Belkin power strip

[bluedog225]

I picked this thing up at Restore. The on off switch lights up, but the plugs are dead. I opened it up and I’m a little disappointed in the quality.

The plugs are Chinese and backstabbed. The ground is soldered onto a punch out for the cord, but it doesn’t look like they made any effort to remove the paint. And the cord is 14 gauge not 12 gauge. Though they fattened up the insulation to make it look better.

I vaguely recall from my dad’s ham radio days that they used to make better stuff.

Anyway, I like the look of it and I want to put it back into service.

What am I looking at here? There’s a reset button and a small circuit board. I’m assuming that’s the surge suppressor. I can just take the thing out and direct wire it. Or is there a drop I can put in there? I don’t do a lot of electronics work.

I’m toying with the idea of just rebuilding the thing from the carcass and using a couple of those 20 amp plugs we got a deal on recently. And replacing the power cord with 12 gauge.

Thanks

 

[BillK]

First thing I would do is check the reset and the switch with an ohm meter. Make sure they are ok. The reset might be wired after the switch so just because the switch lights up does not mean the entire strip is getting power ? Without seeing the front side of the board its hard to tell what is on it. Might be something obvious. As far as changing the cord that is probably a waste of time and money. Unless you have a 20A outlet to plug it into it really wont make any difference. Same with the outlets. They are fine. What is chances that you are going to have something plugged in to it that will draw more than a couple of amps anyway ?

Flip the board over and post a picture of it. If the board is bad you could probably just bypass it if you are not concerned with the surge protection.

I have two very similar strips and they have been working just fine for 30 years or more.

 

[bluedog225]

@BillK

Good point. I’m working on it. I’m struggling to figure out how to take that board out. As far as I can tell, it’s held in place by the red toggle switch. Taking that out without breaking it is a little challenging. Will report back.

 

[bluedog225]

This quickly became more trouble than it was worth. The reset switch did have continuity The red switch was soldered into the board. And I just don’t have the patience this morning.

I made a half hearted attempt at unsoldering. Ended up removing the board manually. I’m still going to wire this up and put it back in service. Will need a new switch but those look pretty common.

Back to our regular programming.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

If you like the look of metal power strips and surge suppressors, get a Tripp lite Isobar.... they are owned by eaton now and are very good quality.

select filter options "strip", "120v", and "metal case". 39 options

Eaton Tripp Lite Surge Protectors | Eaton

We have surge protectors for all applications including Isobar, the best-selling surge protector of all time with over 20 million sold.

tripplite.eaton.com

 

[whateg01]

Aside from the paint not being removed, using the knockout from the cord entry for a ground location just seems very efficient. You can buy a circuit breaker assembly to replace the bad one.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/circuit-breakers/143?s=N4IgjCBcoLQExVAYygFwE4FcCmAaEA9lANogCsIAugL7X4KSkAqAFugZgOYsAELBAG2w8kAS3RJMo1DwBG6bAEMA1tnRV8ANkQhRAEyggYYAAwJ8AB1SGQ%2BVAE8L2Q4oDOKWkA