SPT/self made extension cords, verses store bought

[JBullard]

Guess I was too late

Ok, I could order (200) of the male, but not the female, no add to cart showing. Strange

[Randy]

Be careful with that Home Depot link, even when they get them back in stock. It looks like 100 pcs for $36, but they count the plug and the slide cover as two separate pieces.

So it is really just 50 sets, which works out to 72 cents per set (not a great price).....

Thanks, Randy

[rgardner518]

Randy wrote:

Be careful with that Home Depot link, even when they get them back in stock. It looks like 100 pcs for $36, but they count the plug and the slide cover as two separate pieces.

So it is really just 50 sets, which works out to 72 cents per set (not a great price).....

Thanks, Randy

I'm sorry but you read that wrong. It says 50 plugs and caps per ploy bag, and the second line says 2 poly bags per case, 100. Just helping you understand your error!

[chartrand]

I use Both home made and store purchased.
1. I use a heavy cord with ground to feed power to all my controllers.
2. I use store purchased cords for anything that touches my home, so all the lights on the roof for example.
3. For everything else Mega tree, arches, mini trees etc out in the yard all use SPT1 or SPT2 home made cords.

-Pat

[Randy9040]

I ordered a hundred females. the box came in and there were two smaller boxes inside. I opened one box and there were two poly bags inside. One bag had the plugs (50) and the other had the caps (50). I then opened the second box and found the same thing. So, I said to myself " 50 + 50 =100, I'm satisfied". So the price was for a hundred. Sorry that they're out of stock.

[Dan Lott]

I looked at the male plugs cause that is what i need and i noticed that they are for spt 1 I have spt 2 wire will they fit on spt2 . Last time i ordered plugs i had to choose from spt1 plugs and spt2 plugs. Would like to know if they will work. I have been using spt 2 anyone using spt1.

[JBullard]

Usually the "teeth" on the SPT2 plugs are longer to get through the thicker insulation of the SPT2 wire. These plugs are made for SPT1 wire, which has a thinner insulation. They may or may not work for SPT2 wire.

I use SPT1 wire for all my cords.

[-klb-]

I use 98% SPT2, but have SPT1 parts for some limited uses. Generally a SPT1 cord end on SPT2 will either not work, or drive you totally nuts closing them, and hoping they don't blow apart on you. Even though there is the same amount of copper in both, there is about twice as much insulation thickness on the SPT2, so the cavity on SPT1 ends is not nearly big enough for SPT2.

[JeffF]

Just a heads up that the female connectors from Home Depot mentioned here have been in and out of stock today. I bought 100. Then I went back to buy 100 more and they were OOS. Then I went back and they were in stock. Now they are back OOS.

For $38 for 100 I'll put up with a little hassle.

[rgardner518]

Jeffrey wrote:

Just a heads up that the female connectors from Home Depot mentioned here have been in and out of stock today. I bought 100. Then I went back to buy 100 more and they were OOS. Then I went back and they were in stock. Now they are back OOS.

For $38 for 100 I'll put up with a little hassle.

I bought 1 set of 100, than canceled it. That would explain why they were out of stock after you bought it. Than when I canceled it, today, than it was back in stock. than someone else must have bought the last one making it out of stock.

But I have one question for everyone on this forum. I'm a newbie, with this being my first year. But my question is, Why is everyone buying Females? I thought males is what everyone would want? They have never gone out of stock yet, so that would tell me No. But Why? I bought 200 of the males, Maybe I should buy some females? :?

[JBullard]

I use more females then males, but only by a small margin. I modify them to become inline sockets and quite often will have 2 or 3 (sometimes more) on a cord.

Otherwise each spt cord will use one female and one male.

Just how I use them.

[rgardner518]

JBullard wrote:

I use more females then males, but only by a small margin. I modify them to become inline sockets and quite often will have 2 or 3 (sometimes more) on a cord.

Otherwise each spt cord will use one female and one male.

Just how I use them.

Wouldn't you want every light possible on its own channel? If you want several to come on at once you can make it happen. Otherwise they can go end to end and in turn not need the outlet strip that your making.

[Dan Lott]

not know what jbullard does but i have many of the stp wires with female outlets on them. I use them for 24 chasing trees that i have on eaither side of my display. Away to save money i hook them togeather on the 100' power strips i made and hook tree number 1 to tree number 24 so both sides mirror each other in reverse. Dont think you can really tell but an easy way for me to save alot of channels in the long run.

[JBullard]

ny_yankee_25 wrote:

Wouldn't you want every light possible on its own channel? If you want several to come on at once you can make it happen. Otherwise they can go end to end and in turn not need the outlet strip that your making.

I realize this is your first year and your sig says 32 channels 500 lights.

