either attach this first but i say we cut and strip these be a lot easier with this disconnected now it's time to strip these wires big shout out to klein they sent me these heavy duty strippers they actually have a lineman jaw on them check that out one thing we want to point out to you this is stranded wire you see right here it says str this is your stranded wire sizes and on this side it says solid or sld it's upside down but you can see it and these are for your solid wire sizes very important use the right size hole to strip the correct wire whether it's solid or stranded number 12 stranded so we're right here second hole from the bottom [Music] i've got the three screws here obviously green wire goes under the green screw the white neutral is on the silver screw and our black wire is on the gold screw just like a receptacle and you do not wrap the wire around the screw you see that square plate that is just under the screw head that is a clamping plate so the wire goes in here where i'm pointing with the screwdriver and as you tighten the screw the wire gets clamped just like i did the ground already it's a very strong connection the worst part about this is getting all these wires in here with so little room to work let's do the neutral first i've got one more left [Music] all right as you can see i'm twisting these wires pretty hard just so they'll stay together and now i'm in tighten up that screw and we're ready for the clamp this is pretty nice man could i have a little more room to work but it's all right cool now let's attach this little clamping plate you wouldn't want to put it this way with the cable right here because that's a sharp edge it's going to go this way where these two ridges clamp down on the cable it's going to go right there put a screw in on that side and get it started all right got a couple of threads engaged let's do the other side and we'll snug it up i'm not going to go too much i just want to hold the cable in place i don't want to crush it maybe one more on this side and i'm good with that here's the cover it's going to capture this gasket that goes all the way around as well as the bushing we put in place right here or you can call that a grommet too just like the hood on a car snap it on and we get four screws all right guys this end is done now we got a lot of questions about can you plug in a cord like this that has ground fault protection on this end into a ground fault receptacle well actually this one already is plugged into a ground fault protected receptacle in the carport as you can see we got power and it trips right here so it did not trip the ground fault on the car port so yes you can do it but why don't we go one step further let's plug this ground fault into this ground fault tamper resistant plugs you got to love them which is plugged into a third ground fault we'll get our tester in the end of the cord no lights yet we got to reset it there we go we're going to press the test button on my tester and this part should trip that light should go out there we go now let's check this ground fault and see what happened to it nothing happened to it there we go got our two green lights and we can test the button and then this one's going to trip but i still have power in the carport so now that we know this works let's head to the fun stuff and where's the fund again let's begin with the backbone of our extension cord the box where we're going to mount all the devices and we have two choices this one nearest you i call a bell box in fact it says bell outdoor they're cast aluminum and on this particular one i found it has three outlets one on this side one in the back and one here and it comes with plugs inside so you don't use the one in the back or one of these you just thread in that plug so i could connect all three of these together good to go then i found these plastic ones check these out this one has two outlets that's it nothing in the back this one has two outlets and this one only has one so since a lot of you are concerned with the metal boxes let's go with the plastic all we have to do to connect them together i got some half inch pvc conduit i cut inch and a half pieces and we're just going to glue them together like that with pvc conduit solvent cement it's just like gluing together pvc water lines right so we're going to glue all those together then we can attach our fitting and then attach our cord [Music] all right check it out we are all glued up now you'll notice in the video once i glued it i was pushing down on the table perfectly flat so that these are perfectly flat and in plain it's very important for our next step and on this end where our cords are going to go i glued on a half inch female adapter what does it do well it adapts from the glued pvc on this side and now i have half inch female pipe threads on this side which i can screw in my strain relief for the cord which has half inch male pipe threads check it out way down here by the shoulder there's an o-ring can you see that and that's going to seal it against any moisture no pipe dope or anything needed let's tighten that with our channel locks and we are ready for our next step all right there we are all glued up and we are ready for wiring well almost ready if this is the backbone to our cord this thing needs a foundation right we could leave it like that but we're not going to we're going to make this the ultimate extension cord and how we're going to do that