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I'm making some extension boxes using hospital grade 4-in-1 and/or duplex receptacles, and hosptital grade plugs. I may install some filtering, a la Jon Risch's filtered A/C outlet box.
I'm wondering what to do about the cord/cable? I was thinking about using 12g wire, but I'm not sure which wire. Belden Beldfoil? Or, roll my own with something like discrete runs of 12g wire, a ground wire, a shield, some teflon tubing, and maybe something to dress it up, like a techflex cover. All this assembled in a fashion after JR's or Chris VH's designs.
Any thoughts? Just getting a hold of some BeldFoil cord would be an easy route. Any suggestions for a source for cord?
- SJ
Follow Ups:
Sadly, there's probably no ONE correct answer. It's both system and component dependent, IMHE, and I've tried several - all good!
The only seemingly consistent rule (and I'll bet there are those who take exception to this too) is to keep your analog and digital stuff as separate and posssible, and digital seems to benefit from floating shields, while analog might find the opposite. So for a general analog or mixed outlet box, use filtering that is not shielded.
I found for a similar box that Alan Maher's (audionutge) dual twist design does some nice noise rejection, can be made from cheaply available materials simply, and works well at 12 AWG. For other areas I'm leaning toward Ven Haus Flavor designs these days with his raw wire 12 AWG cabling.
Not to say that Belden or other cables or other designs won't work at least as well for you, and in fact, you're probably going to find that what works for one of your PCs might not be the best for another of your PCs in your system.
However, you can save yourself some expense on the "hospital grade" outlets. They're not necessarily better, are more expensive, and have lots of faults for audio just like other outlets. The exception, according to Al Sekela's experiments here, was the P&S MRI grade outlets, which eschew any ferrous metals and are tight grippers and beefy enough.
I'm finding that the Furu Cu outlets at about $40 cryoed (or $45 for the newest N1), work much better than anything you'll find off the shelf or at the electrical store and are worth the expense.
Good advice - experiment, try different things. I paid very little for the duplex and quad/4-in-1 receptacles. I got 'em on eBay. I paid about $2 each for the brand NIB hospital grade duplex outlets, and about $10 for the NIB quad receptacles. Both use unplated copper alloy wipers, and both have very few strongly magnetic, ferrous metal parts.
Not that I'm so well versed in the nuances of power components and audio, what I picked up isn't as "exotic" as the serious audio-designed products, but the price was reasonable and I thought I'd give 'em a try. They're all WAY better than the cheap contractor grade stuff I've got in the walls now. The plugs almost fall out of the receptacles all by themselves! ;) There's quite the death grip between the industrial/hopital grade straight blade plugs and recptacles.
I know where to find the Chris VH DIY power cord recipes. Anywhere I can find Alan Maher's?
As I'm making, at least for now, only the receptacle extension cord boxes, I suppose I can apply the same principles in wiring them/installing the cording in the same way you'd do with a power cord?
Thanks.
- SJ
Look it up here or in cables in the archives under audionutge@yahoo.com
Found it. Danged easy. Thanks.
- SJ
Actually, I don't find any of the standard PC recipes very hard to do. Sometimes the raw materials aren't readily at hand, but the construction is pretty simple.
Alan's dual twist does work well for me on my analog DIY power strip. I have not tested it in that position against any other designs, so cannot say it's the best.
He did have one other, a quad braid, that he recommended above the dual twist. When I tried the quad braid with the choice mil spec 10 AWG wire he recommended, I did not like the results. But at that time I had also switched the outlets to Hubbels, had switched the box to a PVC box from metal, and it could easily have been those factors that failed to impress me. I simply didn't bother to do a factor analysis, just switched back to what I liked.
I made mine with ordinary THHN 12 AWG, available at any hardware store, and hand twisted. You'll get a better twist with that stuff using a power drill, but it's not a night and day difference. I asked him what would work that was "off the shelf" for raw materials for that application and that was the design he recommended I try.
You probably ran across that thread and subsequent discussions.
Hey Steve--
I just made some power cords from Cryo Parts Cryomax III wire which is 12ga
and I used Furutech ends.
I previously had VH Audio power cords-all Flavors.
I have been very happy with them in my setup.
The wire is easy to work with.
Looks like Lee will have some of the Belden 19634 in pretty soon also.
FWIW....
Thanks for the response. I should make some power cords, too. I'm using Volex 14g stuff. It would be interesting to use better quality descrete pieces, like better plugs.
So, I can use this cord for both the extension boxes I'm thinking about and some gear power cords.
Cheers,
- SJ
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