Customer Reviews

Ziotek ZT1212542 Power Strip Liberator 14-Inch Extension, 5-Pack

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Power strip liberators are one of the best ideas in the last 20 years, period. Unless you live in a house (or work in an office) designed by computer geeks and built in the last 10 minutes, you simply do not have enough power outlets for all of the devices you use. This means that you have to use power strips. It also means that the transformers necessary to run most of your portable devices take up 2 or 3 outlets on the powerstrip so now you are running a strip or 2 off of your first strip. Enter the liberator.

This simple little extension cord plugs into the power strip and has a plug on the other end for your transformer. Now, you have 6 devices plugged into a 6 outlet power strip, not 2 or 3. Simple idea. One that works. Get these. Your significant other will appreciate the neater workspace.

"This particular product uses 16AWG wire and meets UL 817 specifications for power supply cords. That specification allows for 1625W, or roughly 13 amps at 120 volts."

[...]

Most homes have 15 amp breakers so don't plug a hair dryer into it and leave it on. Otherwise wall transformers for electronic gadgets draw little power. My Dell notebook charger only draws 1.6 amps.

All those large plugs can now fit ever so nicely on one surge protector. I use about 8 of these for my salt water reef aquarium, and they save me running extra outlets to that area. And definetly safer of a risk than daisy chaining two surge protectors together - firemarshall says that's bad news. Please all the other ones I've ordered help with all my computer equipment upstairs too. Oh, and our entertainment center with the TV, Cable, DVD, etc. I recommend everyone order a box of 20 of these as they will find they have a lot more use for them than they thought. Just take a look around your house and count up where you could use these.

Ryan

First of all, this is a great product. I went from having to use three surge protectors daisy chained together to fit all my adapters, to only needing one single surge protector after utilizing these handy little extensions.

As far as my purchasing experience, I initially ordered one pack (of 5) extensions, which was sold by a third party company named Miriam Holdings LLC, but fulfilled by Amazon. The extensions arrived loose in a plain white box with nothing on the box or extensions to make them look like they were of any particular brand or anything. Yes, they did look exactly like the picture here on Amazon, but that's all I had to go by to make sure I had the right product.

After unpacking everything, I moved on to test each extension, and low and behold, one of them was defective right out of the box. I guess the internal connection of the female plug was messed up in some kind of way because no matter what I did I could not get anything to plug into it. The other four extensions worked great though. They did exactly what they were supposed to do.

So, upon contacting Amazon about the single defective extension, they told me that since the item came from a third party company, they could not do an exchange but could only do a full refund. Leaving me with no option, I went ahead with the return/refund, and ended up ordering two more five packs to replace them, but this is where I realized something else.

Upon receiving the new replacement order, again from Miriam Holdings LLC, and fulfilled by Amazon, the extensions came in sealed clear plastic bags clearly labeled with the Ziotek brand this time. No plain white box. Also, I noticed that the extensions looked a bit thicker this time too, and since I still had the original five extensions (didn't ship them back right away), I compared them side by side. Low and behold, the original shipment employed a thinner 18AWG wire, not 16AWG like advertised, not good.

In a nutshell, be sure to check ALL of your extensions to make sure none of them are defective, and also make sure you get the 16AWG extensions as advertised, and above all else, be very critical if you get your order in a plain white box with no labels or anything on it. I'm not really sure what happened the first time around, but if it weren't for the one defective extension I never would have realized that I got the wrong product.

I give the correct product (as advertised) five stars, but had to deduct a star for the total screw up the first time around.

Kill-a-Watt Caution. I checked with the shipper and this cord has a lower power rating than the Kill-a-Watt you may be using it with. To avoid over-heating this cord be sure not to use with refrigerator, washer, dryer, air conditioner or other large power using appliance. Kill-a-Watt is rated 15 amps (1875 VA) and this cord is smaller, about 1/2 the amount of the Kill-a-Watt. We want you to be safe and avoid the classic "extension cord fire" from over-heating a cord.

Even the package is labeled 12" and that measurement is to the tip of the metal plug. Not a 14" cable.

These are useful for most small electronics that use transformers. 18 guage wire is used. Max amps for 18 guage wire is 2.3 amps. 120 volts (U.S. house voltage) x 2.3 amps = 276 watts. That's less that 3 100 watt light bulbs. After I bought these, I found them cheaper at a local big box store.

I ordered two packs of 5, and as soon as they came through the door I used 9 of them immediately.

If you have a lot of peripherals like I do, you know some of those adapters have huge butts.

These things kick those butts.

5 Stars.

Like another reviewer said, they don't send what they claim: it's 18awg, not 16awg. You can get 18awg for cheaper elsewhere.

These liberator entension cords have helped clean up quite a bit of mess behind my two computers. I will probably buy more for my entertainment center. I will probably check out other products like the "octopus" powerstrip that does basically similar functions.