Forbidden Tech
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What would they even be used for except to short a circuit?
The only time I've ever seen one in use was a friend that had a shed that was powered with lights etc. He had an external plug box on the shed, and would use one of these to jumper from his extension cord to that external plug. It worked, but I shuddered when I saw it.
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I did it last week. We were out of power for about 30 hours. But I actually have a degree in Computer Engineering, and I did it with a friend who is a professional Electrician.
It is indeed EXTREMELY dangerous. If you don't know what you're doing, or make a mistake, best case scenario, you fry your generator. Worst case, you electrocute a lineman from the power company, who isn't expecting lines to be live when there's an outage, because yes, if you feed power into your house, that will flow OUT of your house onto the main lines (to some extent), if you let it. You could end up trying to power your whole block on your little gas generator.
We made sure both the indoor and outdoor main power shutoffs for the house were turned off, as well as all breakers. Then we unplugged the oven, and used that for the feed from the generator. Then we gradually re-activated breakers so as not to add too much load to the generator at once. Ultimately, we were able to run the whole house, except for the AC compressor, which the generator actually would have had enough power to run, but not to kick-start.
The proper way to hook up a generator to feed your house is to install an "inlet" which is both nominatively and physically the opposite of an outlet: instead of holes going into a box, you have prongs sticking out of a box. Generally, it'll be one of the big fat 4-pronged round cables, like what your oven might use. That'll feed down to a large double-breaker, in the top-right slot of your breaker panel. That breaker stays off until you want to run a generator, and, to meet code, you have to also install a special bracket that prevents you from turning this breaker off without turning off the primary feed for the whole house. Still kinda dangerous, but they make those brackets surprisingly foolproof.
except for the AC compressor, which the generator actually would have had enough power to run, but not to kick-start.
This sentence triggered my PTSD. Imagine, if you will, a world where executives insist that datacenter AC be put on UPS battery. A world where those same executives declare that a different datacenter is just fine running at 95% power capacity because "it's not 100%." A world where inrush current does not exist. Except it does exist, but all professional advice is ignored until there are consequences. And even after such consequences are realized, one of those same executives still tries to run his home sump pump off of a desktop UPS during a power outage, pops it immediately, then goes and gets another from the office, which also pops immediately.
The sign in OP's post will always be relevant somewhere.
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They cant stop you from buying heat shrink and wire strippers. Don't let nothing hold you back
Nothing can hold me back. Because I am stuck in place by the electricity coursing through my body.
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If you have to ask, don't do it.
The proper way to connect a generator is with a breaker panel interlock. This gives you a circuit breaker for the main, grid power; a second breaker for the generator; and an interlock device that only allows one of those two breakers to be active at any given time.
Trying to use a suicide cable can get power into the house; disconnecting the main breaker would prevent the generator from back feeding the grid. However, the circuit you are plugging the breaker into is only rated to 15 or 20 amps, and you're backfeeding it with a lot more. You can easily overload this circuit without actually blowing a breaker.
There's other problems as well: your house wiring is designed for two opposing hot, 110v phases. These are combined to provide 220v power to major appliances. Improperly backfeeding your wiring can potentially damage those major appliances.
You are better off with a nice, heavy-duty extension cord than a half-assed suicide cable.
Lol, not going to do it. Been mildly electrocuted too many times to mess around with something like this.
More so curious about the physics here, but I see it's basically a roll of the dice that it does work and doesnt just fry everything.
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What would they even be used for except to short a circuit?
Some genius won't pay attention to the orientation of a christmas light display while he's putting them up, he'll go to plug them in, and they'll be the wrong way, so he'll want an "adapter."
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So if I understand it correctly, if you were to use this "solution", you'd leave live exposed prongs on one end of the lights, right?
Cause that would make it even dumber than I had imagined lmao
Yep. Exactly right.
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I will just regurgitate what I've heard. I think they are used in case power goes out and you have a generator. You need to disconnect from the power grid first, but it should then allow you to power tour house with the generator. It sounds more like a US thing.
