Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Making A 2/3-Pin Socket Power Cord For A CN13/CN14 (Standard PC) Power Point

OR Putting An Old UPS To Use



The power situation in India is pretty bad; I've had days when the power would go keep coming and going out every 10-15 minutes. Needless to say, the effect on my Internet experience is pretty dampening.

A friend of mine recently lent me an old APC UPS. We figured it'd be enough to power my network switch and my DSL modem, keeping my connection alive.

Unfortunately, the UPS only had output in the form of IEC C13 sockets (female).


This wasn't going to work for me because I needed to connect common C, D or M type 2/3-pin plugs. I asked at a few shops but there doesn't seem to be any connector or convertor for this purpose. So I decided to hack together something to use.

I bought a CN14-CN13 cable and a box type 3-pin socket.



I sliced off the CN13 (female) connector on the cable and separated the wires in the remaining part. I then wired them to the plug-point and, well, that was it! I now have this:


I simply plug it into the back of the UPS and I have backup power! Very easy, very obvious but it still pretty satisfying and very useful :D

 Be careful with the wiring! If you've never done it before, you should consider getting someone who has to assist you. I had a bit of trouble when some loose wires I'd left in the box short-circuited and blew the connection apart!

1 comment:

abhay said...

its nice trick.i must try to do this.