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CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

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Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#171

Post by kube-system »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #143
angrygoat wrote: post #78

I've been shocked by one of these – I was setting up some computers, asked for an extension cord, got handed a male-to-male cord. Didn't notice until I plugged one end in, and grabbed the other while fishing around for it while looking. It never occurred to me that it might be male on both ends. The shock was very painful but the RCD tripped and saved my life. I'm quite grateful to the regulators here in Australia th…

Interesting. I’ve never tried it out, but I assumed that an RCD / GFCI would trip more or less instantaneously. I’m kind of surprised you felt much of anything.

It is also important to note that ground fault devices only trip when there is a fault to ground. If your body becomes a conductor between live and neutral, you can draw up to the current limit for that branch circuit.

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#172

Post by 14 »

toast0 wrote: post #160
14 wrote: post #29

When I read the article and it said they sell for $40-$72 my jaw dropped. You could make one of these for under $10 pretty easily. Hell if you were resourceful you could make it for free by finding someone giving away a couple plug in appliances for free and cut the cord and make it. Also I believe these cords are also sold for christmas lights if you hang them the wrong way but if used with a generator I believe the…

Christmas lights usually aren't grounded like the cable shown. I'm sure there are two prong suicide cables too, though.

You can still plug a 2 prong cord into a grounded cord.

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#173

Post by londons_explore »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #143
angrygoat wrote: post #78

I've been shocked by one of these – I was setting up some computers, asked for an extension cord, got handed a male-to-male cord. Didn't notice until I plugged one end in, and grabbed the other while fishing around for it while looking. It never occurred to me that it might be male on both ends. The shock was very painful but the RCD tripped and saved my life. I'm quite grateful to the regulators here in Australia th…

Interesting. I’ve never tried it out, but I assumed that an RCD / GFCI would trip more or less instantaneously. I’m kind of surprised you felt much of anything.

You'd be surprised... They usually can only trip at the end of the cycle - ie. in a 60 Hz power grid, that might take 17 milliseconds. Many take 40+ milliseconds.

Luckily, electricity is about 20x safer as long as it is supplied for less time than one heartbeat[1] - ie. 500 milliseconds.

Thats how RCD's can be so lifesaving even though they are relatively slow.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_injury#/media/File:...

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#174

Post by kube-system »

alistairSH wrote: post #146

Wow. I didn't think these were a thing. Because it's such a terrible idea. Wow. Hanging Christmas lights isn't that hard. Lay'em out, attach them to each other, plug into wall to test, then and only then hang them. Kind of like the old measure twice, cut once for woodworking. And the generator usage. WTF? Who buys a $1000+ generator and then half-assess the installation? (rhetorical question) Power inlets aren't part…

> Who buys a $1000+ generator and then half-assess the installation?

People who buy a generator after they lose power. They will want to begin use of it immediately, rather than scheduling an electrician for next month.

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#175

Post by minerva23 »

elzbardico wrote: post #27

How can folks not see that using such contraption is obviously a shitty idea? That’s why we need to completely overhaul the teaching of physics in middle and high school. Every citizen should have at least a basic understanding of basic physical concepts that allow then to understand why this kind of thing is a bad idea

People make mistakes. I might have done something like that until reading the article. This caught my eye,

> the flow of electric power in the direction reverse to that of the typical flow of power circumvents safety features of the home’s electrical system and can result in a fire.

At first I thought they were BSing. A fuse doesn’t care which side is the source, it blows on current. I kept thinking about it and realized what they’re talking about. If you plug a 30a generator circuit into a 15a circuit and then draw more than 15a on that circuit (thereby avoiding the fuse/CB), you’re going to have a bad time. Similarly, even if you’re only drawing 15a on that circuit, but you draw another 15a on another (15a bypassing the fuse and 15a going thru the fuse), you’re still going to have a bad time.

It’s a very specific set of circumstances, but it probably happens more than you would think. Because of the fact that they’re only energizing half their circuits, they probably start moving loads to working outlets.

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#177

Post by kube-system »

hedora wrote: post #161
xani_ wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people would complain as they don't plan on using generator and extra socket and switch is extra cost. People needing that cable are just being cheap and not wanting to do it properly

It's $100-200 in extra parts. California already forces people to spend $1000's on LED compatible dimmers and moisture / motion sensing switches (spoiler alert: none of these things work properly, and they all have a high first year failure rate). They also have fascination with putting power outlets in useless places.

California has a lot of electrical requirements that other states don't have... like battery backups on garage door openers.

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#178

Post by stickfigure »

Shorel wrote: post #100
tyingq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a terrifying teardown of one of those heated shower heads here: https://hackaday.com/2018/08/25/electric-shower-head-tear-do... When he opens it, the ground wire is just floating in the enclosure, not hooked up to anything. Contacts that would mechanically fail to shorted, etc. He also mentions it flows ~24 amps of 220V on the high setting.

I used them for over 20 years in South America. I even burned them many times, to the dismay of my dad. I burned them because I wanted hotter water, and closed the water line as much as I can, the resistance heated up to red and then melted. The fact that ground contacts the water is by design. As far as I know, no one has ever been electrocuted by using one of these showers, not even me, so used to burn them. The on…

I can confirm these are universal in Central America. It always terrified me somewhat, especially the more janky looking installs.

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#179

Post by kube-system »

mrweasel wrote: post #119
dlandis wrote: post #66

I'm curious why is this warning only being issued now? Until now they haven't issued any warnings about this type of product?

And why a warning? Why not tell Amazon to remove the items. I feel like most countries have a regulatory authority that has rules banning dangerous product like this.

This is that authority.

The purpose of the warning is for people who have already purchased it. And because the CPSC is likely aware that Amazon Marketplace listings are akin to playing whack-a-mole with overseas drop shippers.

Re: CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon

#180

Post by vel0city »

mrweasel wrote: post #115
Lichtso wrote: post #86

All these cable stories always make me wonder: Is it possible to design a safe gender-less power plug? By that I mean one that has no male and female end but two symmetrical ones. That would not only be safer but also more convenient as there would only be one type of such cable, instead of three: (female-male, female-female, male-male).

I suppose yes. I can certainly imaging a few designs, but they would all be more expensive. Most of our electrical infrastructure is old, like really old. Modern LED light bulbs screw into a socket that over 100 years old. We run 240V to electronics that immediately transform it down to 48/24/12 or even 5V, so why even run 240V to anything beyond maybe a handful of places in an average home? It's not like you can get…

> why even run 240V to anything beyond maybe a handful of places in an average home?

While I might end up only wanting 48/24/12/5V for a number of things in my home, I may still want a good number of total watts in a room. Sure, most of the components on my desktop are running off 12/5/3.3V, but its spreading that out across a lot of wires. It would have to be a pretty beefy cable to send 500W at 12V to my desktop, that's ~42A of current! Compared to delivering it as 120V at the wall, where that 500W is then only 4.2A, which does not need nearly as beefy of wire.

And even then, that's just the desktop. We still have another 100W of monitors, probably another 15W of lighting, my phone charger will use 20W, a ham radio that can do 200W.

I'm going to need some really beefy wires to handle the same 1800W like what I currently have in each room of my house.

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