Power Cord Adaptors, Splitters, and Power Sources Explained

Hey everybody, it's Dave from clean pro supply and we're going to talk about generators,

power cords, and how they connect and integrate to maximize the use of the power from the generator

to run the machines that you're using for the job site.

The first thing I want to point out is the running watts are going to be different than the starting watts.

So if you're not familiar with these two different numbers you want to do the math so that the machines

you're using are only fulfilling the running watts. The purpose of the starting watts since that's a higher number

that's so that when you go to start up a vacuum or a pump or any other kind of motor,

your pow... you're going to have a little bit of a power surge, so say for example you're getting

you're drawing 240, I'm sorry 2400 watts from a certain unit, then as you turn that on it may

draw say 3000 watts, I don't know if that's the exact number, but theoretically on that startup

it's going to do a little bit extra power surge to draw more power. So basically if this generator is

going to comfortably provide 12,000 running watts . As you do startups with the equipment you're using

it will handle up to a spike surge of 15,000 watts. Of course as you're turning things on you don't

want to turn all your switches on at once. You're gonna turn one, and then another, and then another,

and then turn them all separate so that way it's kind of dispersed evenly, but when you're running

your equipment you can do all the math so that the equipment you're using is going to draw enough

power to fulfill your 12,000 watts. You don't want to go over that because then you're going to start

popping these breakers for the whole generator but then also individually between the circuits.

So we're going to talk about how you can use these cords, these splitters and maximize the use of all

the outlets on your generator because say you have four power cords for whatever equipment you're

using, you want to make sure you can draw enough power and then use all your outlets properly.

So the way this is going to get marketed is, different brands do it different ways, one may advertise this

has a 12,000 watt generator but another brand may advertise this as a 15,000 watt generator. So just

do your homework before you buy a generator, or make sure you know what you're looking at. Say

they are advertising it as a 15,000 watt generator, you know check and see if that's a starting watt

rating or if that's a running watt rating, because you're going to be focused primarily on the

running watt rating. Don't worry about the starting watt rating. So if I have a vacuum, a hand grinder,

a walk behind grinder for maybe doing some concrete grinding, or maybe you have portable

extractors for carpet cleaning, tile cleaning , pressure washing, whatever you're using, whatever

equipment you have. So you have four circuits, they're each going to be drawing 120 volts

and then maybe they're 20 amps each. That means each power cord is going to draw 2400 watts. So

what does that mean to get your wattage? The way the math works is you take your amps, times your

volts, and that equals your watts. So if I have four appliances they're going to draw 120 volts each,

at 20 amps each. That's 2,400 watts each which is, I think, it's around 9,600 watts total. So that means

I could probably add one more appliance that at 2,400 watts, that'd be five different machines, or

five different tools, or appliances all drawing the same amount of power would give me up to

the hundred... the 12,000 running watts. So how do I do that? Because I only have two circuits

right here, that are your standard plugs for a regular electrical cord. So if you're running 120

volt power cords and you have a cord end that looks like this, we have two parallel spades

and then you have a ground plug. These two parallel spades, the type of plug-in this is,

it's called a Nema 15. Technically it's a 15 amp plug, but you may have another type of plug where

instead of having two parallel spades here you have one that's parallel this way, and another

one that's perpendicular ,kind of like this. That's technically a 20 amp plug end called the Nema 20.

So you can see on this, the female end here of this adapter, there's the ground receptacle, there you

have the the spade going this way, and then here it's actually a t-shape. That t-shape allows you

to plug in either a Nema 15 like this, or a Nema 20, where the other spade is going this way rather

than this way. Same thing on these generators, these are all Nema 20 outlets, so it'll take either a 15

or a 20 amp plug end, whichever you have. It's going to fit commercial code for commercial outlets same

way. If you're in a commercial building it should all have these female receptacles that will allow

a 15 amp or a 20 amp plug to fit into that. If it's a residential setting and it's only a 15

amp outlet, it's only going to have the two parallel female receptacles, so you're not

going to be able to plug in a 20 amp plug to that. However, if you know that it is a 20 amp circuit,

or you have to hook up maybe a Nema 20 plug into a Nema 15 amp plug then you can use this adapter,

and that basically takes your your male 15 amp to your female 20 amp. And then that way if you

have a vacuum that, you know, has a Nema 20 on it you can convert it down to a Nema 15. And then you

can plug that into a residential setting. So, for example, maybe that vacuum is only drawing 14 amps,

well there's no problem hooking that into a 15 amp circuit, because it's only drawing 14 amps.

