Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Power cords strike a chord!

I have UPSs (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) on two of my home computers to protect them from power brownouts and spikes and to allow me to save my data and shut them down in a blackout. I got them because our local power grid was unreliable when we first moved and the summer peak demands have caused brownouts.

One of the big problems I have is managing all the power cords for the computer and monitor, and in particular the power bricks or large plugs for the DSL modem, router and other devices in the limited number of sockets on the back of the UPS.

I found some solutions to this problem at TigerDirect.

Ultra and Cables-to-Go make foot-long extension cords, as well as splitter cords that allow you to plug in 2 devices (think of a Y) or 4 devices to one cord. They work better than multi-taps (you know the devices that allow you to plug 3 or 6 cords into a block) because the ends of the cord separates to allow you to plug in those large bricks. They range in price from about $3 to $13 so are relatively inexpensive for the high quality of the cord and the benefit

I originally used a couple of the foot-long cords shown below and built a wood rack around my UPS that holds the bricks all in a line


Ultra and Cables to Go make a 1 to 2 cord splitter or Y splitter also shown below. As you can see they are fairly similar.





However, I recently decided to switch to the 1 to 4 cord splitter shown below for one of the UPSs. This should really eliminate the cable clutter at the back of my UPS!


Clicking on any of the images will take you to corresponding page at TigerDirect!