The Roadie Loop--keep your extension cords from getting tangled! :) Also, install a switch!
 

Nate posted this video about modifying an extension cord. I thought that the most important part was the first six seconds, where he demonstrated how great the roadie loop is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAbPoYRlQl8 It is ridiculous how many people tell me to just coil the cable conventionally, but then it gets all twisted. Of course they respond "Obviously you are doing something wrong!"

Yes, talking to idiots.

Anyway, he also doesn't like using devices without their own power switch, like work lights. He showed one and I have one that also lacks an on-off switch. It is annoying to unplug it just to turn it off, but he spliced a 3-amp SPST switch when he should have used a 20-amp outdoor-rated DPST switch.

Dozens and dozens of people complained about that. Someone else pointed out that he should have used self-fusing silicone tape.

I am not sure what other problems were pointed out, I grew tired of reading people complain about that one thing. Sure, it was horribly dangerous, but there are 1,767 comments. If 67 are "First!" and "Notification squad!" and 1,700 are about the exact same thing...

Seriously, if you go to the comment section, and someone already said what you want to say, just like it and move on.

This seems like the proper way to wire a switch into an extension cord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usZbSnMEm-AWhat do you guys think?

I shared Nate's video last January and RedDevil and Oil Pan said they used the roadie loop.

I have put a receptacle box on the end of a cord but no switch.

How about an outdoor-rated surge protector on an extension cord? :)

Don't need it. Anything I can run outdoors doesn't need surge protection or I modded surge protection into the device.

I do it similarly to climbing rope, except I start at one end.

https://youtu.be/jPbAn7Fr5c0

FWIW, "roadies" do not call it the "Roadie loop", its called an "over-under Coil".

If you coil a cable by wrapping it around your elbow/forearm, you will be kicked off the stage.

Another version, which works great on cables and garden hoses, is a simple figure 8 laying on the ground, we call it a "Las Vegas coil", in that before wireless mics were popular, the stars had to drag their mic & cable often across a large bare stage as they walked out to perform, and a tangle or a knot would ruin the moment. You can if you want, fold the figure 8 onto itself and make a visual single coli, with a lot of the issues still be being solved when unwinding the next time.

The issue that still remains, being sure not to get the loose end to be pulled, not tangled into the coil.

Another related tip, if you are building your own electrical quad u ground power cable boxes, 180 deg AC duplex outlets to the other, as it is seldom all 4 power plugs that go into the outlet box laying on the ground will, prefer all the grounds going the same way.

yep, "over-under" and more like beat you with the cord you coiled wrong on your way out the door! I also learned it and figure-8 working shows but as a local, not a roadie.

I think I want to be a roadie again. Apparently I failed at roadie.