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Boy are they gonna be shocked when he doesn’t make it.
This is oddly relevant to something I was searching. i’m looking for both the type of material and method of bending to achieve a similar end result (of bent wire). I promise I won’t gouge the outlets. Can anyone shine a light?
I’ve done similar with little lengths of spring steel and round jaw pliers.
A sparkling future indeed.
A little warmer for charging cables, neat!
From an electrical engineering major who’s not at Harvard: how could you fuck it up that badly.
for starters it won’t be a secure fit because the prongs have some thickness to it, which means possible sparking of the outlet from the inductor because there are changes in current (inductors hate changes in current).
OK so now the big question, will this be problematic? I don’t actually know. The two main contributors to impedance in this instance is the conductivity of the metal and how well the connection between the clip and the prongs of the charger. Best case scenario, it all goes into heat (via the impedance), worst case scenario it destroys the power electronics of the charger and the wall. Worse worse case scenario it starts a fire as a result of too much current not being dissipated.
From an electrical engineering major
We’re doomed.
This is a purely resistive load. Short circuit will pop the fuse in a second or two. Electronics will be fine. Won’t have enough time to heat up much, even if arcing.
The son already fixed the circuit breaker problem by replacing the fuse with a screwdriver
Clever boy
What a genius! Has he sent his CV to Elon Musk already?
It’d be alright if made from plastic.
And yes, I’ve chosen to disregard that something between the connector and the socket theoretically makes it more unsafe; US sockets are an awful design to begin with, so it doesn’t make much of a difference.
What if it was plastic and on top of the charger block?
At least this actually turns all those electricity into heat, it’s basically just an electronic kettle without the case
Failed fleshlight experiment #13
The DIY Hot Dog Fleshlight.
Don’t stick your dick in that….
Don’t yuck someone else’s yum
That’s what they want you to believe.
No lie, first time I read it, I thought I saw
Heaven here we come!
Shocking if true
goddammit heres an upvote
The perfect dorm-warming gift:
If I’m not mistaken plugging this in to the same outlet won’t do anything. And as far as back feed problems couldn’t you just shut off the the main breaker, i.e. where the power comes into the house?
Made one of these on accident.
Threw one end of the cord out in the yard and put a new male plug on the other end. Went to plug my saw in and found a male end. Silly me! So I swapped the cord around the threw the other end in the yard. Went to plug my saw in and found a male end. Stood there a minute trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
I just recently did the same with a set of patio lights. Was shortening a set of lights which hang over my porch. Measured out the length I needed, cut the cord, attached a new female end. Went to plug the other end in… also female!
I’m sure Freud would have something to say about that “mistake”.
Hillbilly generator hookup. Backfeed hazard.
My friend worked in a hardware store for a couple years and he said that around Christmas time you get about a dozen people asking for these.
My wife was stringing up lights on the garage wreath and had one strand turned around and wanted me to make one of these to “fix” it so it could plug in. It took a second to explain to her the other end was just going to be an exposed line voltage plug.
This tale is old, and I still don’t understand what people try to accomplish with these?! Like, I know hanging like a trillion extenders behind each other is also a way to start a fire, but what are people trying to do with male-to-male cables? I’m at a loss.
When you daisy chain christmas lights and just put up 1 of them backwards.
They get requested around Christmas time because someone strung their lights the wrong way and now wants to connect the female end of the lights directly to the wall instead of reversing all the lights they just hung.
I always heard they were for powering a house off a generator
There is a kind of person who knows how to do that safely, but that kind of person has already installed an actual load transfer switch to do it the right way.
I made one for the little generator at my camp. The idea was to plug the output into an outlet in my homemade shed and power it all, plus energizing an outdoor socket.
Never got around to wiring the shed and it was easier to simply not use the other male end and wire it straight into the outside outlet. Now I can fire up the genny and have a hot outlet outside the shed.
They’re typically used for backup generators
You see, if the device from the meme was ever plugged in, it’d blow the breaker immediately. This male to male cord, if plugged into two outlets would do nothing.
That’s not always true. If the two outlets are on the same electrical phase, you may be okay. If they are on different phases, it would be dangerous.
Also after plugging one side in, the other side is a fun little cattle prod.
Define fun
Fun for your nipples.
Know anyone withholding information?
you can just cut a normal power cord and have that.
Now his figuring out why the lighting circuit breaker keeps tripping…
Just as well the us is only 110v, here in the UK you would blow the house fuse
not an electrician but am in the US and have blown an entire middle school gymnasium with a paperclip lmao
Gym teachers hate this one simple trick
Blow anything else walking across the parking lot?
Are we still doing phrasing?
phasing
lmao im leaving it
She forgot to say away
Crazy how high of an arc fault current such a small piece of steel can carry.
This would almost certainly trip a breaker in the US as well
Not just the house fuse. They’d arc flash their eyeballs and probably develop tinnitus.
Some Americans would be dead in an afternoon if they had access to 240 at every outlet, and others would do it on purpose to try and get a settlement payout. If you ever wonder why there’s so many warning labels, this is why.This is a continuous line of rather thick metal. It wouldn’t arc or electrocute anyone, it would get a fraction of a degree warmer before the circuit breaker tripped
at least all the european plugs i’ve seen are responsibly built. They expose the contacts on the very end of the little needly things so you can’t just casually touch them while plugging something in. Here, the entire shaft is metal and you can just like, touch both of them with the plug half plugged in.
it hurts
Probably not though, 220v here and flipped the house fuse, still have my eyeballs, didn’t exploded
Same here, though mine was from a PSU that hadn’t fully discharged. Though it felt like it affected my taste buds for a few days… I stayed awake through it. Also made my balls tingle for an hour.
