Amazon could soon be on the hook for safety of third-party products it sells and ships — Government order could classify it as a distributor, potentially exposing it to more legal claims::undefined
Amazon could soon be on the hook for safety of third-party products it sells and ships — Government order could classify it as a distributor, potentially exposing it to more legal claims::undefined
I’ve seen these used in low income homes where the basement electricity is paid by the landlord for coin operated washers. Then someone gets their electricity cut (lack of payment) so they use these cables to jump the outlets and steal electricity from the landlord.
The dude just went to a hardware store and bought an extension cable and a replacement plug head. Snipped the female end and added the male in like 5 minutes.
The only practical usage of those things is jumping a generator to a house during a blackout.
Edit: yes please bring on the down votes for me sharing a story about how the poor use these scary cables. Real nice.
And that “practical use” kills linemen.
I think the correct way to jump is to flip your main so you’re disconnected. I’m probably talking out of my ass tho.
I don’t own a generator nor have the need. Just basing this on what I’ve seen in the wild.
Yes, in theory that would work. But they actually make main disconnect switches for this in the event that the main breaker fails. It’s a mandatory install in all grid tie electrical generator systems (including solar).
The more correct way is to install a switch that does that, so you can be connected to the grid or to the generator, not both. It’s basically what you said, but it doesn’t trust users to remember to do it correctly
Does such a switch exist?
It does, there’s even automatic ones so you can have the generator kick in after a second or two without power and shut off when the grid comes back up
I watched a video on it a week or two ago, I think the general term would be an interlock
I keep hearing this as the “Reason” but never backed by anything that makes sense. I’ve never needed to jump my generator to my house, and don’t particularly care to even in the event of “disaster” so don’t attack me like I’m doing this…
If you successfully suicide jumper your generator to the grid. Wouldn’t the collective load of all your neighbors stuff kill the generator? (eg bog it down to the point that it turns off? [if it has no breaker]) Also wouldn’t the load of literally your whole neighborhood trip off the breaker in the generator(or in the panel)? Doesn’t this leave it as the only “risk” is if you happen to turn on the generator as the lineman themselves are specifically holding a live wire with an active connection to a ground/neutral before the previous stuff can happen? Or only if they happen to isolate you and then you turn on the genny after? Wouldn’t you agree that this last thing would be an incredibly rare?
And I can never find an article where a cable was determined to be the cause of an electrocution…
Now because the internet is the internet… I’m not advocating for using suicide cables… There’s much easier reasons why this is a terrible idea (exposed live contacts being literally the primary one). But I just never understood the “lineman” argument with all the stuff that would have to go specifically “right” in order to do that kind of harm to a lineman.
Look into it more. It’s incredibly common, and the voltage from a small generator in your yard, yes in theory, could leak to neighbors. However electricity follows the shortest path to ground. So if your home is drawing it, you will basically prevent that leakage. If you do fire it up, but use nothing, you may partially leak current to your neighbors (and potentially be liable for damages if your little backyard Honda or generac has a power spike at some point)
And the danger to to the linemen doing repair isn’t the voltage necessarily (house current of 120v is not remotely high enough amperage to cause instant death. You can stick a fork in an outlet and try it) it is that you may suddenly electrify lines they are working on while suspended. If you charge the line, maybe you shock them and they have an accident. Or worse, your charged line creates enough of a charge differential that during the repair the much higher voltage electricity they have not isolated yet may bridge the air gap because you’ve energized the “dead” side prematurely.
In reality, most electricians and linemen are careful of this because of this exact reason. But it did harm a few people before moron’s use of these things became common knowledge. Prior to these kinds of cables being commonly marketed for this, a lineman could hop up and reconnect you faster because there was an assumption they had full control of the current pathways. Now that’s a toss up. This isn’t a recent thing either, but it’s becoming more common.