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Does it really matter?

#21
juancaminos said:
I bought 50 foot and a 100 foot 12-3 chords and didn't charge anyone. In fact our Front Man bought his own 100 foot 12-3 as well. I don't get the charging everyone in the band mentality. Does he plan yo give you back your share if you leave?
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No, he's not charging anybody anything. He just wanted to know if anybody wanted to help with the $300 in expenses for for these cords. None of us in this band is doing it for the money. I was trying to help save him some money but keys player is going to go ahead and buy a couple with IEC connnectors. Fine by me, but I wasn't keen about chipping in on something unnecessary like that. I have a 50 foot 15 amp regular extension cord that is more than enough for my needs and can be used for lots of stuff besides music. But he has invested an awful lot in the PA that we are going to use and it's not unreasonable for us to share a little on that expense, since we are benefitting.

We haven't discussed it, but I am going to propose that he get an extra share of our proceeds, just because of all the expense that went into assembling the PA system. It's nice, versatile, and expandable system and he just bought a new mixer. We use it for practice and will be using it for gigs.
 
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#22
DrThumpenstein said:
No, he's not charging anybody anything. He just wanted to know if anybody wanted to help with the $300 in expenses for for these cords. None of us in this band is doing it for the money. I was trying to help save him some money but keys player is going to go ahead and buy a couple with IEC connnectors. Fine by me, but I wasn't keen about chipping in on something unnecessary like that. I have a 50 foot 15 amp regular extension cord that is more than enough for my needs and can be used for lots of stuff besides music. But he has invested an awful lot in the PA that we are going to use and it's not unreasonable for us to share a little on that expense, since we are benefitting.

We haven't discussed it, but I am going to propose that he get an extra share of our proceeds, just because of all the expense that went into assembling the PA system. It's nice, versatile, and expandable system and he just bought a new mixer. We use it for practice and will be using it for gigs.
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Cool. In my last band of 15 years I was also the PA and light guy as well as extensions cords and everything else. The deal we had was that I got up to $20 from the tip jar for each gig. If there was $10 then I only got $10. If there was $40 I got twenty then split the rest. Mainly for upkeep, cleaning and repair of said equipment. It was actually the bands' idea.
 
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#24
DrThumpenstein said:
No, he's not charging anybody anything. He just wanted to know if anybody wanted to help with the $300 in expenses for for these cords. None of us in this band is doing it for the money. I was trying to help save him some money but keys player is going to go ahead and buy a couple with IEC connnectors. Fine by me, but I wasn't keen about chipping in on something unnecessary like that. I have a 50 foot 15 amp regular extension cord that is more than enough for my needs and can be used for lots of stuff besides music. But he has invested an awful lot in the PA that we are going to use and it's not unreasonable for us to share a little on that expense, since we are benefitting.

We haven't discussed it, but I am going to propose that he get an extra share of our proceeds, just because of all the expense that went into assembling the PA system. It's nice, versatile, and expandable system and he just bought a new mixer. We use it for practice and will be using it for gigs.
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caveat emptor.
 
#25
I'm a 25yr IBEW electrician & your bandmate is wrong on his claim & just gonna waste $. And on commercial/industrial jobs voltage drop isn't a thing until your wire/cable runs exceed 100'. And the solution always used is to increase the wire size. Spend the $ on quality 14/3 or 12/3 extension cords, depending on length.
Or make your own from SOOW cable. That's the type of cable that is used for temporary power in all heavy industries, like coal & nuclear power plants & refinery's, during their maintenence outages.
 
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#27
Yeah, take your super clean and super expensive cable to bridge the gap between the outlet and the amp input.
It'll work magic.


... at least as long as you live in the alternate universe where all outlets are self contained units that draw the power directly from the force field of the planet.
In the real world, the power from the socket is already dirty because it's running through whatever hides in the drywall. Not all venues had their electrical wiring done by VOVOX back in the 70's when that wall was put there.
 
#28
mwbassace said:
Spend the $ on quality 14/3 or 12/3 extension cords, depending on length.
Or make your own from SOOW cable.
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I'm all on board with making cables, but...and I ask this in all seriousness...is there a liability issue with a non-licensed person manufacturing a power cable?

I'm reasonably sure there could be an OSHA issue. They really don't like to see unsafe extension cords on job sites.

And if one cooked their gear with a home-made power cable, I would think the warranty would be worthless.

But the first statement is spot-on. Spend the $$ on quality-made power cords.
 
#31
two fingers said:
Funny you should mention that. I used to be an industrial electrician. Back when my pro band had racks of power amps and lots of PAR cans, we had an electrical distribution box ("distro"). It had 6 ga wire with open ends. I had breakers for all of the common panels and was tasked with direct wiring us up to the nearest panel. (I also had the most common 3 and 4 wire range and dryer plugs I could use as well.)

I had to get pretty creative in a few situations to get us power. :D

And as a former electrician, and current medical equiprepair guy, I can safely say OPs PA owner is just being weird. You want electrical connection tolerances that CAN make a difference? Work on an EKG sometime. But 120V AC plugs for PA speakers..... nope.
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Me too! I was a staff electrician for a nuke power plant for about 20 years. 36 years in the plant total. The plant had not nearly enough power installed, so we had to be very creative about satisfying everyone's requirements for temporary power during maintenance and refueling outages. Some were very close tolerances. Voltage drop calculations, balance requirements, ripple and quality measurments were...I could do them in my sleep. PA connection and supply...nah.
 
