Proposal Type:
Micro
Proposer:
Peter Roberts - Woody
Description:
Some of the cords in woodwork are too short and there aren’t extension leads that work.
I want to buy high visibility flex cable so we can replace some of the cords that are too short. If we’re doing that it seems best to choose something easy to see.
Doing this may take a while so I also propose buying a 1 gang extension lead.
Proposed Purchase:
Pitacs 3 Core Flex Orange Cable (3183Y) 1.5mm2 Drum | Toolstation £23.99
Masterplug 13A 1-Gang Unswitched Extension Lead 15m - Screwfix £20.49
Proposed Installation:
Cables would be replaced by Ben; extension lead would live on the peg board.
Budget:
£44.48
Funding type:
Fully funded by Hackspace
Health & Safety
No additional protocols
Supporters
Micro Proposal <£50 - 1 Board Member and 2 Members
Supporting Board Members:
- @Josephxtian
Supporting Members: (delete number as appropriate)
- @peterdroberts
- @Ben_Dooks
EDIT: Just proposing the extension lead for now and we can have a dedicated discussion elsewhere about the cable upgrades.
EDIT2: After discussion I’ve added an orange cable to this proposal
it’s got good reviews
On a more serious note, if we have tools that also use 110v/are thinking we might do that one day, should we use orange as 230v extension, and yellow only for 110v.
It’s one of those things where you might say ‘no one will ever mix these up’ but if someone accidentally cuts through a cable, then needs to replace a plug…
Toolstation sell orange if you wanted local.
1 Like
that’s fair enough.
Just checked and looks like this is better per metre than 25m.
I’m going to reduce the scope of this purchase proposal to just the extension lead and we can have a dedicated power discussion later in another thread because it may be worth us buying a really big reel if we’re standardising.
Updated this proposal again and added the orange drum
Apologies for being a little out of the loop on this; I’m not quite sure I’m understanding what the cable is for. Are we replacing the cables on the tools themselves?
If so, could I ask for some more detail on:
- Which tools?
- What length of cable are we adding to each?
- Are we able to do so without voiding any warranties (if it requires partially disassembling tools?)
I’m also a little nervous that having more longer cables might pose a higher risk of tripping. Does the separate idea of suspending power sockets from the ceiling solve this problem without introducing more risk, or would we still need to lengthen cables?
I’m not involved in wood operations very much, so quite happy for the answer to be that we do indeed need to lengthen the cables and that its not actually that risky, but would be great to have that spelled out to me 
Finally, with regards to cable colour, the standard for commando sockets seems to be blue for 230v, yellow for 110v. Would it make sense to be consistent with that existing standard and go with blue for our 230v cables?
1 Like
The first machine needing the cable changed is the planer/thicknesser. The issue here isn’t the cable being cut, but the cable being physically too short to easily plug it in anywhere in woodwork (I expect it was damaged and the plug reconnected).
Most of our 240V cables currently are black. I don’t see any point in changing the plug connectors for 240V cables currently. For cables likely to be cut, I’m proposing 110V tools; so the purpose of the orange is just visibility.
I don’t think any of the relevant tools are in warranty.
Due to the difficulty of attaching anything to the hackspace ceilings, I think the hanging plugs are a non-starter.
blue 240v connectors are 16A so I think blue may actually be misleading here if anything because we’ll be connecting to 13A outlets.
