5d ago

Forbidden Tech

104 comments

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."
- 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.
  
  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.
- Connecting this to two plugs on the same circuit won't short anything unless one of the outlets is wired incorrectly.
  They're used to backfeed power to your house from a generator during power outages. Technically not legal to use, but most people aren't going to pay $1k for a proper transfer switch. They come with the caveat of 'not to be operated by fuckwits' since you can kill a linesman if you don't flip your main breaker before using them.
- 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"
- I saw an electrician use one for troubleshooting. Half the outlets in the house were in serial on the same circuit, and there was a problem in the wall somewhere. He disconnected the wires from the breaker and backfed power from a live circuit to an outlet to see if there were any more breaks further away.

104 comments