CPSC warns consumers to stop using male-to-male extension cords sold on Amazon | Hacker News Reader

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

cpsc.gov

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 dealers or CP busts, where they need to transport the computer for analysis, but can’t turn it off. So they roll in a specially designed power bank, plug it into the computer’s power strip, then unplug the power strip from the wall. The power bank keeps the strip hot while they transport it.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/livesound/comments/am6308/one_of_my...

Hung two strands of holiday lights in opposite directions.

You hang up two strings of lights outside your house. Usually each string plugs into the previous string and it all works.

But if you get one string backwards instead of having a male and female connector to hook them together you have two males or two females.

Taking down and putting up a long string of lights again is a huge hassle. But if you could just buy this one little cable…

Christmas lights often have a plug with prongs at one of the cable, and a socket at the other end. This way you can make a super-long one by just plugging one into the other.

I suspect that someone accidentally just started with the wrong end, and ended up with the plug with prongs at the far end, and the socket at the end by the electrical socket.

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

Thats why I made one. I've upgraded now to a proper panel setup for my generator, but it was a quick and simple solution in the moment.

For anyone who doesn’t see why this is a bad idea:

If you plug your generator in like this, you can backfeed the step-down transformers in your neighborhood, which then step up the voltage from your generator and energize your local utility lines with potentially several thousand volts.

This can be a nasty surprise for utility workers trying to restore power to what they think are de-energized wires.

In Florida there are specific legal penalties for injury from this, due to prolific generator use. The simple solution is to turn off the main breaker before plugging in the generator to the home/building. Interlock kits [1] are widely available and can be used with a secondary breaker that an auxiliary male plug can feed.

[1] https://interlockkit.com/

No, you won't. This myth needs to die; at least you didn't include the claim that "dozens" of line workers have been killed by this (they haven't.)

First off: line workers don't touch anything unless they've verified with testing equipment that it isn't live and/or they're using something like hotsticks. Anything they actually put hands on is grounded first.

Second: if power is out, your generator would be connected to everything downstream of the point of isolation which means the main breaker in your house is effectively connected to a near-zero-ohm shunt. Your generator likely cannot power even one or two full households worth of surge load, much less an entire neighborhood. Said generator would immediately bog down, and also pop its breaker.

Stop talking about things you know nothing about.

Only if you neglect to trip the main breaker.

It gets worse: in BC, the local lines lead back to a substation, and from there to the switching yard, by which point tens of millions of volts backfeed into the grid that connects to the WAC Bennett or Revelstoke dams, causing them to run backward, sucking all the water upriver and absolutely decimating the salmon population.

So just don’t use the cheater cords. Save the fish, save the planet, save your fingers.

This is bullshit. Having more volts does not mean your 10kw generator is going to spin a dam backwards.

I think it was a joke.

Tell that to the fish, buddy, tell it to the fish.

Oh, wait, you can’t because they’re all dead now!

Now stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Mmmm. Smoked salmon.

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.

Holiday lights are the main scenario (which is why these signs are often seasonal). Someone will spend hours stringing up lights only to find that they strung backwards with the female end dangling near their desired outlet.

USB cables / “plug & play” have made this more confusing for those with no understanding of electricity; nor do we as a society routinely educate children (or adults) on basic electrical responsibility.

Suicide cords are not that dangerous when used by a professional. But when used by somebody not respectful and knowledgeable they become quite dangerous. The catch is that 95% of professionals would find another way to do it.

As far as the police example that can be safer than you think. The power supply can be set to not apply power to the plug end until it senses power or you manually hit a switch. But you still have the safety issue of the power strip's end. This should be alleviated by turning off the strip but I would still cover it personally

the 5 percent of professionals who insist on doing things the bad way deserve the consequences and subsequent removal of previously applied "professional" status.

I repair homes for a living and the amount of stuff I've found that's wrong which has presumably been done by a professional is staggering.

The house I'm currently working at, I'm replacing all the flooring, most of the sub floor, some of the walls, and more. I'll have an electrician come in soon and do some work to fix the electrical. It's a metal roof and they did a real good job installing it except they apparently ran out of the proper screws and used incorrect screws to finish the job. The proper screws to attach a metal roof have a gasket so that water can't get in through the screw hole.

Do not use deck screws to attach a metal roof or you'll be paying someone like me a lot of money later on.

> I repair homes for a living and the amount of stuff I've found that's wrong which has presumably been done by a professional is staggering.

That’s because the vast majority of actual skilled professional tradespeople work in commercial and industrial construction, the talent level for residential construction is not very high. There’s also a lot more oversight on commercial and industrial projects (engineer/architect/owner’s representative/construction coordinator) that catches a lot of laziness issues like the one you noted in your post. Commercial and industrial customers expect much better warranty terms than residential customers and it’s not as easy to cycle through a series of corporations on the commercial/industrial side since some opportunities require company history and experience to qualify for even working on a project, leading to contractors ensuring their work is done correctly, since they’re on the hook for repairs down the line.

