OT: Wireless electricity rant

[Smitty Two]

I wish that damn Tesla dude would have finished perfecting wireless electricity before he went insane. I'm moving shop again, my tiny little manufacturing operation. And once again, all the outlets are on the walls. So, I'm compelled to put the assembly workbenches along the walls, which means all the racks and cabinets of parts and supplies and tools have to sit out in the middle of the room, which annoys the Feng Shui gods something awful.

If electricity really can't come out the air, why don't people who design industrial buildings put some damn outlets in the floor or the ceiling? I'm seriously thinking that I'm going to put the shelving on the walls and run extension cords out to the benches, and let the workers trip over them, and break their necks. In court I'll claim that the outlets didn't come with permanently affixed warning stickers, and that OSHA neglected their lawful duty to make sure I don't do anything dangerous.

[aemeijers]

If the landlord is letting you change out the floor covering, I'm sure he would let you rig some power poles in the middle of the room. Add an extender box to a couple of outlets, and run raceway or conduit up the walls and across the ceiling, and a purpose-built pole like they use with dropped ceilings and that damn modular office furniture, or just L-bracket a 2x6 in place firmly, and screw one of those benchtop power strips from HF to it. Should be able to do the whole thing for a hundred bucks or so. Installed carefully, it would come out cleanly, and next tenant would never even know it was there.

[Smitty Two]

The landlord *is* pretty amenable to changes. He even knocked a hole in a wall and put in a double door for me, on his nickel. (I did decide to pass on new flooring, at least for now, after getting a couple of spendy quotes and the idiotic suggestion to put self-stick tiles on top of the carpeting.)

I like the power pole or even ceiling outlet idea, but agree with DerbyDad that I'd be in licensed electrician territory for that. There is something weird about the ceiling, though. I'm going to have to take a closer look at it today.

[RicodJour]

It's _much_ more difficult to put the self-stick tile under the carpet

- you'd have to have really long and very skinny arms to do it, so maybe it wasn't such an idiotic suggestion after all. ;)

R