It’s about the current though no?
UK we have 32A / 6A (e.g. lighting) circuit breakers, but our individual devices are fused at the plug at 1A / 3A / 6A depending on load. A single house has maybe 10 fuses max at the consumer unit.
US they have more circuit breakers, with breakers at 3A / 6A (?) without any fuses on their device plugs, so they have to routinely change the the tiny circuit breaker at the consumer unit, but because of this limitation, they typically have double the number of circuit breakers at the unit ?
In the above example, the short circuit would still happen through the plug and not before it, so in the UK we would just chuck the plug fuse
(Asking, because I genuinely don’t know)
so they have to routinely change the the tiny circuit breaker at the consumer unit,
If I understand the nomenclature correctly, your “consumer unit” is our “load panel” or “breaker box”. We use 15A or 20A breakers for our typical outlets.
If you used unfused plugs, your lower-rated cords could potentially reach fire temperatures without drawing enough current to trip the breaker in the consumer unit. Which is why you use fused plugs: to protect the lower-rated wiring from higher current.
The US uses a different approach. If we used power cords rated to 5A for a 5A appliance, and we plugged them into a 20A circuit, we could have the same problem: A 15A fault current through this cord wouldn’t trip the breaker, but could start a fire. So we don’t do that. Even on our lowest current, corded appliances, we use a cord that is rated to carry a 20A fault current capable of tripping the breaker.
(You will occasionally find cords rated for 7A. This is 7A duty current, and the limitation is because of the specific appliance socket, which has a fuse immediately inside the casing, and other restrictions. The 7A rating is not on the wire itself. On these cords, the wiring is still required to have a fault current rating of 20A)
Oh that’s an angle I never thought of – protection via thicker wires designed to trip but not to heat. Very clever!
Circuit breakers are not one time use like fuses. You can think of them as reusable fuses. An in device fuse only protects if the fault is in the device. If you were to put metal in the outlet, to stop current, you need a fuse in the outlet or somewhere else between the outlet and makns, which is what US has. Circuit breakers are typically 20A (or 15A) and multiple outlets are connected to the same circuit breaker.
Oh right, thanks for that. So fuses in the outlet are pretty typical in the US?
No. Our appliance wiring standards basically require every appliance to be able to tolerate a fault current high enough to trip a breaker. We put a 20A cord on a 500mA clock radio. If we get a short inside the appliance, it will draw enough current to trip the breaker.
The UK allows appliances to have much much lower fault current requirements than their household wiring. They can get away with this by including a current limiter (a fuse) in their plugs.
We do have provisions for fuses in plugs, but they are typically only used where we would use a lot of very low current wiring: Christmas lighting typically has a tiny fuse in the plug protecting very small wiring.
oh, very interesting – for the clock radio example, wouldn’t the radio fry the circuit board before it tripped the breaker?
Depends on where the short was. If it was a frayed lead in the PSU contacting the neutral, that short might not even hit the board.
It depends on where the fault is. Starting at the input power from the cord, the first component on the circuit board is going to be a factory installed fuse. It’s probably the same on circuit boards made for UK and EU devices because it makes good engineering sense to do it that way, even if the plug is equipped with a fuse. So if the fault is somewhere on the board, it blows the appliance fuse. If it’s somewhere before the appliance fuse, it blows either the plug fuse (if equipped), or the breaker.
true!
No, we don’t have an actual fuse in the outlet or plug. Some devices have an internal fuse, but not like the UK where almost everything has a fuse in the plug.
US breakers are usually 16 A.
15
oh wow. So when a device shorts out, it can do some real damage…
15A @ 120V. Basically, 7.5A @ 240V.
That’s a lot!
I was pretty sure you guys on that side of the pond could draw a lot more… AFAIK, you have kettles that draw 3000W, which is 12.5A @ 240V.
(Technically, we can install an outlet capable of doing that, but they are not typical in residential use. Outside of commercial-grade appliances and dedicated circuits, we’re pretty much limited to 1500-1800 watt portable appliances here. Fixed appliances like ranges, water heaters, pools, spas, are effectively unlimited, of course.)
I’ve seen a 16A fuse on a power cable for a 1000W PSU. I don’t know the fuse for my kettle, but do know it runs off a 20A circuit breaker, so that’s it’s upper bound likely
Only about 1500 watts worth
Umm… why the actual F are you able to even have anything contact the pins when an appliance is connected? Only the US and UK could possibly use this stupid design, or is this widespread?
The UK design probably wouldn’t short this but still a dangerous thing to do. The live and neurtal pins are insulated so by the time they have made contact in the socket there are no bare pins to make contact externally.
I wonder if it would be legal to build a home in the US that uses UK plugs, at a glance these seem far superior (at least in terms of safety)
When I was a kid I used to plug a lamp in half way and stick my finger in between the prongs because I was so curious. Never got hurt. If I ever have a kid they will probably do the same if they’re anything like me…
Thank you for the clarification, that makes sense. Interesting solution to an otherwise very deadly problem.
Edit: Are these insulated pins required by law, or it’s an optional thing?
And in typical Aussie fashion, we ripped that off for ourselves!
ikr? But with billions of devices using this junk connector, we’re never changing.
She meant an interesting case of electrocution for Harvard medical students of course
