Archive for December 7th, 2010

Switchable Extension Cord

We have an extension cord that is meant for Christmas lights. It’s a foot-pedal switch, intended to save you the hassle of crawling behind or underneath a Christmas tree to plug or unplug the lights. It looks pretty close to this:

picture of green foot-pedal switch for Christmas lights

This year, we put Christmas lights around the railings of Beta’s bunk bed. It was a pain turning them on and off, however, because the best plug was behind Alpha’s dresser. I figured we could go buy another switchable extension cord and make life easier. But once we found out it was $7.49, we decided otherwise.

Then I went to a hardware-type store on the way home from work one day. I found this

picture of plain white 6-foot extension cord

and this

picture of small inline switch for extension cords

for a total of this

picture of receipt for extension cord and switch

which is a savings of 33% off the pre-made switch. For $4.96, you too can make your own light switch extension cord. There was another switch that was almost a dollar cheaper, but it was the rotary kind that comes with lamps and is not as easy for little fingers to work. And for less than a dollar (that’s $3 less than the switch I used), you can just use a normal light switch. But then you really should have an enclosure (non-conducting and fire-resistant) and I didn’t want to get into that.

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