Stripping Down for Tonopah
One of the things that we expect to need and want at Tonopah are power strips, and quite a few of them. Among other things, Lisa wants to have them on the tables in the hospitality area around which people will likely gather so that they can plug in their computers, phone chargers, and other powered devices. However, Lisa really does not want to spend money on yet more Made in China stuff. Searching for US-made power strips, she found products like this, but $250 is a bit more than she was willing to spend. Besides, she thought something more stylish would be good. So she set to to see how difficult it would be to build her own.
Here's the first one of the series, with Kuma Bear shown for scale.
Nearly all of the parts here are US made, and none of them are made in China. The power cable is from one of the US-made extension cords we bought on sale at Home Depot (probably Christmas leftovers). The extra-long heavy-gauge cords were on sale for less than the cost of buying lower-grade Chinese-made bulk wire! The box and outlets are domestic (also from Home Depot). The wooden base is made from pieces of wood left over from one of the many projects around our house (the wood itself was milled by Roseburg Lumber in Oregon, originally purchased by us from Lowe's in Fernley), and Lisa stained it herself using leftovers from the video shelf project. Special features include a 15A circuit breaker for safety. The two pairs of outlets are reversed from each other to make more room for side-facing power blocks.
This is a prototype. Lisa hopes to make more of them, so I expect we will have more trips to Home Depot in the future.
Here's the first one of the series, with Kuma Bear shown for scale.
Nearly all of the parts here are US made, and none of them are made in China. The power cable is from one of the US-made extension cords we bought on sale at Home Depot (probably Christmas leftovers). The extra-long heavy-gauge cords were on sale for less than the cost of buying lower-grade Chinese-made bulk wire! The box and outlets are domestic (also from Home Depot). The wooden base is made from pieces of wood left over from one of the many projects around our house (the wood itself was milled by Roseburg Lumber in Oregon, originally purchased by us from Lowe's in Fernley), and Lisa stained it herself using leftovers from the video shelf project. Special features include a 15A circuit breaker for safety. The two pairs of outlets are reversed from each other to make more room for side-facing power blocks.
This is a prototype. Lisa hopes to make more of them, so I expect we will have more trips to Home Depot in the future.