well welcome back to Steve Robb reviews today we're gonna have some fun and I think I'm gonna
save you a lot of money if you don't know about this now if you do know about this it's always
good to share with your friends like I'm doing today okay where did I get started here this
is my Milwaukee circle Assaf and it says on the tag 15 amps let's take a look at the tag just to
verify well there you go right there right at the top right hand corner says right there 15
amps okay I'm back what do I got here hunk of wood I got three extension cords here the two blue ones
or a hundred foot cord I made two 50 footers out of them and they are 12-gauge I got a hundred foot
extension cord in the middle that's 14 gauge this one over here number six that's for my 220 welder
so I can well-built in the driveway over here each 100 feet so what are we doing here today
buddy of mine across the road come over and says to me Steve can I borrow your circular saw I said
sure I'll give you an extension card so I went to get my 50 footer number 12 says no no no no don't
worry about I got an extension card I said what's wrong with your circular saw because I'm pretty
hard on circular saws I burn them out like every second maybe third year tops I got to buy a new
circular saw so I'm gonna get a new one this week I just need to cut some more wood up here and I
saw a hole a second you're burning them up I mean I don't even hear this guy hardly even use his
saw but he's cutting up skids and he's cutting up old four by fours and he trends his tree when his
circular saw this kind of stuff so I said let's go over and take a look hold on a second because
I don't like laying it out my stuff I usually you walk my circular saw it comes with a power cord I
go over there and he's got this 18 gauge like this except this looks nice compared to what he's got
he's got this old beat-up cable like you wouldn't believe it was just like a rat's nest just Kingson
it twists and everything else and I says like how long have you had this thing Oh maybe thirty years
forty years this fellow's about maybe seventy seven seventy eight years old and I says you ever
think maybe it's not the saws that's causing the problem here buddy he copes what are you talking
about and I go it's your extension guard and he goes well what's he got doing an extension
cord well I'll tell you what he started telling me he's no longer going to buy a half-decent circular
saw anymore because he just burns them out this guy is so good at working circular saws he burns
them right out and I'm thinking buddy it's your cord burning enough maybe a lot of people don't
know about this we're gonna do a little bit of a demonstration and we're gonna show you exactly
what he did that was wrong that could save you a lot of money so let's take a look at some readings
here I got my meter set up got my client meter down here and all I'm gonna do right now is I'm
gonna plug the end of this cord in I'm gonna zoom you in I'm gonna plug this in and let's just take
a look and see how many amps this 15 amp circular saw draws let's get to it right now okay so here
we are right here I got the circular saw plugged in directly to the outlet through the splitter and
the clamp meter is going to register amperage on the right and voltage on the left they're
both set min max I'm just going to pull the trigger and let's take a look at the readings
while I can see a maximum of 43 amps on the left let's take a look at the mid max I've
got to manually function it there went down to 109 point 8 and there it is 119 so here we are
here we got that hundred-foot 16-gauge plugged in let's go over to the meter meter on the right is
amperage meter on the left is voltage let's pull the trigger let's take a look at the readings
while you can see a big difference the amperage draw was only 34 let's take a
look at the voltage and I don't think you're going to see much of a difference 111 which I
suspected so as you can obviously see there is an effect there now let's cut a piece of
wood and let's just leave that hundred footer in there and let's cut a piece of wood like
he was doing okay you ready I'm just gonna cut into this four by four like he was doing
okay so there you can see the results right there and we're down to 35 amps and let's take a look
at the voltage down to 111 didn't change much 35 now let's put the regular power cord back
in and let's cut another piece of wood again okay so this time here we've got the circular
saw plugged in let's go over to the meters and let's take a look let's just cut another slice
while we're looking at 38 let's take a look at the voltage 109 and you could see how much it
was binding at the end they're going through a little bit of a knot but you can definitely
see that there is a difference well could you notice a big difference there and here's the two
spots there and you could see the second one was going right through that knot guys I'll tell you
something that cord that he had I would not want to try in this because all we do is just burn out
the armature on my circular saw this here is just a test to show you that yeah if you want to use a
circular saw or anything that says on at 15 amps it's really not 15 and especially when you really
start working it all you're doing is you're not providing the full power to the saw itself or
any other electrical tool that you're using and it's best to have a setup like this where you
can test first because if I would have lent my saw to him I guarantee you it'll probably work
that day for him but my saw would be damaged for sure it would just be arcing like you wouldn't
believe inside there not running at its full speed and it's full horsepower and that's the
problem that I have seen and I've noticed with a lot of homeowners and do-it-yourselfers the
first time they say can I borrow you know your saw yeah yeah give them the extension card to
go with it and most rental companies do that as well if you go to a rental company and rent one
of their piece of equipment they want you to use their cord because they know that you're
gonna take it home and you're gonna have this old you know hedge cutter of a extension card
that's just all ratty and knotty and when you have an extension cord and it's very old a lot of the
wires inside do break over time so you think you got a 16 gauge extension cord and it's probably
like a 20 gauge by the time all these different you know conductors inside have broken over the
time because his was so knotted and ratted you would not believe it so I just started
make this a little bit of a demonstration here today to show you yeah it's best to test your
equipment like this if you can if not just look in the manual and it will tell you what gauge
cord and what distance you can use and I see it time and time again you know with my neighbors
around here and some of my friends that want to borrow my tools and I say no no no you know you
have to have the right stuff because it may not break down for them while they're using
it but it's gonna break down for me that's for sure so thanks joining me here today and I hope
you found this interesting and if you've never seen this channel before you welcome to subscribe
come back again let's have some more fun hey let's do some more testing like this Cheers
you