BobRip said:
Be careful with this one. The coiled wire will act as an inductor and increase its resistance. It can overheat and make your load (if it's motor driven) overheat.
Actually at 60Hz an air core inductor comprised of the extension cords you stuff into a 5 gallon bucket is not going to be much of an inductor and its X sub L at 60 Hz is not nearly the worry that the plain IR losses will be from the resistance of the cords.
There will be some effect of course, especially if the wire is neatly wound into the bucket like thread on a spool. BUT... if you just jumble it into the pail the random orientation of the EM fields will essentially cancel and the wire resistance will be the major factor reducing voltage to your tool.
Too many extension cords or too long of a cord that has too small of a gauge conductor will certainly cause high draw motors to starve for current and overheat. You can burn the brushes pretty quickly and ruin the motor windings too.
A significant problem with coiling up a lot of extension cords together even if you don't exceed their maximum current capacity is overheating. The cords are made/specked to handle their max current at a given environmental temperature. Coiling them up in a confined space reduces heat loss and temps may build up to the point of melting insulation which is a hazard of shorting out and starting a fire.
Remember, just because EACH cord is rated to power your tool, adding several in series violates the assumptions on which the original rating was based. At full rated current the cord loses a certain number of volts. Two in series looses twich as many, 3 in series 3 ties the loss. This easily drops the delivered voltage under load to less than the tool can safely operate on under load and it will overheat. Over time (sometimes a quite short time) this overheating will "EAT" the motor.
If you have to have LOOOOOONG extension go for a really heavy conductor gauge, at least 10 AWG or heavier. I have even made lashups with cords in parallel to operate high draw stuff like a compressor at a fair distance. I have a 100 ft extension that easily handles 240VAC at 50 amps to power my welder and I installed some 120VAC outlets on it for grinder, drills, and such and of course it is so heavy the tools don't have a problem, just me carrying it.
Just a couple days ago I burried almost 300 ft of 6 ga wire (3 conductor plus ground) to run power to a hay barn. According to the calcs this will handle all I need out there without dropping too much voltage.
I too have used 5 gal buckets for extension cords but within safe limits of cord heating and voltage drop. If it were for lights the lights would just dim a bit and no harm done or for light draws of just a few amps but for an expensive corded Milwaukee power too that is rated to use 12-15 amps, you need to be a tad circumspect as they aren't cheap and will burn up if not "fed" properly.
Pat