14 or 12 -2 cable/wire.

[fitz19d]

Wondering if any electricians that have bunch of leftovers from jobs would have some cheap 12 or 14-2 cable. I imagine with ground. Not quite clear on what exact insulation I want. Running along the rafters/ceiling of unfinished basement. I'm hoping I only need I'd say under 50 feet. (Unless I end up having to run a new line but that's a bigger problem.)

Also need a a couple to 3 outlet boxes. (Do they even make 3's? or just 1 or 2 plugins). Though these I imagine are just a couple bucks at the store anyways.

[Jer]

12/2 and 14/2 has a ground wire. When you're counting wires you don't count the ground so the /2 is going to be standard 3-wire residential wire. I just bought 50' of 12/2 at Lowe's for about $30 and the 14/2 was about $20. I can tell you that most electricians don't consider that amount as scrap and most also recycle their scraps with the prices of copper so I doubt you're going to find anyone with that much 'scrap' to give you. You can get a 3-gang box to wire up but do you need all your outlets at the same location? Unless you have a special need it's usually better to do more single gangs spread out in various locations in case your needs change. It's super easy to just get something like this to make more outlets at one location and take out when not needed (or better yet add something with surge protection):

http://images.philips.com/is/image/PhilipsConsumer/SPS1060U_17-GAL-global?wid=430&hei=430&$jpglarge$

[3beansalad]

Solid advice Jer. No one throws away copper these days. Most electricians I know keep the scrap for themselves/ side jobs instead. You may get lucky tho, never hurts to ask...

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[fitz19d]

Boss at work has an electrician that was supposed to come out for free and had all the scraps. Just been a long wait and thinking friend was going to fail on me.

Wasn't looking for free, figured maybe I could find some spool ends for $10 vs the $40 I thought I'd be. . Said under 50, realistically I think I'll only need 20 foot max split in 2 sections.

Multiple outlets > 2 was because one outlet is in a corner with 2 large aquariums. I'll need in the neighborhood of 8-14 plugs. That's easy off 2 outlets 2 power strips. But some of these ideally are on timers. (Have a programmable powerstrip, so with only 2 I'd have to consider the no no of a powerstrip w/ very light load into a powerstrip.... preferably avoid that. I may just split the line once in the corner to 2 different outlets? Line is supposed to be 20amp according to breaker, existing cable is 14-2 not 12-2 though. Dedicated to the aquariums and I should be well under 20a. (Equipment changes but last I remember was somewhere in the 9-12amp range, should be 15 absolute tops.)

Then in another corner from another line w/ the lights (which are supposed to be a separate circuit, still gotta check.) I'll need an outlet for bigscreen/onkyo 7.1 and my computer w/ 2 monitors.

[Jer]

Boss at work has an electrician that was supposed to come out for free and had all the scraps. Just been a long wait and thinking friend was going to fail on me.

Wasn't looking for free, figured maybe I could find some spool ends for $10 vs the $40 I thought I'd be. . Said under 50, realistically I think I'll only need 20 foot max split in 2 sections.

Multiple outlets > 2 was because one outlet is in a corner with 2 large aquariums. I'll need in the neighborhood of 8-14 plugs. That's easy off 2 outlets 2 power strips. But some of these ideally are on timers. (Have a programmable powerstrip, so with only 2 I'd have to consider the no no of a powerstrip w/ very light load into a powerstrip.... preferably avoid that. I may just split the line once in the corner to 2 different outlets? Line is supposed to be 20amp according to breaker, existing cable is 14-2 not 12-2 though. Dedicated to the aquariums and I should be well under 20a. (Equipment changes but last I remember was somewhere in the 9-12amp range, should be 15 absolute tops.)

Then in another corner from another line w/ the lights (which are supposed to be a separate circuit, still gotta check.) I'll need an outlet for bigscreen/onkyo 7.1 and my computer w/ 2 monitors.

The electrical company I worked for saved all scraps in a barrel that would get recycled once it was full. Stuff is expensive these days so even ends of spools get used and tiny scraps generally get recycled. If you get free 12/2 or 14/2 though, let me know. ;-)

What you're describing is stuff you want on surge protection, UPS or both. You should have your aquariums on UPS/surge protection which will have plenty of outlets. You'll want your A/V gear on surge protection as well. If your PC at that location does anything time sensitive (DVR duties or something) you may want to UPS that as well. If you need to buy those dongles that you can plug into an outlet with about 6" of cord and another female plug on the end. I use those on UPS and surge protectors since most devices have power supplies that takes up space otherwise on the strip.