So you can use this adapter to get to the right proper plug.

Aside from that you have four plugs total here, but I like to see this as two circuits,

because each circuit is allowing 120 volts times 20 amps. If you plug one thing here and

then one thing here, and you turn them both on you're either going to pop the gfci

pre-breaker here, or you're gonna pop whichever breaker these up above. You're gonna pop these

breakers, because this is just one circuit, and then this is one circuit. So what I would

recommend is, you're gonna plug one plug into here, and then you're gonna plug another plug into here,

but then the question is, okay I've got three more plugs because I've got three more circuits that

I need to plug into. How do I do that? Do not plug them in here, just keep one here, one here, and

then you can start utilizing these others. So this one here, this is actually 120 volts but it's a 30

amp instead of a 20 amp. So if you have an adapter that goes from a Nema 20 to, I'm assuming this is

probably a Nema 30, then you can do that, and plug right into here. Or don't worry about that, and then

you can take an adapter like this. It's actually got four male prongs that will plug into here,

and now that's going to split you down to two more 120 volt females, and you can

plug in two more cords here. The only thing to keep in mind is this is still a 30 amp circuit,

and even though it's a 220 volt circuit at 30 amps you still have to stay below 30 amps combined here.

So you would theoretically want to keep two 15 amp circuits or 120 and 110. You don't want

to exceed 30 amps total. So you can use one you know if you only... one, two, and then maybe three.

Or if you want to use both of these then just make sure that whatever power is coming out of

here does not exceed 30 amps. The other option you have is to take a 50 amp plug like this.

This is a similar type of splitter, but that's going to go into this 240 volt 50 amp plug,

like that, and now again you've got two more. Now the the benefit to this adapter is, now you have

50 amps to play with so you can go 20 and 20 or, I would not recommend it, but you could go 20 and 30.

But I don't think there's a plug that would even be 30, but this way you basically have two 20 amp

plugs. Here you have two 20 amp plugs so that's two, three, four, and then either a fifth. And that, you

know, if you're drawing 20 amps from all five of these, that's going to maximize your 12,000 watts.

Again, because you have two, three, four, five circuits times 120 volts, times 20 amps,

equals 12,000 watts. So hopefully that math makes sense to you but this way if you're

running, say you're doing concrete grinding. Maybe you have a hand grinder, a multi-tool, two vacuums ,

and then a work light, that gives you five circuits that you can use up to your your 12,000 watts.

Anything over 10,000 watts, make sure it has a 50 amp socket, because if you don't have this 50 amp

socket, even though you may have, you know 10 or 12,000 watts available that the generator can create.

If you don't have the proper plugs there's no way you're going to be able to utilize

all of that power properly and disperse it amongst enough 120 volt circuits with the

power cords that you're using. So just to recap a little bit, you have volts times amps equals

watts, and that's how you can measure, you know, your running watt capacity of your generator.

This outlet, even though there's there's two plugs or two sockets, only use one because this is one

circuit and you don't want to pop the circuit. So one, two, this is 120 volt with a three prong 30 amp,

you can use that if you have the proper adapter . But you only use this for one appliance. This is

120 or a 240 volt, so if you use this plug here you can split this 240 volt into two single 120 volts

and then you have a 240 volt 50 amp and you can split that also into two power cords here. So if

you have any questions anytime about any of these, of course you know just comment on this video and

I can respond to your comment, or send me a private message and I can respond that way as well. Or

email sales@cleanprosupply.com and I'm happy to assist with any questions you have

about generators. I hope you guys all have a good day and hope this helped, take care.