GoodBuyGuys Blog

You can file this device under “wish I’d thought of it first“. Monster Cable, the company known for its high end (and high priced) audio cable has released their “Outlets To Go Power Strip“, a stripped down, light weight version of the “found under every desk” AC power outlet strip. This device is designed for travelers who run out of outlets in their hotel room or airport boarding lounge, but don’t want to lug around a full sized outlet strip.

I came across this device while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Daily Giz Whiz from TWIT.TV. They review an interesting new tech gadget almost every day.

Monster has managed to use half the plastic and half the cable and sell the device for twice the price of the original. They tout their FlatProfile Plug and FlatWrap Cord (both trademarked names) as making this device the perfect tote-along for power hungry road warriors. That there is a need for this device is unquestioned. The $29.95 price (about 4 times what you’d pay for a standard 6 outlet strip at Wal Mart), is another matter entirely.

Monster has done an amazing job of using their branding strategy to convince people that a wire isn’t just a wire. There has been an ongoing debate for years in the audiophile community about whether Monster Cables, particulary their speaker cables, improves sound quality. Regardless of how you might feel about that argument, the Outlets To Go strategy has nothing to do with wire quality or audio signal flow improvement. It does, however, give them the power to charge almost $30.00 for their better mousetrap.

I usually agree with the opinions voice at The Daily Giz Whiz, but I’m afraid they are willing to pay too much for not enough.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other power distribution products..

When you have a domain like buyextensioncord.com and it includes a toll free telephone number, you get a lot of questions. Taking the time to research customer queries has been a great way to grow our business.

Today, we got a call from someone who needed extension cords to use in large walk-in freezers. The cables he was using were freezing and could no longer be coiled. It was easy to understand his problem, but not quite so easy to find the solution.

If you have ever taken the time to look closely at an extension cord, you’ll see that there is a lot of difficult-to-decipher information printed on or embossed into the cable. This information tells you what environments the cable is designed to be used in and the amount of current that it is safely rated to carry.

Putting this info directly on the cable is required if Underwriters Laboratory is going to give the item its blessing as something safe for consumers to use. Here’s a useful link to safety info from UL about extension cords and how they are rated.

In doing a little research for this customer I came across a very nice diagram of how extension cords are made and the characteristics that give each type of cable its unique rating. Here’s a link.

It turns out that the info our customer needed is included in a 3-5 digit code found on all extension cords. The code is assigned by the National Electrical Code and the data in question usually starts with the letter “S”.

If you want to know a little more, click here.

Anyway, it turns out our customer is going to need a cable with a jacket specification of SJEOW. The “O” in this code means that the cable has a thermoplastic jacket (flexible at low temperatures) and the “W” means that it is rated for outdoor use. Extension cords with this rating will remain flexible down to -45 degrees F.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful supplies for temporary power distribution.

You don’t usually think of car batteries as expendables, but it looks like that is changing. An interesting article in this weeks Wall Street Journal talks about how the demands of today’s electronic-laden cars are taking a real toll on their batteries. A car battery has traditionally lasted 3-5 years but the addition of power sapping devices like DVD players, GPS systems, heated cup holders and security systems has radically altered the life of these batteries.

The design of the auto battery is little changed in decades and what we ask these batteries to do was never imagined 10 years ago. It used to be that about the only thing that used power when the car was shut off was the clock. Now all sorts of items from the cooling fan to your cell phone charger continue to use power long after the car has been parked.

Experts in battery maintenance recommend that the battery be disconnected when the vehicle is parked for more than a couple of weeks. Better yet, use a device called a “trickle charger” to keep the battery charged up even when the car is not being used. These same experts warn that the biggest threats to battery life, extreme weather and harsh vibtration,can’t be avoided.

With the cost of a replacement battery sometimes exceeding $200.oo a little thought given to battery mainteance can go a long way.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful maintenance supplies

Daylight savings time starts this weekend. The clock is being set forward three weeks earlier this year and some confusion is probably in order.

One thing you don’t want to be confused about is the need to change your smoke detector battery. Using the time change as a reminder to change these batteries twice a year is a great idea, and the date change doesn’t diminish the need to attend to this important task. It takes just a minute and its easy to do.