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#32
For context: Sweetwater sells a Hose 50' Nema 5-15 to IEC chord for $93.20. The gauge is 14
Hosa PWC-450 IEC C13 Power Cable - 50 foot | Sweetwater

A 50" 12 gauge extension chord will run about $35.

AFAIK running bigger wire becomes increasing important as the distance increase. Smaller wire has more resistance and will drop more voltage. 12 gaige is bigger wire than 14 gauge.
 
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#33
bassicmike said:
You need to get artisanal extension cords with directional copper wiring. Make sure the electricity is running with the grain of the copper. Waaaaaay more picofarads that way. It's all about the tone, man.
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Also, once a year, he’ll need to take all his cords (electric and equipment) outside and spin them around in a circle over his head. This will centrifugally force all the dead electrons out of the cables for optimal tone and performance.

April 1st is a good day to do this :whistle:
 
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#35
Good grief. No powered speaker is going to draw more than 3-4 amps, despite saying "3600 WATTS" in its advertising.

A 6- or 10-foot 16ga or 14ga IEC cable is not going to show any appreciable efficiency loss at that level of current draw.

If you want to spend money chasing power efficiency, spend it on a good 50ft 10/3 600v SOOW extension cable, which can *possibly* make a make-or-break difference when you find yourself having to run a full band and sound system on one remote circuit.
 
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#36
DrThumpenstein said:
We are gearing up for our first gig as a band. The guys who owns the PA equipment and just purchased a couple of these 50 foot extensions (3-prong to IEC) for the powered subs and mains. We are all chipping in on new acquisitions for the gigs and we need a couple more.

View attachment 4714742

These cost about three times more than a regular extension cord of the same length and rated current. He maintains it will “dirty up“ the power if we plug the cables that came with the PA into extension cords. I think that if we use extension cords that are rated for enough current and plug the original IEC cords into an appropriate gauge extension cord, there should be no issue. What are the thoughts of those with experience in this world?
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I read your post and a red flag went off in my mind. Be very careful about "all chipping in on new acquisitions". That works fine right until somebody leaves. And then you are going to have to buy him out and you need to make it very clear before the acquisition how much said person will get back when he leaves. Otherwise you will really run into a mess. I've done that type of thing a few times.

One was when I was touring with a nightclub group for three years in the early 70's. We had a PA that our female singer had purchased. When we added a 5th member and stopped featuring our female vocalist's name and just using the groups name, a few things happened. One, she stopped getting 10% of the take plus a share, and we all chipped in about $150 each for our shares of the cost of the PA which she and her husband (our drummer and BL) had. We had a meeting about it and came to this conclusion because we then 4 lead singers and it really wasn't just featuring Vera anymore. When the band split up after 3-years our BL wanted to keep the PA and offered to buy us out. We quickly agreed on the price and he bought us out over the next two weeks. He was always a bit of a jokester and he paid me off with a poster board that had 120 $1 bills attached to it. Was pretty funny.

Another group I belonged to really needed a snake since our guitar player's brother had started running the sound for us. If I recall correctly it was a 12x4 100-ft. long snake and was about $250-$300. I chipped in $60. We also needed another monitor so a few gigs later we used gig money to buy the monitor. About 6 months later the group broke up, the singer took the snake and monitor home and nobody got paid anything for it. Left a bad taste in everyone's mouth and that was the last time any of us had anything to do with him.

So, I'd suggest before "everybody chips in for it", you all pull up a seat, have a cup of coffee, and discuss how to pay off someone who leaves and how you are going to determine the price you pay or get paid. With the group that did that, we had agreed to pay off according to shares of what the current used value would be when one person left or the group split up. It was congenial and no one ended up feeling taken advantage of, and there were no burned bridges.

Just a heads-up about that.
 
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#37
We will need 50 feet to be able to cover the gigs we have planned so far. My rule of thumb has always been to look at what the power needs might be and get a cable rated appropriately. The longer the run, the thicker wire/lower gauge the cable will need to be. As far as I know, as long as the connectors were manufactured correctly, there should be no significant loss against any of the typical plugs. I only get three prong, grounded power cables. My WD800 would only draw about 6 A max, and we never max it out. 1000 W PA should only be about 9 A if maxed out, and once again, that’s unlikely. I have a 15 amp 50 foot black cord and that should suffice for me (and someone else if they need to share it).

I haven’t checked to see if anyone has a multimeter, as my old RadioShack one shot craps a while back. That, of course, is money well spent, seeing as we are starting out appropriately in dive bars where you can see anything. My equipment is a lot different than it was 35 years ago, last time I played out!
 
#38
The only time I have been burned by any sort of inexpensive cabling, power included - was when I bought cheap snakes for my studio. The cables did not all have the same output so the stereo imaging was off. That's literally the only time in my life though with any cable that I have had an issue.
 
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