DIY Extreme Power Bar

[Red Squirrel]

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.

 

[Format _C:]

Good Job! thanks for the idea
I also have a UPS system, and I have a rats nest of wires behind it with the cheap plastic power strips also (I used to have a cheap source of the better grade metal Power Strips but the store went OOB)
Do you have anymore images of you building it or the insides?

I should make one myself
Thanks again for the idea

 

[Red Squirrel]

I never took any pics while building it though I kinda wish I had now, but basically it's a 1x6 plank, with 1x4ish verticals screwed in (I actually used a circular saw to cut down the 2x6... I need a table saw lol) and the boxes are screwed to the bottom 2x6. I used a knockout tool to make side holes in the boxes for the wiring. The top is basically 1x2's to fill in around the wiring boxes and the plates cover the rest. The sides are also 2x6 pieces cut. The wires enter into a hole and then enter through the knockouts with appropriate clamps. To go to the other box I did a bit of [h]ackery but it should be ok. used a small piece of pex and passed the wires through.

I've thought of actually coming up with various "models" and plans, and sell these, but there's probably legal issues with that as it's not UL approved.

When I finish my server room I will do something similar for my rack. Basically two walls of plugs (one on each side) and there will be 6 power cords that will allow me to easily split up circuits. I want to go all black, but it seems black plugs don't come in boxes of 10, so it may be more expensive to do. Still cheaper than a bunch of PDUs though.