Yes, this would technically work. Although, it would only power the hot leg the outlet is connected to which only feeds part of the house.
It's very dangerous for a variety of reasons. Especially if you forget to shut off the mains breaker. The transformer can backfeed power down the line at line voltages, creating a shock hazard for lineman or anyone else who might have contact with the line.
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The only time I've ever seen one in use was a friend that had a shed that was powered with lights etc. He had an external plug box on the shed, and would use one of these to jumper from his extension cord to that external plug. It worked, but I shuddered when I saw it.
... and you could easily fix the whole situation by having the shed run a male extension cord out that could be plugged into the generator.
It would also be infinitely more whimsical, since it'd make the shed look like a little appliance with its own chord. Or paint everything and call it a tail, the possibilities are endless.
"Well, let me just plug in the shed real quick"
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So if I understand it correctly, if you were to use this "solution", you'd leave live exposed prongs on one end of the lights, right?
Cause that would make it even dumber than I had imagined lmao
Yup. American Christmas lights basically ARE very thin extension cords with the bulbs (hopefully) wired in parallel. Back in the day they were pretty much all incandescent and in series, and a single burned out bulb meant everything went out and Junior got a joyous new holiday chore!
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No gay cords allowed!
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This post did not contain any content.wrote on last edited by [email protected]
No idea how and why but my dad once had a cable like that in his workshop.
Short story: we were having a party, bit drunk and wanted power for the bigger speakers, needed an extension, rummaged around and found this one. Of course didn't check the ends, plugged it in and then thought "oh what a weird male adapter there, lets take it...bzzzzt".
Have a tiny burn scar on my hand now, luckily nothing else happened. The cable got dismantled afterwards, but I still don't know why it was there in the first place, he is a pretty good handyman normally.
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It's OK - I'm only going to use the suicide cord for my fractal wood-burning project.
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Yes, this would technically work. Although, it would only power the hot leg the outlet is connected to which only feeds part of the house.
It's very dangerous for a variety of reasons. Especially if you forget to shut off the mains breaker. The transformer can backfeed power down the line at line voltages, creating a shock hazard for lineman or anyone else who might have contact with the line.
Wouldn't any repair worker ground anything they work on first, or assume it is live?
I am not even a proper electrician, but "short-circuited and grounded, or treat it as live" has been the rule forever. -
Wouldn't any repair worker ground anything they work on first, or assume it is live?
I am not even a proper electrician, but "short-circuited and grounded, or treat it as live" has been the rule forever.Not an electrician, but I would imagine the danger being if the technician checked the wire was off locally, started work and then the home generator starts feeding mid work.
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No gay cords allowed!
The gay cords are extra powerful in Europe with a spicy 230v
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The gay cords are extra powerful in Europe with a spicy 230v
wrote on last edited by [email protected]1 European gay is equivalent to 1.91 american gays
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It also backfeeds the grid and can kill someone working on the lines.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]This is the real issue and why you need a modern transfer switch. Lineman is working on the transformer on the pole, "it's fine we cut it off upstream and I checked" and BOOM anyway
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I don't understand why it would have female on both ends?
Weird use case. Never underestimate the customer.
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No idea how and why but my dad once had a cable like that in his workshop.
Short story: we were having a party, bit drunk and wanted power for the bigger speakers, needed an extension, rummaged around and found this one. Of course didn't check the ends, plugged it in and then thought "oh what a weird male adapter there, lets take it...bzzzzt".
Have a tiny burn scar on my hand now, luckily nothing else happened. The cable got dismantled afterwards, but I still don't know why it was there in the first place, he is a pretty good handyman normally.
If you lose power, you can use one of these cables to power your house (or at least, the part of your house on that phase).
This is not how you should do this, but it can work. It is not a good idea (possibly illegal?).
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What if I yell "no homo!" when I plug it in?
