[Big Red Machine]

AC has been really good to me.  I have learned a ton here and made some cool friends and acquaintances.  As some of you know I am a tinkerer and NEED to have projects of the electromechanical nature to keep my hands busy.  I've built AC boxes before, diffusers, cables of all sizes and shapes, power conditioners, room absorbers, etc.

Over a year ago I purchased a beast of an aluminum box to build myself a distribution box both with and w/o filtering.  That never moved forward and then I got the idea to build a box with different duplex brands sans filtering for you guys to try out.  It is clear that not everyone here is electrically or mechanically inclined so there are folks who cannot try out such things on their own.  So I am proposing a tour of this box and my power cable to those who might be interested.  Don't care how many want to try or how long it might be out in space floating around, so if you have interest, sign up and we'll get it going.






Some info and photos of the gear I put together for this:

The case is from China or Taiwan, forgot exactly where.  It is multiple thick panels of aluminum and is very beefy and heavy.

The outlets I had laying around or stole from other projects are Maestro, Synergistic Tesla Plex, Porter Port right off of Agon, and a stock Hubbell 5362.





I bought a .250” square copper rod and created a buss for hot and neutral.  Solid 10 ga. copper feeds each outlet once each side off of the busses.  (A small butane torch was very helpful in attaching the solid copper to the drilled holes in the bar.) Stranded 10 ga copper for the grounds was used.  The case is grounded to all of the grounds.  While there is an anodize black finish the ground can be detected via the mounting bolts of the case if you want to check with a meter.  I ground off a spot next to the IEC inlet to attach the chassis ground lug.  My pictures suck and now that it is sealed up, too late to take over.  I taped up the ground group with electrical tape and also masked off the top of the bars under the ground group so no shorting worries.









The power cable is 68 inches long and composed of Acrolink connectors, silver plated 10 awg mil spec wire, 37 strands each wire.  There are 2 pieces per pole – H, N, and Gnd.  Each pair of wires is sleeved with polyester sleeving and braided.  Each end has been clamped in the connector shell with a strain relief.  This is how I built all my system cables so you are getting a chance to try a cable I like very much.



I burned the box in on a space heater for a week.  Ran the vacuum through the power cable to check it and every duplex of the box.  All is good.

I am putting together a box to hold both items but right now they will not fit in the standard USPS large box.  I will try to make it small enough that you can still use the automated USPS kiosk and fit it into the chute at the Post Office w/o having to stand in line.  Cross your fingers.

I was thinking, if you are interested, post your state of location and then we can schedule a trip around in some logical fashion to reduce postage since I can’t do flat rate.  If that is impractical, then we'll just go with FIFS (first come, first served).

[jtwrace]

Is this fun or will you be building/selling them?

[Big Red Machine]

Fun only.

[roscoeiii]

Very cool. Count me in. But on the later side of the tour would probably work best. Moving in the not too near future I think. Tho staying in glorious Chicago.

BRM, you hitting Axpona here this year?

[WireNut]

Love to try your distribution box. I'm in Cincinnati Ohio 45069. I've never tried any power conditioning before.

[S Clark]

Very cool.  Please sign me up.  Texas 79562.

Scott

[decal]

Love to try your distribution box. I'm in Cincinnati Ohio 45069. I've never tried any power conditioning before.

It's not power conditioning WN, just a distribution box.

[audiogoober]

Count me in...thanks!
I'm in NH 03872

[Big Red Machine]

Very cool. Count me in. But on the later side of the tour would probably work best. Moving in the not too near future I think. Tho staying in glorious Chicago.

BRM, you hitting Axpona here this year?

Yes!

[rodge827]

BRM,

A great idea and generous gift to us ACer's

Count me in too, 08087 NJ

Chris

[mresseguie]

Hello, BRM.

I'd enjoy the opportunity to be a part of this, though I have never taken part in such a 'tour'. I'm still a 'noob' on this site with just 60-ish posts, so I'm unsure of my standing in your or other veterans' eyes. If I may participate, my zip code is 97330.

I understand the idea--you ship it to A, who uses it for 10 days to 2 weeks (?). Then, A sends it to B, etc. etc. Each sender pays the shipping fees at the time they send it to the next participant, yes?

Could you direct me to the posts you made about your DIY power cable? I'd love to read about that.

Best,

Michael

[harri009]

Sounds like fun, let the rest of us know what you guys think.

[Bob2]

Any chance that there is a sketch available? That is if this is not going to be produced for sale.....
Would like to make one for my own use only.

[Big Red Machine]

Hello, BRM.

I'd enjoy the opportunity to be a part of this, though I have never taken part in such a 'tour'.

Could you direct me to the posts you made about your DIY power cable? I'd love to read about that.

Best,

Michael

No reason you cannot play.  I never posted anything about my present pc config.  What you see is what you get.  No secret sauce, no gimmicky tricks under the covers.

[rollo]

 Cool thought there Big Guy. Out of curiousity how much did it cost to make ? Love the buss bar approach.



charles

[Big Red Machine]

Any chance that there is a sketch available? That is if this is not going to be produced for sale.....
Would like to make one for my own use only.

Photos should be all telling. I used the overkill copper bar to take out any issue with resistance to the last pair of duplexes.  Used 10 ga solid copper romex scrap I had, a 7/64 drill bit, a $25 butane torch from Menards, crimp on spade terminals for ground, pulled some old power cords apart to steal the green grd wire, cut the copper, marked the spots where the wire entries were in the outlets, drilled holes, soldered wires in.  Made a loop at the iec end so the hot and neutral could be fed into the iec after I assembled the outlets.  This allowed movement and strain relief.  You should be able to see this in the photos.

Quite a bit of juggling, but I was able to build this in one afternoon and fit it all in there.

[Big Red Machine]

Cool thought there Big Guy. Out of curiousity how much did it cost to make ? Love the buss bar approach.



charles

Roughly, I'd say:

$300 for duplexes - $5 to $100+ each
Case from eBay - $100
Copper -$75 for a 5 foot piece
Lugs - $3
Wire was scrap wire from my bins of stuff

Power cable, well the polyester was approx $15 for 50 feet, acrolinks are $30 each end, wire is $50, strain relief is scrap aluminum.  No soldering, all mechanical joints.  Takes about an hour to slowly poke your way through a cable build.

[Big Red Machine]

Pending anyone wanting to jump in, it might make sense for me to send to NH first, then NJ, then Cincinnati.  After that to Texas  and then on to California.  When roscoe gets settled then we can get him on the way back from CA or perhap someone inbetween.

Anyone else interested?

[rollo]

Roughly, I'd say:

$300 for duplexes - $5 to $100+ each
Case from eBay - $100
Copper -$75 for a 5 foot piece
Lugs - $3
Wire was scrap wire from my bins of stuff

Power cable, well the polyester was approx $15 for 50 feet, acrolinks are $30 each end, wire is $50, strain relief is scrap aluminum.  No soldering, all mechanical joints.  Takes about an hour to slowly poke your way through a cable build.

  Thanks.  If ya like we can get it a cryo treatment. when the tour is over. What is interesting to me is one can compare duplex outlets.


charles

[cAsE sEnSiTiVe]

If I'm not too late to jump in on this, count me in.

I'm in California, 94509

Big Red....much appreciated for this.

Bob