we custom cut a piece of plywood for this to mount on and here it is right here and check out all the features in this piece of plywood number one we got these notches on each end i can wrap that quart around there for days i can probably put 300 foot of cable on that thing got a handle here very easy to carry and we have a hole in the top so i can mount our post on a nail at a job site and get this thing out of the water check that out we took a quarter inch round over bit in our router and we went over every edge even the handle so no splinters when you're carrying this thing or working with it the last thing we did it is coated in black not black spray paint a big shout out to phil swift and flex seal first time ever used the product and that worked awesome you guys asked for rubber coating there it is now let's mount our boxes to the plywood and continue on with this build our next step let's mount our boxes to the plywood and how we're going to do that i picked up some number eight by three quarter stainless steel pan head sheet metal screws and i bought a whole pack of 50. why'd i do that because by the time i bought three packs of five this was cheaper so let's line this up and screw it down let me uh i guess get out my tape measure uh heck with that i'm just going to eyeball this thing dude there we go check it out there we are all mounted to our plywood so now we're almost ready to put in our devices and if you think we're going to go and put six boring receptacles in this whole thing and turn this into a glorified power strip well you need to think again this is stud pack right jordan i scoured the whole internet we came up with six devices to put in here they are super cool we can't wait to show them to you but before we start wiring all this together we need to get our extension cord end through this strain relief into the first box let's cut this off strip it back pass it through the strain relief and get started wiring up our ultimate extension cord there we go we've got the sheathing all removed using the same method we did when we did that end of the cord now it's time to put it in this strain relief what's a strain relief we'll come down here and check this out see all these fingers around the perimeter and then inside as a rubber sleeve when this nut is threaded on there it's going to compress these fingers just like that against the rubber sleeve and that sleeve is going to bite in onto this seething and form a tight waterproof seal so the first thing i got to do put the nut on here yeah that fits perfectly man all right now let's go through there sorry my hand's in the way there we go and we just got to get it started all right i'm in i'm going to call that good now let's get the nut started and we'll tighten it with some channel locks just about a quarter of a turn maybe another quarter of a turn all right i'm like yep that is solid cool man now we're ready to start run some wire first we got to put in our wire end for our second box right what am i going to use number 12 stranded wire we had several comments that any wire in a device like this that's movable should be stranded so point taken that's what we're going to use comes like that twist that already together at home depot 95 cents a foot i bought eight feet just so i have plenty of wire i'm going to feed it through and now we are ready to put our first two devices in this box what are we going to put in there you asked for it there we go we got it a green light indicating we have power that way when you have that big old crown molding with the mark on it where you're going to make your cut you're at your saw you get it all lined up you squeeze the trigger nothing right we've all been there now you can just look up at your ultimate power cord hanging on the wall you see the green light you know you got power no more failed cut on the crown molding so the green light there on the other side we're gonna put a hospital grade receptacle indicated by the green dot what is a hospital grade receptacle what does the green mean well the green means money right this thing was six bucks what do you get for the six bucks this thing is very heavy just holding it in my hand i can tell it is much heavier than a standard receptacle this strap is thicker and the copper contacts are thicker and stronger so it grips the blades on the plugs very well that is very difficult to pull out much harder than a standard receptacle so let's wire these two together in this first box how we're going to do that we're going to ditch the wire nuts and go new school and use wiggos now let's put our jumpers on our hospital grade receptacle white to silver black to gold and i was taught to wire it up like that this on one side of the receptacle and that on the other as opposed to doing it like that i was also taught to tighten all four screws so these don't rattle or stick out so let's tighten all four screws get these connected and then we're going to show you how to connect stranded wire to a screw like this so how do you attach this stranded wire to that screw a lot of folks like to strip that and crimp on a spade connector put the spade connector under there that works but to me it's an extra connection right in the circuit you have the connection between the wire and the connector the spade connector and then you have the connection between the spade connector and the screw there's actually a pretty cool trick i'm going to show you on how to connect