100ft. extension cord runs

[Guest guest]

I am not an electrician but have read about "power drops" when you have long extension cords. Can I have a 100ft. extension cord run from my controller to the lights without any problems? I'm sure someone on the board has had to deal with this before.

Thanks in advance.
Brian

[Guest guest]

I am not an electrician but there is some info on this site at

http://www.planetchristmas.com/WireSize.htm

This chart is very conservative and I think you can get away with a little more. If you buy an extension cord at any retail place, they should be labeled with how many amps it will support.

Personally I am using 4 100' 12ga extension cords to power my LOR boxes. 12ga cords are not cheap and will cost around $50 each or more at your hardware store.

[Guest guest]

On really long runs I use 12AWG UFB. I buy it in 250 ft rolls. Roll em up like extention cords and reuse it year after year some of my runs excede 250 ft.

Bill

[Guest guest]

So if I have a 100ft ext. cord (with the proper guage depending on the amps it's carrying), will I experience any type of power drop or dimness in the lights?

[Guest guest]

I have a couple of trees where I used stranded #12 wire and used a 100' water hose as the "conduit". I mouted and outlet box on the end of the run, and added a 25' cord to the end of that, with no noticible loss.

[Guest guest]

mcnamara9 wrote:

So if I have a 100ft ext. cord (with the proper guage depending on the amps it's carrying), will I experience any type of power drop or dimness in the lights?

If you use a 12ga 100' power cord, your LOR Boxes should be fine and you are not going to noticed any dimness in your lights.

[Guest guest]

Brian here is a handy calculator also http://www.stanselectric.com/page3.html

[Guest guest]

I have used 100 + foot extension cords from my controllers to the lights many times. (Actually, I have a lot of them.) I have never noticed any "power drops", but I'm not pulling that many amps through them either. Even if you do have some "power drops" they might not even be that noticeable.

[Guest guest]

In the spring, check out HD/Lowe's.

They normally have a 100' 12g extension cord with a 3way splitter for around $35.

[Guest guest]

This is NOT a safety issue if you keep to the rated current and if your just running lights there is no danger of damaging anything with voltage drop either.

Rule of thumb for a house is no more than 50ft at the rated current.

100ft of #14 wire is about 1/2 ohm (2x100ft)so running 15 amps your voltage drop will be about 8 volts. Your area voltage may vary as much as this daily so I would say no worries on brightness that is noticable. Also, a standard extension cord is #16 wire and voltage drop at 100ft will be about 16 volts...probalby pushing it for noticability.
Here's a table with resistance per foot at each guage

http://www.stealth316.com/2-wire-resistance.htm

[Guest guest]

Thanks Everyone for the help. As always, PC users are the best.

[Guest guest]

For longer runs I am using romex 12/2 and have no problem. The interesting thing is that you can have runs in your home up to 200 feet of 12/2 and still be up to code so making cords of this length with 12/2 should be no problem.

[Guest guest]

200 ft of #12 (*2 for the return) @ 20 amps is about a 13 volt drop. Maybe pushing it for a fridge or other motorized device. No problem for a lighting, dont know about electronics??

Robin wrote:

For longer runs I am using romex 12/2 and have no problem. The interesting thing is that you can have runs in your home up to 200 feet of 12/2 and still be up to code so making cords of this length with 12/2 should be no problem.