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

cpsc.gov

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

#91

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

TIPSIO wrote: post #74
kevinmchugh wrote: post #39

There's a wonderful kind of writing that pops up at hardware stores in response to annual searches for suicide cables. A couple examples here https://twitter.com/kobunheat/status/1336134415336964096 THESE ARE NOT MADE THEY SHOULD NEVER BE MADE has the kind of direct clarity of existential risk that they sought for with "This is not a place of honor. Nothing of value is here."

Really interesting... What are people doing with their lights where this would ever come up though? Edit: From reddit, a use case is found [1]: > They’re actually used my law enforcement whenever they do a raid and seize a computer. If they turn the computer off, they’ll have to try and get past a password. And if the hard drive is encrypted, they’re basically SOL. > This can be a real issue for things like drug deal…

Back feeding power from a generator through a receptacle rather than a proper panel interlock.

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

#92

Post by ianferrel »

TIPSIO wrote: post #74
kevinmchugh wrote: post #39

There's a wonderful kind of writing that pops up at hardware stores in response to annual searches for suicide cables. A couple examples here https://twitter.com/kobunheat/status/1336134415336964096 THESE ARE NOT MADE THEY SHOULD NEVER BE MADE has the kind of direct clarity of existential risk that they sought for with "This is not a place of honor. Nothing of value is here."

Really interesting... What are people doing with their lights where this would ever come up though? Edit: From reddit, a use case is found [1]: > They’re actually used my law enforcement whenever they do a raid and seize a computer. If they turn the computer off, they’ll have to try and get past a password. And if the hard drive is encrypted, they’re basically SOL. > This can be a real issue for things like drug deal…

They have a strand of lights with a male and a female end, and they have strung them incorrectly in some difficult to change way so that the female end is near the outlet, and they don't want to move them.

or the have a bunch of lights daisy chained together and have run one string backwards.

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

#93

Post by 998244353 »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #39

There's a wonderful kind of writing that pops up at hardware stores in response to annual searches for suicide cables. A couple examples here https://twitter.com/kobunheat/status/1336134415336964096 THESE ARE NOT MADE THEY SHOULD NEVER BE MADE has the kind of direct clarity of existential risk that they sought for with "This is not a place of honor. Nothing of value is here."

Having never owned or set up this kind of Christmas lights, I'm curious. What exactly is it that makes people think they need such "adapters"? Do they have female plugs somewhere? Why?

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

#95

Post by wil421 »

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?

You can’t find these in brick and mortar stores for this reason. It is possible to make your own or buy them off Amazon.

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

#96

Post by CodeWriter23 »

rtkwe wrote: post #62

My grandma fried a printer/laptop once accidentally doing an unintentional version of this. The printer and laptop were plugged into different circuits and there was a big enough voltage difference if fried one of them.

Likely due to neutral not being tied to a cold water pipe.

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

#97

Post by jaywalk »

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?

Because it was up on Amazon. You can't possibly issue warnings about every potentially dangerous product that may be sold.

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

#98

Post by retrac »

998244353 wrote: post #93
kevinmchugh wrote: post #39

There's a wonderful kind of writing that pops up at hardware stores in response to annual searches for suicide cables. A couple examples here https://twitter.com/kobunheat/status/1336134415336964096 THESE ARE NOT MADE THEY SHOULD NEVER BE MADE has the kind of direct clarity of existential risk that they sought for with "This is not a place of honor. Nothing of value is here."

Having never owned or set up this kind of Christmas lights, I'm curious. What exactly is it that makes people think they need such "adapters"? Do they have female plugs somewhere? Why?

Christmas lights often have a female plug on the end to allow chaining sets of lights together. A common mistake is to put them up the wrong way and have the male connector on the far end from your outlet, and the female connector right there. That's when such a cord starts tempting even reasonable people.

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

#99

Post by mmastrac »

fullstop wrote: post #53
mmastrac wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point they just became too big for government to manage compliance with existing laws - that should have a sign that it was time to start looking at breaking them up. I cannot believe the volume of crap I'm getting from Amazon. The quality of products has nose-dived and I no longer trust them for purchasing easily-counterfeited items (like SD cards).

That, and the brands are clearly from a Chinese Name Generator, so you end up with Rabbitgoo branded products. Once those start to fail or enough people leave bad reviews the company disappears and pops up again as Luckyfang. It's whack-a-mole, and untrustworthy. If I wanted those products I'd shop aliexpress.

Ah yes, the Ali* name generator machine.

If all I can find are Rabbitgoo/Luckyfang products on Amazon, I just skip the middleman and order from AliExpress. I don't even trust the middlemen to stand behind the products these days. Most of the time they just relabel it with a more western name and don't add any sort of QA -- just drop-shipping.

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

#100

Post by Shorel »

tyingq wrote: post #14
h2odragon wrote: post #2

I recall a holocaust among hand crafted toys, a few years ago: They were enforcing "materiel origin" labeling or something and you couldn't sell home made toys without a lot of paperwork to certify they were lead free. Amazon is too big for laws to apply, and its umbrella apparently covers foreign sellers on its platform. Another fun toy they sell is the "heated shower heads", a tankless water heater element integrat…

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 only reason I use gas heaters now is: I can shower with hot enough water for a long time.

So that teardown can be terrifying to you, but millions of South Americans pay no attention to such fear mongering at all. They are safe for people.

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