August 9, 2016

Power Strip Insanity

Filed under: Main — Tags: — admin @ 12:01 am

Power strips are pretty common. Not only do I have them in my office, but the HDTV has one. Even the kitchen TV has a power strip. And they’re not just those boxy sticks with a row of plugs on them. Power strips can be quite complicated, which makes the choosing and buying process frustrating.

This topic is on my mind because one of my power strips broke the other day. I had just used it, too, which is odd that it broke. Being a nerd, I took it out to the Wambooli Space/Time Laboratory (my garage) and disassembled it. I figured I could hack it back into shape, but more importantly, I wanted to see what broke.

I used a circuit tester on the power strip, and its ground and neutral wires were okay, but the switch was bad. I had a spare and I could have soldered it in as a replacement, but I figured I’d just toss the thing out.

The power strip is shown in Figure 1. It’s an old-but-traditional inline model, which doesn’t help when you have plugs that are fatter than the typical lamp plug.

Figure 1. The old, inline power strip I tried to hack. The power switch is broken.

Figure 1. The old, inline power strip I tried to hack. The power switch is broken.

Today, I often pay a bit more to get a power strip designed to handle fat charging adapters. These strips position the adapters at some distance or line up the plugs in different directions. Figures 2 through 4 show some examples from around my office and house. (And my mom doesn’t read this blog, so I didn’t bother dusting before I snapped the photos.)

Figure 2. See how nicely those power bricks fit onto this power strip? The sockets are well-spaced and oriented away from each other.

Figure 2. See how nicely those power bricks fit onto this power strip? The sockets are well-spaced and oriented away from each other.

Figure 3. This is an older power strip (and it's been under my desk for a long time, hence the dust and cat hair), but the sockets are oriented away from each other and spaced well apart.

Figure 3. This is an older power strip (and it’s been under my desk for a long time, hence the dust and cat hair), but the sockets are oriented away from each other and spaced well apart.

Figure 4. This strip is a mess! It powers the HDTV and a host of gizmos.  Belkin makes good stuff.

Figure 4. This strip is a mess! It powers the HDTV and a host of gizmos. Belkin makes good stuff.

If you go power strip shopping, you’ll find a host of features designed to befuddle you: timers, surge suppression, switched/unswitched, and so on. The variety is nice, but sheesh. What you really want are wide-spaced sockets and different orientations on the plugs. I mean, why pay for a 6-socket power strip when you can use only four of the sockets?

In the end, I didn’t bother replacing the old, broken power strip. I have a few spares hanging in the boneyard, so I used one of them. It was a six-plug, inline power strip. I need to power four items, two of which are the bulky power connectors, so I’m losing two slots. It’s a wash.

2 Comments

  1. “you’ll find a host of features designed to befuddle you: timers, surge suppression, switched/unswitched”, all of which are questionable. The surge supression tends to be a Diac biased forward so it will work, just not a quick as it could if more components and a better layout was used, switches which are low quality and will break after six weeks leaving the terminal on or off permantly. In the UK we don’t get the timer option but I’m guessing it’s not that great. I always use a straight 4 gang with a fuse (it can be lowered from the 13 Amp to 5 Amp). The thing is try not to waste money on extras the power suppression is generally a joke!

    Comment by glennp — August 11, 2016 @ 3:32 pm

  2. You know, I don’t think of power strips in other countries. I assume that you have the same issue with the orienting the power bricks and getting everything to line up.

    And, yes, I’ve pulled apart other power strips and been disappointed in the “technology” used to add special features. Some of it is just silly.

    Comment by admin — August 11, 2016 @ 6:17 pm

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