I am sorry I did not take pictures of how I made the extension cord for this. While you can simply use a bunch of extension cords, making your own is much easier to work with, and not so unsightly.



First, two things. First I have made a few changes because of the education someone else took the time to help me with. The hot and neutral do matter. You don't want to be constantly sending elections down the wire unless you want to do something with them. Sure they will do nothing as long as there is no where to go, but just one little knick and you will have trouble. The common should be neutral for a reason. I think I have made all of theses changes, but if you find an area that does not agree with the rest sorry... I may have missed one.

Second... use your brain. Just because someone did it one way... just because you can do something one way... does not mean you should. Using things differently than they were designed should always be cause for concern. Fuses, gauge size, insulation, GFCI outlets, and just good ole common sense all should come into play when doing anything like this, especially when working with 110v AC.



What you need:

7 strand sprinkler cable

6 male and 6 female plugs

two stranded wire (lamp cord)

black electrical tape... quite a bit of it.



I used 7 circuit sprinkler cable. It has 7 solid copper strands, each with their own color. You can see most of the colors where I have the male plug ends. The neutral is not seen in this version. I made two of them, and I liked the way I did this one better.



Strip about 1-2 feet of the outer black sheath exposing the 7 wires. Pick which color you want to be neutral, I chose white.



Strip most of the insulation off the white (or whatever color you want to be neutral). Leave about 1" near the base so you can make sure the insulation is totally covered.



Take 3 strands of the two stranded wire about the same length as your stripped wire (about 1-1.5 feet). Split these two wires from each other so you have 6 wires. Strip 1/2" from one end, and 1-2" from the other.



Twist all 6 of these around the base of the stripped (white) wire (this is where you will appreciate the 1-2 inches you stripped from the wire!!). Then take long bare copper wire and wrap it around the bundle of wire you now have. This will not only ensure you have a bullet proof connection, and will more importantly make sure you don't have one wire come loose from the rest. You then coat this with a generous covering of electrical tape.



You will then put the male plugs together using one wire from the sprinkler cable, and one from the neutral wire you have all ganged together with the white wire.



Now you decide how far down the line you want each connector. As I wanted my line to be fairly generic I spaced them all evenly apart.. about 18 foot (really 3 fully stretched arms, and the last two just split half way to the end, and then the end).



Very carefully split the black outer sheath only. You don't want to nick the insulation of any of the inner wires. You then pick which line you want to use first. I usually try and follow rainbow orders of colors, so I always know which one is next (Roy G Biv anyone?) So my first female plug was red, then yellow, green, blue, brown, and finally black. Make sure you label each female plug as you will not know what color they are once you are done.



Once you have your hot wire (red for the first one) and neutral (white) isolated from the rest (they will always be at the bottom of the bundle, it is a rule of projects, one of Murphy's) you can take the insulation off. The hot (red) wire can be cut if you aren't going to be using it further down the line, but as I may want to put a line somewhere else down the line I kept all the lines intact. Make sure you keep the white (neutral) line intact, or if you cut it reconnect the ends together. You will for sure need it to be intact all the way to the end.



Use the two stranded wire to attach to the wires you have now exposed. A generous amount of electrical tape will keep everything in place, and hopefully watertight. I made the tail from the female plug about 1.5 feet long, but you can make it as long as you like.



Continue connecting each hot (colored) strand until all of the colors are used it. In my wire it was 6, as I had a 7 strand wire. There are also 5 strand wires.



I am still not sure if I should make the white (common) wire as the hot or the neutral, but as long as you are consistent it should be fine. I am sure there is some EE groaning right now... so please educate me.

*********************** Someone did educate me!!! (Thank you very much). The HOT is the one what should be switched. This way you only have electrons being pushed down the line when the lights should be one. Otherwise electrons are always trying to be pushed down the line. Sure, it will work either way, but it is a fairly big safety thing).



I am also trying to decide if the electrical tape is good enough to be left outside. I have several layers, all wrapped very tight, but it still makes me a little nervous.