knotflying":16arsl7b said:
Hey, I like that Cord Pro. How long have you had it? Does it work well? Does it automatically retract the cord? How long a Cord will it hold? Too much coffee!
I had only just purchased the CordPro XL... to go along with my SmartPlug purchase. It works very well for me. It does NOT automatically retract. The inside of the CordPro XL is split in such a way that 25' will wind up into one side and the other 25' winds up into the other side. You insert one end of the cord set into a hole of a very strong plastic divider inside the CordPro and then pull the cord set through until 25' has been pulled. You then wind 25' in one side of the CordPro and the other 25' is wound into the other side. Both sides can be easily unwound to the desired length. This then leaves no ugly looking mess of cable cord laying around on the dock.
The question of heat build up inside the CordPro XL if some of the cord set is left inside has been brought up here and elsewhere. I talked with the SmartPlug Tech help about this and the person said he saw no real issue with this, but to monitor things. If I encountered any real heat issues or found that only a fraction of the 30 amps can be drawn because of this I was to call back and discuss it with SmartPlug. Typically, in my case. I suspect only some 5 to 8 feet of each 25' remains in the CordPro XL when at my dock. My research tells me that if the 50' were to be fully coiled up then only some 15 amps could be safely drawn to avoid too much heat generation in the coiled wire cable. It is something to be aware of.
The CordPro XL can accommodate only 50' of a 30 amp cord set.
Note also, to thread the cord set through the inner plastic divider sheaf do so before installing a lock ring on the dock side end, otherwise you will not be able to thread it through the plastic divider sheaf. I found this out the hard way.
😳
It is true that once the boat side receptacle has been installed then inserting the SmartPlug connector into the receptacle is much much easier than doing so before installing the receptacle... as mentioned by another member, there's a lot more leverage when things have been installed. I also called SmartPlug Tech help about this before starting my installation and I was told the same story, and in addition was told if after doing the installation the connection was found to be to stiff and hard to insert and remove the connector they would send a replacement.
I had also bought the SmartPlug female connector to use on my old Marinco 30 amp cord set. To be honest, it was a real bugger installing it, even though I followed the instructions carefully.
1. When the instructions say to apply some washing soap liquid make sure you apply a liberal amount. On my first attempt I found I could not push and slide the cut off Marinco cord end into the SmartPlug connector and it got stuck half way in and would not budge. I had to pull it back out and add tons of the soap liquid. This did the trick and the cord end slid smoothly and easily into the SmartPlug connector. Also the clever white tubular adapter that's provided to help with this does not go over the outer casing of the Marinco cord end. Not a big issue but kind of concerned me at first as the SmartPlug website video shows that it does.
2. The included instructions say to trim back the Marinco outer covering by 1.25", yet the online SmartPlug video says this should be 1.5". IMO it needs to be at least 1.75" as working the three heavy gauge wires into their clamping holes is a real struggle otherwise. IMO you need more length than 1" of sheafed wire to facilitate the bending and proper alignment for each of the 5/8" of exposed twisted wire to be inserted into their correct clamping holes.
3. Even though I correctly twisted the 5/8-inch bare wire ends (black, white and green wires of the Marinco cord) and inserted them into the clamping slots/holes and then tightening the clamps as much as I could, I found unless they were well and truly clamped (and I mean well and truly) the wires could with a slight tug come back out. My advice, if you have not already done this, is to really tighten those wire clamps down good and strong until your wrist hurts... and then give each one the wiggle and pull test to ensure they will not come back out.
4. Once all the three wires had been secured properly now the task is to get the unit back into the connector housing. It can only go in one way due to the asymmetric nature of the cover dimensions. Doing this requires some care as the plastic wire retention legs need to be folded in against the wires. As the unit is slid back into the cover these three plastic wire retention legs must line up with curved recesses in the base of the cover. This alignment is kind of automatic but if slightly out of alignment the unit cannot be push all the way in. This presents two problems; a) the plastic wire retention legs do not do their job correctly and b) the unit will not slide fully in and will therefore not slide into the boat side SmartPlug receptacle fully causing the two spring clips to not engage nor will the lid will engage when lowered onto the connector. I made this mistake and had to disassemble the whole thing to ensure the plastic wire retainer legs were positioned correctly.
It must have taken me two hours to install the SmartPlug boat side connector onto my Marinco cord set, and was harder than I expected it to be. I also speared myself with my sharp knife at one point
😳 and blood spurted out all over the dinette table. Blood can be very sticky when it starts to dry... :roll: Now that's done I have a backup cord set.
🙂
