I don't know what you are connecting up, but as my display has grown I put fewer things on any given channel in order to get a finer level of control. i.e., I used to have 9 strings of LED icycles in one channel, now I have only one per string, but use more channels. With smart strings I am using even less extension cords. Something I did not expect.
Unfortunately budget and time frames for coop's and shipments from China prevented me from taking the leap into Smart Strings this year.
Right now I'm working on wiring harnesses for my incandescent candy canes, which I've used to outline the long handicap ramp out in front of our house from the previous owners.
I'm planning on using four channels to animate the 32 candy canes.
Channel 1 - Left 8 red candy canes
Channel 2 - Left 8 white candy canes
Channel 3 - Right 8 red candy canes
Channel 4 - Right 8 white candy canes
Figure 4 channels will give me some options for simple moving candy cane patterns. They can all shift left or right or I can have them shift away from each other in the middle in opposite directions.
So to do that I will need 4 customer extension cables. Each cable would have on it 1 male and 8 female connectors. I may add a 9th female connector on the end to enable future combining or extending.
Leif