# DIY Extreme 16 outlet power bar



## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

I was growing tired of having like 3 power bars and never knowing which is UPS protected and which is not. (ex: would not want to plug a power hungry device into the UPS protected one)

So... I decided to build my own.



The bank on the left is surge protected only, and the bank on the right is UPS protected. There are two power cords that come out so one plugs into the battery side of the UPS and the other plugs into the surge side. The power cord is 12/2 and all the internal wiring is 14/2. The grounds are combined and both electrical boxes are grounded (metal boxes). Originally I was going to make it so the top plugs are UPS and the bottom ones are surge, but trying to wire that was hell, so I changed my mind. You can only fit so many wire nuts in even a 4 gang box. 

This is how my desk looked before:




And this is after:



Much much cleaner and robust. I can easily plug/unplug stuff from there without the flimsyness of having a rat's nest of power bars. It is nice and heavy. 

It is built from mostly 1x6 and 1x2 planks and sanded, primed and painted. I'm fairly new to wood working and there's some tools I don't have yet such as a table saw which would have made some of the cuts much better. A planer would also have been ideal as this wood was very cupped. It's screwed + glued. I think it turned out half decent. It did take me like a week to make, I'm sure with more practice I'll be able to whip stuff like this up faster. Then again I work full time so it was an hour here and there.


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## kwikfishron (Mar 11, 2010)

Looks good RS, I’ll take three.


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

I actually thought of building these and selling them, but there's probably legal issues with that. Not UL approved. Though from a safety point of view it should be fine, all the parts I used are UL approved and it's wired no different than if it was house wiring. 

Could do custom orders too, like have switches and other stuff on there, and different sizes. This one was totally improvised, I never even made a plan, just started cutting and screwing wood together.


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## vsheetz (Sep 28, 2008)

nice job :thumbsup:

I think you just put another project on my to-do list. :huh:


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

Looks good Squirrel.


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## Dinggus (Jul 22, 2010)

It looks nice! I thought the outter casing was plastic, lol.


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Haha yeah it kinda does look like plastic actually. 2 coats of primer and 1 coat of paint did the trick I think. I was going to just go with primer, but given it's not made to paint with, the coverage was not as good. So I slapped on a final coat of paint.

The writing is actually printed on regular paper and cut out then glued.

I see myself making more of these in the future. Might make one for my home entertainment system. I should probably put that stuff on a UPS too.


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## oh'mike (Sep 18, 2009)

kwikfishron said:


> Looks good RS, I’ll take three.


I need two---:whistling2:


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## jeremybrooks (Jan 5, 2012)

Good solution, and a nice build.


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## mgp roofing (Aug 15, 2011)

very nice. I could use 2!


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## cprice12 (Jan 3, 2011)

Wow...I was just thinking about doing something like this.
Nicely done.
The wife is a wedding & portrait photographer and she has a ton of batteries she charges the night before a wedding.
It seems like every free outlet in the house is charging batteries.
This would be perfect.

Probably didn't need to screw it and glue it. Maybe glue it and brad nail it?

I'm definitely going to look into doing something like this.

So your battery backup system controls the surge protection aspect of it?
And inside the box is just standard wiring?


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Yeah brad nails probably would have done the job too, but I don't have a nail gun. And yeah inside it's just standard wiring, the cord is extension cord grade wire to give it more flexibility, it goes into a 4 gang box, then converts to romex and goes to each plug. The second cord goes into the first 4 gang box but just comes out the other side and into the other box. So they're two interdependent circuits. 

For a charging application you could probably use single gang plugs and space them a few inches. Chargers tend to take up more physical space. You can get the boxes as well as the outlets in 10 packs which is cheaper, too.


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## RHuller (Feb 18, 2012)

So did you lay out the gang boxes and then just line the planks around them?


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

RHuller said:


> So did you lay out the gang boxes and then just line the planks around them?


More or less, yes, but the bang boxes are screwed into the planks as well.


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