Lots of new residential construction uses hard wired smoke detectors and some homeowners don’t realize that these detectors need battery changes too! The battery provides a backup in case there is a power failure. Quite often an electrical fire can lead to a quick shutdown of your electrical service, leaving the smoke detector without a fresh battery useless. Just because the LED indicator on the smoke detector is glowing doesn’t mean that the battery is good.

A battery that is no longer adequate for your smoke detector may still have enough power to use in other non-critical applications. Try it in some other device before throwing it away.

Goodbuyguys.com is a collection of web sites (including buytape.com, buybattery.com, buymicstand.com, buyextensioncord.com, buyaflashlight.com and buywireties.com) designed to deliver a great selection of hard to find products.

I often joke that I have coiled enough cable to get to the moon and back. Turns out that I was exaggerating just a little. It appears that it would take about 30 million 50 foot mic cables just to get there. In case you were wondering, its about 284,000 miles to the moon.

Why this sudden interest in proving myself wrong? We’ll, I just came across a device that might have kept me from retiring from the sound business. It’s the Kaltman Cable Coiler. If this thing really works, it would be pretty cool. It is a battery powered device that is designed to coil a 50 foot microphone cable in under 10 seconds. All without kinking or binding.

My first question is how does this device deal with the natural twist in a cable that comes from how the conductors inside the cable jacket are twisted. Both the conductors and the shield have a twist in them and this is why using the under and over style of cable coiling is so important for cable life. The natural twist in the cable is the reason that a good cable can be ruined so quickly if you wrap the coil around your arm instead of using proper coiling techniques.

It also appears from the short video at their site that it is necessary to have all your cables laid out in a manner where they are completely untangled in order to use the coiler properly. This could take a lot of stage space in a venue where you might have 30 or 4o mic cables, all mixed in with extension cords, speaker cables, video cable, etc.

Still, the idea of having a machine do all your cable coiling is intriguing. We are going to contact Kaltman in hopes of getting one to evaluate. I’ll let you know what we find out.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, and lots of other great products for the entertainment industry.

Well, New Year’s Day has come and gone, so its time to pack away the decorations for another year. Its always really tempting to just stuff them in plastic bags and pitch them into the garage, but I’ve come to realize that I will really regret that next December.

We’ve got some great products to help organize this stuff and it helps assure that next year won’t start out with having to unwind a tangled mess.

We’ve to Velcro One Wrap Straps on all our extension cords and by using these and taking a few extra minutes to coil them all up carefully, they are ready to use next holiday season. I use different colors for coding different lengths.

Nothing tangles worse than strings of mini lights (we use about 100 strands) so I secure these with nylon wire ties. A bag of 500 costs only $15.99 and that’s enough for several seasons.

Items like wreaths and garland are tied up with tie line and its great for bundling together items with lots of different parts. It has a soft texture, so it won’t damage or mar the surfaces of what you bundle with it.

Finally, when all the ornaments are stuffed into plastic bins, quick labeling with paper label tape and a Sharpie Marker means that I can quickly find what I need next year.

By the way, don’t forget to remove the batteries from any battery powered decorations. Duracell Procell batteries have a long shelf life and a good manufacturers warranty, but that warranty might not cover corrosion damage if there is a problem.

Time to get back to work.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I was finishing up my Christmas decorating last night and got to the end of my supply of extension cords before I finished the job. I had to dig deep into the cable archives and came across some power cable I had put together for a nightclub installation we had done 30 YEARS AGO!

Someone (probably not me) had taken the time and care to properly “under and over” coil these, tie them up with tie line and store them in a dark road case. I couldn’t believe what great shape they were in. I put them to use right away and didn’t burn the house down-at least not yet!

I thnk the two secrets to the longevity of these cables was that they were stored where no sun light would shine on them, thus no uv radiation to break down the jacket, and, more importantly, they were properly coiled. Any stranded wire (these were fine strands of copper) has a natural twist that needs to be respected when the cables are coiled. Coiling or wrapping them against this twist (e.g. wrapping them around your arm and hand) will quickly lead to permanent kinks and eventually cause enough of the individual strands to break down. Conductivity is reduced, heat is generated and, eventually the cable can get hot enough to melt the jacket.

Next time you have a new extension cord, take the time to coil it properly with an under/over looping method and it will last a long, long time.

Need other supplies for Christmas decorating? Goodbuyguys.com has extension cords, wire ties, Velcro cable wraps and batteries. Happy Holidays!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.