An interesting thing happened the other day. My wife was cleaning mold off
of a few of our 2 by 2 ft concrete patio stones with the pressure washer.
It was no different then any other time but she was using a 100" extension
this time. The washer would run for a minute or two or three then switch
itself off, after waiting a bit it would do the same again, and again.

I thought that it was simply shutting down as part of it's duty cycle but
my wife (chief user) insisted that it had never done it before. After a
little reading in the brochure I discovered that long extensions were not
recommend as they were known to cause the motor to overheat.

Shortened the extension and it never did it again. Go figure!

Too_Many_Tools wrote:

In about a month, I will be replacing a significant number of power
cords on a variety of metal and wood working machines.

So how long of a cord should a person replace them with?

It's a harder question to answer than at first glance. It's like asking
"How high should I build my workbench?"..it depends.

Of course one should replace the cord so the new one reaches the outlet
but how much extra cord should one allow?

Over the years, machines have come with a variety of lengths in
relation to their power cords so just replacing it with what it had may
not be a good approach. When copper was expensive, the cords got
shorter to save costs. And over the years, cords are replaced because
of damage or old age.

As a matter of good practice I will be installing wire adequate for the
currents needed, using grounded plugs, appropiate insulation types but
the simple question of "How Long?" is one I would like to have your
opinion on.

Thanks in advance for suggestions.

TMT