AC Cord Female Connector with Strong Grip?

Nov 27, 2012 12 Replies

I'm getting fed up with my various outdoor AC cords constantly falling off various outdoor power tools - lawn mower, blower, string trimmer, etc. - as I use them.



By any miracle can anyone point me at a replacement female 120v. standard



3-hole socket that happens to give a healthy grip on prongs of the corresponding male connectors? This characteristic seems not to be part of the usual marketing blather as I poke around the web.

Art


tie them together in an overhand loop. if pulled they then get tighter, not apart.

On various tools such as the lawn mower, there's nothing to tie - the male end is built into the machine, rather than being at the end of a tieable cord.

Art

Somewhere, sometime ago I bought an outdoor extension cord for tools.

12 Awg, 50 ft long. The female end has recessed cheap plastic slider that when slid toward the plugged in item releases the grip on the AC prongs and slightly pushes the plug out. If the slider is pushed away from the plug - you can't pull the cord and the plugged in item apart. sometype of locking mechanism. Before that cord I had a plastic widget purchased from ?? that held the cords together so they couldn't separate. That plastic item would work with any cord and any plugged in item. I think it came with the weedwacker, since the cord on the weedwacker was about 12 inches long, had to have that plastic thingy.

I don't know the proper term for this gizmo. It's similar to a Chinese finger trap and is designed to pull on an electrical cord. The device allows some slack at the plug by putting the strain farther up the cord.

snipped-for-privacy@unisys.com (Arthur Shapiro) wrote in news:k93kcm$glb$ snipped-for-privacy@USTR-NEWS.TR.UNISYS.COM:

But the female end comes as part of the tie-able cord that you plug into your wall socket. That's the tie-able part you grab when you hold the handle of the mower (thus creating the "tie"). This approach worked fine for me the many years I used an electric mower.

On my snowblower I tie the cord to the handle-

Jim

Tie a cord and a power tool together?

You're a better man than I, Charlie Brown!

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

formatting link
.

tie them together in an overhand loop. if pulled they then get tighter, not apart.

I have always heard "cord grip". For google try "cord grip strain relief" or "kellum grip strain relief" (kellum is a brand).

Ahh. That helped. The top one here

formatting link
what I was thinking of. It's on a linear irrigation system that pulls an 8 AWG four wire cord along for it's power.

I heard hospital grade extension cords are sturdier. Although I've never used one.

Yes, My Black and Decker lawnmower has a thing to hold the cord in place, but in the 8 inches between that and the plug, it still has enough leeway to fall off. And the sideways tension on the cord tends to pull it out. If I left more than 8 inches to decrease the sideways tension, it would weight more and also fall out.

I guess I could tape it, but I hate the sticky residue.

On other things, I've tried bending one of the prongs apart from the other, but I seem unwilling to try that with the mower (since if somehow I broke it it would be harder to exactly replace.

I asked about this here before and the best suggestion was a short cord that did stay attached to the mower, maybe with tying it, and also stayed attached to the long extension cord, maybe permanently tied.

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required