stranded wire to that screw so it doesn't become all splayed out when you tighten down on that screw we're gonna get our strippers come back about an inch and a half two inches bite down and pull just like that and i'm going to twist that a little tighter and leave that on there for now and you can see how nicely i'm able to tighten that wire like that now we can wrap that around the screw and look how nicely that's holding together i'm going to tighten it down now some guys like to leave this on there but i like to cut it off you could cut it off way back here at the screw i like to leave a little bit of the insulation on there just kind of holds everything together just like that cool man you ready to wire these up let's do it all right all right we've got these big wagos they'll accept up to five conductors so let's start with the grounds i'm gonna open up three of those little levers like that and we're going to get going this is going to be really really easy there's the ground from our cord here's the ground going to our next box and here's the ground from our hospital grade receptacle done all right let's hook all the neutrals together and all the hots together same method [Music] so you may be asking yourself how we're going to put a cover plate on there we have a duplex receptacle on one side and you got this round hole on the other we'll check it out got these build your own cover plates got a duplex receptacle here on my left hand and this is actually a blank we drilled a hole in it for the light and these little tabs lock together just like that these are ends right and you can also get middles you can make this thing 100 long if you wanted to so we kind of goofed to get the light through there we have to pull the wires no big deal it's easy to do we'll put the light on the cover plate first and then wire it up there we go gang all ready to go except for one little detail see these two holes right here they are much closer together than these two holes this is a device mount plate and they also make box mount plates to adapt between the two the manufacturer of this sends what i call a yoke the yoke will mount to the box where i'm pointing with my fingers and then the plate will mount right here to those tapped holes one more little detail they even curved it for our light good thinking guys all right cool the first box is all done now let's move to the middle box and jordan and i decided to go with full charging capabilities here at the job site we are always charging things like our cameras the microphones i got a flashlight i charge like that we have a work light my phone jordan's phone all that stuff jordan always says hey dad abc remember what does that mean always recharging but for you it's always be cleaning that's right so on this side of the box we're gonna put in this four slot usb usb-a charger it's got pigtails from the factory so there's no additional wiring in the second spot on this box we're going to use this guy two receptacles plus two usb-c ports isn't that cool that's going to allow us to fast charge jordan's iphone 12 which we're always using to record and that eats up batteries so gone are the days when you have to plug in your phone at night right you can just plug in right here and if you're on zero percent battery you have a fully charged iphone in an hour 50 charge 30 minutes that's gonna be great we'd love to see these in more homes and you can also get this with a usbc and a usb a on this side if you wanted they're all kind of configurations available now and the wiring couldn't be easier i already got my jumpers on there let's wire all this together with some wagos mount these to the box and move on to our last one [Music] it's a lot of wires to strip i should get some of those automatic strippers huh that'd be cool is that everybody [Music] just get the drill dude [Music] blake goes in a drill yeah man finally [Music] almost done just have the last box so over here we have ivory and white over here i got white and almond and over here on this box we're going to go with gray i tried to go all the same color but you know what i'm up against guys right you're at the home center or wherever you're looking at all the plugs and receptacles and cover plates and you want everything to match well good luck on something like this so we're going with a nema 620 plug on the previous extension cord had a lot of comments saying i should have put in 20 amp receptacles i actually don't have any tools with the nema 620 cord on it what is that that's nema 515 we've all seen those it'll go in there just fine a nema 620 this blade is horizontal and we'll go in right there that's a 20 amp plug for a high draw device a big tool so now that i have this maybe we need to go buy a big power tool jordan what do you think i like that and it's already wired up i did this ahead of time i got my two grounds the only neutral i need is the neutral on the receptacle i've got the hot connected to the hot side of the receptacle and one of the screws on the switch all we got to do connect this hot to the other screw and the two neutrals together and the grounds together and we are ready to go all right let's pull out some more legos get this done and there we go gang doesn't that look incredible now i know my dad would be really proud of how he saved his old cord and made it safe and repurpose it for this awesome ultimate extension cord and remember you can customize this any way you