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SPT Vampire Plugs


Aaron Maue

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Stupid question alert:

Been looking at some old group buy posts, trying to figure out how many female and male vampire plugs I want to buy for this year.

I'm confused at they typically higher (sometimes significantly) count for female plugs than male plugs.

In fear that I'm not thinking of something, can someone tell me why most buyers typically buy more female plugs than male ones?

Thanks.

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One thought based on my design from last year...I created wiring harnesses for groups of mini-trees, so one harness had anywhere from 6-12 females (3 per tree), and at most, would have had one male, but I skipped the dongles and wired to ther terminal strip, so the only makes I used were for custom extension cords.

Just order gobs of both, and you'll be fine...;)

Also, do think about whether you'll be putting the females always at the end of a cord you create, or like me, many in-line, and some end-of-line. I splurged and went with in-line female plugs, and saved a ton of time compared to modifying the end of line females I had.

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DonFL wrote:

One thought based on my design from last year...I created wiring harnesses for groups of mini-trees, so one harness had anywhere from 6-12 females (3 per tree), and at most, would have had one male, but I skipped the dongles and wired to ther terminal strip, so the only makes I used were for custom extension cords.


So, how'd you connect the would-be male end of the harnesses? Did you solder the multiple leads together and then connect to a single male plug? Trying my best to understand the tricks of the trade here before I frustrate the crap out of myself in the fall when I do my set-up.

Thanks,

Aaron
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Even if you didn't make such harnesses, you could still have multiple female outlets attached to a single wire (that has a single male on the end). One of the females is on the end, and some of the others would be mid-line. Some cut out the one sidewall of the female end so the wire passes through (so female vampire plug ends up attaching on the wire just like the c9 sockets do, with the wire passing though).

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This forum is really helpfull, had planned on putting some candy canes and arches on the same channels .I was just giong to buy splitters,but never thought of running females inline to split the cord also cool tip:P

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Aaron Maue wrote:

DonFL wrote:
One thought based on my design from last year...I created wiring harnesses for groups of mini-trees, so one harness had anywhere from 6-12 females (3 per tree), and at most, would have had one male, but I skipped the dongles and wired to ther terminal strip, so the only makes I used were for custom extension cords.


So, how'd you connect the would-be male end of the harnesses? Did you solder the multiple leads together and then connect to a single male plug? Trying my best to understand the tricks of the trade here before I frustrate the crap out of myself in the fall when I do my set-up.

Thanks,

Aaron


I use the CTB-16D series of controller, so it has terminal strips for channel connections. Instead of using a dongle, and then putting a male end on the harness, I just connected directly to the terminal strip with what would be the male end of the harness I created. That part is purely personal preference.

As far as how I created them, for each tree, I used one wire for a neutral return, then a wire for each hot wire (i.e., each channel), and attached the female in-line accordingly between common neutral and individual hot line. So if you did one tree (mine were 3 colors) by itself, you'd have 4 wires...one neutral, one for each color/channel. Your other option would be a separate neutral for each color, so you'd have 3 runs of SPT, essentially 3 separate extension cords you would create. As the mini-trees add up, so does the wire savings.

If you plan it properly, you can be pretty efficient and save some wire. You also need to be cognizant of your neutral return and current draw. I broke mine up according to location across my yard, and a reasonable current estimate, as not all colors are lit all the time.

Surfing4Dough's comment is definitely true...when you think about it, you should always have no better than a 1:1 ratio of female to male ends, just a matter of how much your design skews you towards the additional female ends.

Hope that helps..
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DonFL wrote:

Also, do think about whether you'll be putting the females always at the end of a cord you create, or like me, many in-line, and some end-of-line. I splurged and went with in-line female plugs, and saved a ton of time compared to modifying the end of line females I had.

If you shop carefully for female plugs, you can find "convertible" plugs. I got lucky with a purchase and the female plugs had a plastic piece you could snap out with a needly nose plier to make it an inline plug.
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jim6918 wrote:

DonFL wrote:
Also, do think about whether you'll be putting the females always at the end of a cord you create, or like me, many in-line, and some end-of-line. I splurged and went with in-line female plugs, and saved a ton of time compared to modifying the end of line females I had.

If you shop carefully for female plugs, you can find "convertible" plugs.  I got lucky with a purchase and the female plugs had a plastic piece you could snap out with a needly nose plier to make it an inline plug. 


Where did you get the "convertible" plugs from?
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mryan23 wrote:

jim6918 wrote:
DonFL wrote:
Also, do think about whether you'll be putting the females always at the end of a cord you create, or like me, many in-line, and some end-of-line. I splurged and went with in-line female plugs, and saved a ton of time compared to modifying the end of line females I had.

If you shop carefully for female plugs, you can find "convertible" plugs. I got lucky with a purchase and the female plugs had a plastic piece you could snap out with a needly nose plier to make it an inline plug.


Where did you get the "convertible" plugs from?


I knew somebody would ask that question so I looked back for purchases. I am about 95% sure they came from Noveltylights.com. They were the only place I bought vampire plugs from last year that i could find. Give them a call, they are very nice peole to deal with. I would bet that they would be willing to pull some from stock and take a look at them to check.

EDIT: Going back further I bought some from 1000buls.com the year before. Not sure which company, bit I am sure they would be willing to check for you.
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