[Big Red Machine]

I needed a project and something for you guys to scoff at, so I just completed a little mod I'll need when I move my rack to the center of my speakers.  Since my dedicated outlets are on the left wall, all my power now has to come on out to the center of the room from basically just one of the outlets closest to the speakers.

So I thought a nice little multiple outlet box would be nice that could accept up to 4 of the Audience aR1p conditioners that require 3" width each.  I couldn't find one commercially to suit me so what the heck, I'll make one!

And to really have some fun, I bought some cryo'd Hubbel outlets from Audiogon, a Furutech gold plated copper IEC from VH, and some .016" soft copper sheet to use as "wire" inside the box.    Did he say copper strips?  Yes, I did.



I nibbled the surround material off the Hubbells so the notched strip could sit doen tighter on the 2 screws.


What a mess!  How the heck to route these "wires".  I was really winging this and making it up as I went long.





I did a practice bend with the neutrals first then covered them with clear 3:1 heatshrink and drilled a hole in the end of each to bolt them together. 




Here's the 'hots' and the neutrals covered with shrink tubing and routed and clamped.


I covered the exposed copper just for insurance sake with electrician tape.  Note the short pieces of 6 gauge wire I had to use to get from the strip to the IEC.  I used a copper ground lug between strip and wire.  I had to connect the IEC outside the box and then push it in to reach the IEC screws for clamping.


I used walnut analine dye I had in the bins and applied it to the poplar box.  I mitered all the pieces for a better finished look.  Sprayed on the gloss Polyurethane.


Had some cool feet assemblies laying around and opted for the black rubber versus gold plated spikes.


Added a Lexan bottom plate:


Glued in the box labels so I could remember which IEC and outlet I used:


And whalla, after about 8 hours of effort I have a nifty distribution box!

More pics in the gallery: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery&page=2

And, yes, I tried all outlets and they work fine, but it has not been installed into the system yet.  I need to move that 150 lb. amp first.

[Double Ugly]

Nicely done, Pete!  Well executed, and it looks great! 

[zybar]

Looks great Pete! 

When can I put my order in?   

George

[Big Red Machine]

Looks great Pete! 

When can I put my order in?   

George

My true endeavor in life is to custom design and manufacturer something in this hobby, if just for fun.  I have a few more ideas kicking around as well.  SOme I think even patentable.

[rydenfan]

Sweet job, Pete! I could use one of those... 

[Big Red Machine]

Sweet job, Pete! I could use one of those... 

How big and what wood?

[mr_bill]

Hi BRM,
Did your DIY power box make it into your system and if I understand correctly, you are going to use 4 Audience aR1p conditioners to plug into it?
THanks.

[JimJ]

Interesting idea

[Brown]

Yes indeed. well done. Nice wire mangement. looking good.

[Big Red Machine]

Hi BRM,
Did your DIY power box make it into your system and if I understand correctly, you are going to use 4 Audience aR1p conditioners to plug into it?
THanks.

ANd I've sold all those since.  Now back to zero AC line filtering.  I am very fortunate to have consistently good AC here.  The more I try to "clean" it up, the more I realize it is just fine unfiltered.

Check this out:

[Big Red Machine]

I used 1.25" wide copper strips .016" thick to make the Hot and Neutral lines and used an 8 gauge piece of copper for the ground inside some PVC junk tubing I had lying around.  I covered each copper piece with self-adhesive ERS cloth before covering with shrink wrap (left unshrunk except for the ends for flexibility).  I had to leave off the connector shrouds since they would not allow the ribbons to fit.  I covered with the chrome TechFlex and shrunkwrapped each end.  Not very flexible but a fun project.  Next time I will use much thinner copper for more flexibility.  If you do the math the solid copper ribbon can be very thin and still give a heavy wire "gauge."



It took forever to figure out how to go from a wide strip to a round hole in the connector backside.  Finally ended up slitting the copper, folding it over on itself, drilling a hole in it, and then using a large ground lug and two short pieces of 12 gauge wire in a fork arrangement to get it into the connector body.  No soldering, just compression fits all the way.  I had to use the vise to make the crimps really tight.

[Imperial]

No soldering, just compression fits all the way. 

That's what got my attention!
Goes to show this very nice project, that it can be done, and well done as well!
Awesome!

Is it to early to tell what the sonic difference was? as compared with ye old socket-rocket?

Imperial

[Big Red Machine]

My impression is the power rod (cable) is extremely revealing, but not in a noisy sort of way.  I'm still ABing it against a Ridge STreet Alethias PC.  I want to wait for my new Purity with the quiet transformers before really fleshing it out.  Too much hiss right now to know if it can be a quiet cable without any braiding in it.