SuperHandy Extension Cord Reel 12AWG x 80'

SUMMARY (40-second-long read time): I love my new SuperHandy-brand cord reel with 80 feet of AWG 12 cord. I would definitely recommend it to friends and family. As you can see in the video, I mounted mine on a swivel so I can easily pull it through a wide range of angles. Here are some key points: • Though I didn’t use them, my reel came with four drywall fastener assemblies (see photo #4), not just two, as previous reviewers have complained about. It looks like the manufacturer has been listening. • Electrically, this reel performs very well. It provides clean electricity, even when reeling out cord while under electrical load. • Mechanically, the reel has robust construction. • There’s nothing to complain about. For the money, it is a rip-roaring good deal. _______________________________________________ DETAILS (3-minute-long read time): I’m a retired mechanical engineer specializing in electromechanical design, so the first thing I tested was the reel’s electrical performance. Why? Because for reels to make multiple revolutions, they have two internal brushes—rather like the graphite brushes in an alternator; these are called “slip rings.” I was worried a cheap cord reel design might cause excessive voltage loss, intermittent drop-outs when reeling out cord while under load, and arcing. 👍 ELECTRICAL DISTURBANCES WHILE REELING: NONE. I carefully monitored the voltage quality while drawing an 11.4-amp load and simultaneously paying out the cord to make the drum rotate. I saw nothing insofar as drop-outs or other electrical disturbances. Impressive. The user manual had no admonition about paying out cord while under load, but I’ll nonetheless avoid doing so. Still, it’s nice to know this reel is capable of doing so. 👍 VOLTAGE DROP: PERFECTLY NORMAL. The next thing I did was check the voltage drop. Under a load of 11.4 amps, the voltage drop across the total of 85 feet of cording *should* suffer a round-trip voltage drop of around 3.46 volts… and that includes an additional 0.053-volt lost across the integral circuit breaker; it was hard to calculate an exact voltage drop because I had to make an educated guess about how hot the conductors inside a double-insulated SJTOW cord get under load. I measured the actual loss as being 0.24 volt more than predicted, which is within the margin of error on this sort of calculation. This proved to be yet another unfounded concern I had over slip-ring rigmarole. ✋ MOUNTING: ADEQUATE. One can find a lot of fussing in other reviews here regarding the ease of mounting this cord reel. This issue is legitimate because there are so many practical issues to deal with: Cord reels can take a lot of time and thought to solidly mount, cord reels are heavy, so you usually need an assistant while mounting them, many people’s use requirements differ, proximity to outlets vary, and so too does the location of wall studs and ceiling joists. As I mentioned in my summary, the manufacturer provided four fasteners (photo #4) for mounting on drywall. However, I wouldn’t personally mount a cord reel on drywall out of concern someone might later come along, pull crazy-hard on the reel to clear a snag, and tear it down. 💡HINT: I thought I’d pass along a slick way of mounting this cord reel that makes it mountable without an assistant and, once mounted, is exceedingly convenient to use: One can mount their cord reel on a swivel so you can easily pay out the cord from a wide range of angles. That way, the reel can be hard-over, pointing out the garage door for use on the front lawn, or it can be pointing way off the other direction for use inside the garage. See photos #2, #3, and #5 for the required parts and what it all looks like. In a nutshell, I used a hole saw and carbide burr to cut and grind the two white PVC end caps so they would serve as cheap radial bushings on the ends of a sleeve that spins around the 1″-pipe axle. The video shows what the assembly looks like and just how convenient the swivel action is. By the way… You might have noticed the “5269-C” cord-end connector in the video. That’s clearly not the triple-outlet triangular affair the reel ships with. I did this so the cord would directly fit into my string trimmer, other portable devices, and equipment with recessed power inlet receptacles.