want you can put twist locks there you can put a switch and receptacle on every one of them if you wanted to you could put a green light a yellow light a purple light it doesn't matter it's your extension cord customize it the way you want it now i know we're going to get a few questions number one is can you mix this 20 amp receptacle and a 15 amp receptacle in this case yes we can because it's a duplex 15 app receptacle meaning two there are two of them if it was just one i could not mix them but check this out remember this one is dual function i can plug in a cord like this or i can plug in a 20 amp cord if i'm using the 15 amp capability a plug like that i can plug this into any receptacle whether it's 15 amp or 20 amp it's going to protect the device what i can't do is put a 20 amp plug in there and plug this into a 15 app receptacle in the wall and expect that circuit breaker to hold it's not it's going to do its job and trip and the other thing you're probably wondering about is hey stud pack can i plug in five or six tools in this without tripping the breaker well let's head outside and check it out all right guys come on here and check out our setup here's our extension cord it's already plugged in we know we got power because the green light is on how cool is that now we have plugged in our tile saw our table saw our shop back two phones just for the heck of it our miter saw and our light now check it out i can control the light right here in that cool now let's head over here to the house and show you the setup on this end and how we're going to test it here's our extension cord and i've plugged it into this three foot cord that i made up and i call it my current splitter because i need to test current it's just one of these three foot flat cords and i split it right here this is the neutral wire because it's ribbed right we also know it's the neutral because it's on this side the wide blade is the neutral there's the rib side on that side here's the hot this is the hot side just plug it back in now i can tell exactly how much current each tool is drawing what do you want to do bud just start them one at a time and see what happens i think that'd be cool all right once you turn on the table saw first all right all right nine point three two what's the light oh plus the light all right and the phones right all right turn the tiles off [Music] all right stop back [Music] all right we're holding all right go squeeze the trigger on that miter saw [Music] 28 all right we were pulling 28 amps now we would never do that on the job site right we would never use this saw and that saw and that saw all the same times this is for convenience right it's like your living room you have you might have six receptacles in there but you're only using the tv and maybe a vacuum you're not using all 12 at one time so why didn't that 20 amp circuit breaker tripped when we were pulling 28 amps through it that's really a subject for a whole separate video right we just wanted to show you the capabilities of this and like i said we would never do that at one time because we are overloading the wire right we're overloading 12 gauge wire by pulling 28 amps through it and that wire can overheat if you're running it for an extended period of time exactly yeah that's the main concern fires right so i have one little experiment i want to show you with the shop vac and that amp meter you game bud yeah what you got all right it's a surprise for you you don't know this is coming now put your hand over the end and watch this [Music] i'll turn it off so when that happens to a vacuum cleaner most people think it's something's wrong with it right they rush to it and try to turn it off and clear the clog but as you can see when we stopped up the end of the hose the current draw actually dropped it didn't increase it actually dropped how come because the vacuum is no longer doing any work right it's not moving any air it's doing less work so it's pulling less current it's just deceptive because it gets louder exactly everybody's like oh my gosh oh my gosh turn it off turn it off well it's actually doing less work right kind of cool all right cool we're going to show you the last feature of this ultimate extension cord and wrap the cord around it we have our first version right here but don't worry lilly buddy we still love you we're gonna use you all the time but this new one is pretty awesome and if you're an electrician out there and you have a great explanation on why that 20 amp circuit breaker didn't trip with 28 amps of current on it let us know below in the comments your explanation we like it we'll pin it at the top so everybody else can understand it this was a super fun video to make if you guys enjoyed the video make sure you smash that like button for us means the world to me and jordan subscribe if you haven't already and like i said give us one of your great comments and ask a question and we'll see you on our next video [Music]

Channel: Stud Pack

Views: 550,580

Keywords: StudPack, Extension Cord, Extension Cord Repair, Extension cord fix, Super Cord, Ultimate Cord, DIY, Power Strip, GFCI, 20amp, 15amp, receptacle, ground fault plug, ground fault, usbc, usba, iphone fast charge

Id: hbTXKn-XMkw

Length: 27min 1sec (1621 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 09 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Ancient72]

We had a post about extension cords a while back. Check this out.