On 9/4/2015 8:30 PM, Robert Green wrote:
"Don Y" wrote in message

[outlet strips]

The advantage of modifying something COTS is not having to do any
fabrication work!

Definitely.

OTOH, if you can't *buy* what you want/need, then the make/buy decision
is easy!

I've found if you can't find what you need, you haven't looked hard enough.
Look at how many NEMA/IEC connectors people discovered. You can essentially
pay a little over a buck each or six dollars each if you don't look hard
enough.

That's not been the case with the switched outlet strip! The link I
posted up-thread was the *best* I could find -- and it was way too
short, too few outlets and too expensive.

If I need to cut a brick/wall wart apart, I use a heated Xacto knife and
a bit of patience. But, usually, I can find a replacement device with
the same output ratings and just replace the defective unit.

I still have wall-warts from the sale the Lafayette Electronics when closing
out their stores. All wall-warts were 50 cents each. The molded connectors
on them were worth more.

Lafayette. Ha, blast from the past.

Nowadays, most of the wall warts/bricks I use are pretty big. E.g.,
50 - 200W.

I learned a long time ago to horde cables as you *always* need one
for SOMETHING! And, they're expensive! Cheaper and more convenient
to just find a place to store them (they don't get upset with the
high temperatures in the garage!) than to have to run out and *buy*
one (or borrow one from some other piece of equipment!)

Yes, long ago I realized my time was too valuable to be jack-assing over a
six dollar cable. I may have overdone it because I used to buy from
Computergate whose volume pricing made buying lots of extras relatively
cheap.

Friends, neighbors, colleagues usually bring me bits of kit to see if
they are repairable. Often, they use me as an "excuse" to dump something
so they can buy something newer. Hence the many laptops that I have, etc.

We have a few places here that have weekly or monthly auctions. You
can usually find offbeat items for a song. E.g., a cubic yard (!!) of
power cords for $7. I have floor-to-ceiling industrial metal shelving
on both sides of the garage. The *lot* cost me $37.50 -- and three
trips with the car to get it all home!

When I retired the desktops I realized how deep in spares I was. But in the
days before same day shipping at Amazon, you could lose some serious time on
a project waiting for a cable to shift.

Tonight I have to order a bunch of new 15' USB cables. They seem to fail
prematurely and worse, this last run had an outer casing that was too long
and prevented complete insertion. Devices would power up but complain they
were not connected because the power "fingers" reached but the data
conductors did not. I chased that bad cable for a while because the thumb
drive LED lit up, but Windoze would not see the drive. I rebooted,
re-everything'ed and finally moved the cable elsewhere and discovered the
issue.

I only use a single "long" USB cable -- to connect one of the scanners
to one of my workstations (there's not enough space on the desktop to
move the scanner closer to the workstation).

I am going to introduce the bad cable to a sheet of sandpaper to see if I
can't make it connect more firmly. USB connectors tend to fall out from
vibration - I don't find them a particularly good design. But I was
impressed how they could retrofit more lines in a compatible 4 wire
connector for USB3.