My answer to your question is yes I do want every light possible(over 600 strings and 35,000 plus lights) on it own channel, except :

with inflatables, for example, I want the blowers of several to come on at one time, but only use one channel. Therefore I can run one spt wire with inline females 20 or 30 feet, connecting the blowers of 3 or 4 inflatables until I get close to the max amp capacity of the wire or channel. The lights for the inflatables are on their own channels.

or,

my three front porch columns are wrapped in four colors of LEDs. I want the columns to do exactly the same thing. Instead of using 12 channels, I only use 4, and only have four wires to run.

I have 320 channels (20 controllers), that I like to maximize. But, in the porch columns for example, why waste 8 channels, or run 12 wires when 4 will do.

Today I was starting to set up my snowflake forest. Controlling 49 snowflakes but using only 5 channels. Because of the repeating patterns, no need to use 49 channels, just have 5 cords with inline females to connect to the appropriate snowflake on that channel.

Just 3 examples of why I use more female sockets then male plugs. If I didn't, would have to have almost double the number of controllers to do the same thing, and a whole lot more channels to sequence (I have enough as it is)

[rgardner518]

JBullard wrote:

ny_yankee_25 wrote:

Wouldn't you want every light possible on its own channel? If you want several to come on at once you can make it happen. Otherwise they can go end to end and in turn not need the outlet strip that your making.

I realize this is your first year and your sig says 32 channels 500 lights.

My answer to your question is yes I do want every light possible(over 600 strings and 35,000 plus lights) on it own channel, except :

with inflatables, for example, I want the blowers of several to come on at one time, but only use one channel. Therefore I can run one spt wire with inline females 20 or 30 feet, connecting the blowers of 3 or 4 inflatables until I get close to the max amp capacity of the wire or channel. The lights for the inflatables are on their own channels.

or,

my three front porch columns are wrapped in four colors of LEDs. I want the columns to do exactly the same thing. Instead of using 12 channels, I only use 4, and only have four wires to run.

I have 320 channels (20 controllers), that I like to maximize. But, in the porch columns for example, why waste 8 channels, or run 12 wires when 4 will do.

Today I was starting to set up my snowflake forest. Controlling 49 snowflakes but using only 5 channels. Because of the repeating patterns, no need to use 49 channels, just have 5 cords with inline females to connect to the appropriate snowflake on that channel.

Just 3 examples of why I use more female sockets then male plugs. If I didn't, would have to have almost double the number of controllers to do the same thing, and a whole lot more channels to sequence (I have enough as it is)

Thanks for the tip advise.

[JeffF]

I have elements that also share channels so I sometimes just use one male and up to four females on my cords.

This is the first year I'm making "custom" cords and I'm loving it. Sooo much easier than using 6' or 9' cords end-to-end-to-end-to-end.

[Steven]

ny_yankee_25 wrote:

But my question is, Why is everyone buying Females?

I have a harness made out of 2 lengths of SPT-1 wire I use to connect 3 channels on a controller to a RGB set of lights (separate red, green, and blue strings). The harness connects to the controller with a 4-pin Molex plug. It has 3 female SPT-1 sockets on the other end with notches cut out so the common neutral can pass from one to the next.

Thus, I used 3 female sockets and no male plugs for this example.

I wired an arch using SPT-1 wire, again with female sockets cut with a notch so the common neutral passes to the next segment. All 9 wires go to a 9-pin Molex, then connects to one side of a 16-channel controller.

Thus, I used 8 female sockets and no male plugs for this example.

Another use for female sockets is to make the pigtail leads from the controller instead of the bulky black cables. Then I plug the decoration directly into this pigtail.

Thus, I used 1 female socket and no male plugs (per channel) for this example.

[Theresa Severson]

Can you tell me where you found your SPT cord so cheap and your plug ends. The cheapest I have been able to find so far has been $0.14/ft so that runs into $14.00 (and doesn't include the plug ends) for 100ft... way more expensive than the 100ft cables I currently get from Menards. When I google it, it is taking forever to search through all the sites.

Thanks...

[iresq]

I bought 1000 spt1 from Christmaslightshow.com. They currently have the best deal that I could find, $85 +12(shipping). They also have a good price on plugs. They currently only have the male plugs in stock.

For female plugs, you can try noveltylights.com. They don't penalize you as some other vendors do for having a small order.

As for overall price, you are missing the bigger picture on DIY cords. It's not about the money. It's about having custom length cable that is way easier to store. I could not even imagine what my yard would look like if I used 14/16 gauge commercial cords.

If you wanted to do it on the cheap (this is how I started), buy bulk cord and 6' extension cords for $1. Cut the 6' in half and add to the bulk cord. However, what you save in money will definitely be spent in time. Once you experience the joy of pulling bulk wire, cutting to length, clipping on the ends, you will never go back.