100 ft, 12 Gauge Heavy Duty Outdoor Extension Cord for $7.97

[Kerf]

I found this at slickdeals

Harbor Freight has 100 ft, 12 Gauge Heavy Duty Outdoor Extension Cord for $7.97
Shipping starts at around $7 and increases minimally with the addition of more quanities

For reference, the lowest price for a 100 ft Ext cable 12-3 at the BORG is $55

Here are a few coupon codes for a free gift card with $60.00 purchase... the amount of the free gift cards are a surprise apparently...

432-884-545
174-644-906
523-250-645

[tjr]

Thanks, I ordered 2 and used coupon 174-644-906 which supposedly gets me a $10 gift certificate. Not bad for 24.89 all in!

Wish they had a 25' 12ga for comparable price - if interested they do have a 50' 12ga for 11.97, also a great value.

[crokett]

tjr, at that price, buy another 100' one and cut it. 2 25' and 1 50'. Then wire new ends on it. You will still be ahead over buying cords from Lowes or HD.

[tjr]

That's a good point. I could make a 25' and a 75' (good for my Toro Ultra leaf blower/vac (a really super tool but that's another story)) by purchasing 1 male and 1 female end.

Just in case anyone's wondering, I checked to see if the HF stores carry the same cords for a potential price match; they don't.

[kaydee]

I would be very wary of these 12g power cords. In a 100ft cable, the copper alone is probably worth almost $8. These days, all the Made in China cables use 16 & 18g copper and wrap it in a thick shield to make it look like 12g. Power cords is not something you would want to takes chances with. The problem for the buyer is that there is no easy way to verify, short of cutting one up and measuring the copper inside.

Just gentle warning

[LCHIEN]

I would be very wary of these 12g power cords. In a 100ft cable, the copper alone is probably worth almost $8. These days, all the Made in China cables use 16 & 18g copper and wrap it in a thick shield to make it look like 12g. Power cords is not something you would want to takes chances with. The problem for the buyer is that there is no easy way to verify, short of cutting one up and measuring the copper inside.

Just gentle warning

that's what i worry about, unscrupulous makers will put thick insulation on a cord to make it look heavier gauge than it is, insulation being much cheaper than copper.

There is an easy, non destructive way to tell, you can just measure the resistance. 12 gauge should have abour 1.6ohms/1000 feet, or .32 ohms if you tie both prongs together at the male end and measure the resistance between slots at the female end of a 100 feet cable. A 16 ga. would have 0.8 ohms resistance measured the same way. 14 ga, 0.5 ohms. This can be done with a decent Voltmeter but you have to be very careful about test lead resistance and how good your connections are to the item being tested and how well the meter is zeroed.

Incidentally Kaydee is right about pricing. Market prices for raw copper are about $2.90+ per pound (todays market price), 3 x 100 feet of 12 gauge copper wire would weigh just shy of 6 pounds, so raw copper for 12/3 would cost nearly $18. - not counting stranding, drawing and spooling the bare wire, insulating and spooling the inividual wires, then jacketing an filling the whole cable then attaching and molding the connectors, labor and materials, packaging and shipping. Even with free labor the Chinese can't do that.

I'd really check if my $8 cable was really the gauge they said it would be.
If it is and since you can get 1.20 per pound scrap prices (stripped) you should buy all you can!

[Mr__Bill]

There is an easy, non destructive way to tell, you can just measure the resistance. 12 gauge should have abour 1.6ohms/1000 feet, or .32 ohms if you tie both prongs together at the male end and measure the resistance between slots at the female end of a 100 feet cable. A 16 ga. would have 0.8 ohms resistance measured the same way. 14 ga, 0.5 ohms.

Thanks, that's good to know, or in my case to print out and put with the VOM.

As an aside, first check at the male connector's prongs to make sure that the shunt is at 0 ohms.

Bill,

[cgallery]

Loring, are modern (high-end) DMM's precise enough for this? At what point do you need a bridge? Or do higher-end DMM's implement some sort of bridge?

[Mr__Bill]

Oh ****, is my generation showing calling it a VOM instead of a DMM? I still have one that is analog too


Bill, with way too much time on his hands today...

[RAV2]

Cool thread and a lot of good info.

Ad has been taken down.

Must have been a pricing error.

[LCHIEN]

Loring, are modern (high-end) DMM's precise enough for this? At what point do you need a bridge? Or do higher-end DMM's implement some sort of bridge?

Bill, a DMM (Digital Multi-meter)is a special case of a VOM (Volt-ohm multimeter) - in that it has a digital readout, whereas a VOM can be digital or analog. Also a DMM may be more than just ohms and volts, it may do frequency, capacitance, amps, etc.


Phil, a modern DMM has the accuracy and resolution. The resolution is 0.1 ohms on the lowest ohm scale of my meter which is enough. But, you have to be careful.
If you take a decent DMM like this Fluke 87 i have in my hands now, and casually touch the probes to each other i get numbers bouncing from .3 to 1.6 ohms. Once I bear down hard and rub them to get oxides, dirt and crud and stuff off i get a steady 0.2 ohms. If I can do this then that's OK, I know now that teh meter resistance indicated .2 ohms and can subtract this from any further readings. You have to do the same with the prongs an sockets on the ext cord being measured... clear off the crud on the prongs, use the points on the probes to scratch down to the bare metal. If I read 0.5 then I know its 0.3 in the cord now takin off the meter/probe reisstance i measured earlier. Not a 1% measuremnt anymore but good enough to tell if its 12 gauge or 14 or 16 gauge. That's why i recommended measureing round trip, to double the detectable resistance. Nice meters like the Fluke have a REL button which allows taking off the probe&meter resistance and setting the readout to zero, so the meter only reads the load resistance.


More expensive bench meters will use four-wire ohms measurement where a meaureing current is sent down a pair of probe wires connected to the load being measured. Then a separate pair of voltage lines is used to measure but not carry current to the end points (e.g. the load terminals, not the instrument ends of the test probes which carry the measurement current) to sense the voltage induced at the end of the load resistance. that eliminates the probe effects.

bridges are usually used to measure complex resistances under various DC bias and AC frequency and amplitude conditions which you encounter in non-linear loads.

[Uncle Cracker]

I still have one that is analog too

So do I. It's an older Simpson 260 series, and it will be alive long after I'm dead... It's useful to me often, as the digitals often do not load a circuit enough to get an accurate reading. They will sometimes see voltage potential that is not really there in the real sense of doing work. IMHO a needle meter will also give a better sense of an oscillating voltage than a DMM, because you're watching a needle wagging, as opposed to a momentary reading from a DMM determined by its sampling rate. The trick is just to know when to use one and when to use the other.

[cgallery]

Thanks for the explanation Loring!

[Mr__Bill]

So do I. It's an older Simpson 260 series, and it will be alive long after I'm dead... It's useful to me often, as the digitals often do not load a circuit enough to get an accurate reading. They will sometimes see voltage potential that is not really there in the real sense of doing work. IMHO a needle meter will also give a better sense of an oscillating voltage than a DMM, because you're watching a needle wagging, as opposed to a momentary reading from a DMM determined by its sampling rate. The trick is just to know when to use one and when to use the other.

This is very true, just try and get a power output from an amplifier with a digital, but with an analog you're almost able to hear it and name that song too!


Bill.

[LCHIEN]

Simpson 260's were old but standard technology when I was a wee engineer.

Even Fluke 87s are now old - I think the first generation came out in around 1984?
They have an analog bar graph at the bottom to resolve that flickering needle hangup you have.