I know there are skilled people that work in residential construction, but on average the skill level is much higher for commercial and industrial.

I may be biased as I work for a commercial/industrial contractor that uses union labor.

Funny seeing the /r/livesound link.

Worked in live entertainment for a while. One cable we would use a lot is called a 'two-fer', it has one male and that splits to two female ends (so you can plug two fixtures into one outlet or dimmer). There also exists a 'suicide two-fer' that is the opposite, you can imagine why it has that name.

I believe I've also seen some 'suicide' cable setups when we needed to make multi-phase power for a motor controller by using different 120v sources. Can't remember the exact cabling of that but someone did end up grabbing a hot male end in that process and got a nice tickle.

Suicide cable joins two 120v (from different phases) to a 208v. Most high powered lighting fixtures require 208. Super illegal, but often facilities do not have the correct electrical setup and people use this to get around it. I almost got cooked but one of those when a stagehand unplugged it without waiting till power was shut off. Contacted and electrified the whole truss.

cops doing cop stuff. best and the brightest members of society, right?

If they're specially designed, they should have a specialized cable..

> plug it into the computer’s power strip, then unplug the power strip from the wall

For additional opsec, plug your computer directly into wall socket? That is new to me but interesting nonetheless.

Wire it permanently to the house wiring.

Add a trembler switch to the internal power supply.

Depends on your country's wall outlet designs. In the US it would be pretty easy to partially remove the plug from the wall outlet, exposing the bare prongs without disconnecting them from the outlet.

Then you just supply A/C power of your own before unplugging fully from the wall outlet.

Interesting - surely then one would wire the faceplate in a way that it would disable the circuit should it be removed.

I think it would better and much safer to change your PC so that it shuts off if the PC is moved. Offhand, you could probably wire a relay into the reset pins on your motherboard, and use an ESP32 to trigger the connection based on an accelerometer or pressure sensor on the bottom of the PC.

I think there are some low-tech solutions that work as well, but I don't know them off-hand. If you wanted to go that route, you should check out the Harvey's Casino Bomb. That guy had layers upon layers of triggers that would probably work just as well for preventing tampering with a PC.

That would keep the meddling to low-voltage stuff that won't kill someone or start a house fire if it doesn't work correctly. Messing with mains voltage seems dangerous and unnecessary since most of the PC runs on low voltage.

I'm not saying law enforcement never does it, but that sounds like a very bad idea. Your power bank will be out of phase with the grid, and both will be feeding into eachother, which can cause all sorts of problems if I recall my classes properly.

There's a device for doing that properly that automatically detects the appropriate moment for changeover and does it near instantly. It's still quite dangerous. https://wiebetech.com/products/hotplug-field-kit/

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.

Christmas lights typically are male/female so that can daisy-chain the together to cover a longer distance. Rather than have to buy a 400 foot cable you would have 4x100, or 8x50. This is useful so you can more freely extend your decoration, or replace a smaller failed section. If you start with them the wrong way, you have to reverse all the cables.

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 that made them mandatory back int he 90s.

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.

They still mechanically open the circuit breaker, which takes time.

> To reduce the risk of electrocution, RCDs should operate within 25–40 milliseconds

Now divide 1000ms to 50Hz.

20 millisecond-seconds.

Or 16.6 for 60Hz networks. Do you remember what it's sine wave when you on AC? You will be applied to the current for up to 2-2.5 cycles, so it's up to amount of current what you will get.

@londons_explore pretty summed it up and gave a link to a very good graph.

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.

For the timeframe relevant to your body, you can draw several multiples of the circuit limit for the branch circuit. (A breaker will typically pass around 3x its label rating for 3 seconds or more before tripping.) The resistance of your body would be the limit here rather than the breaker typically.

Very true, not that 15a vs 45a would potentially be of any difference to the person being shocked. If anyone is low enough resistance to draw anywhere approaching either of those currents, they no longer care, as they are long dead.

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:...

Note that if you could design a faster breaker, more lives might actually be lost...

Imagine you had an ideal switch that could disconnect a circuit instantly.

Any devices powered on that circuit with transformers, inductors or motors in (think vacuum cleaners, power tools, microwaves, blenders, etc) will have a current flowing through them, and as that current is interrupted there will be a huge voltage spike - easily 10x the normal voltage for a few milliseconds.

If a human is touching that circuit, the 10x higher voltage will cause 10x more current to flow into the human.

Hooray - your 'safer' RCD kills more people.

The real solution is to have a more complex switch which disconnects the circuit at the same time as shorting out the circuit, to allow any current that was flowing to gradually dissipate into the wiring resistance. To my knowledge, such things don't exist today.

Isn't the solution a GFCI outlet at the wall, not at the breaker? Suppose you're in a bathroom; near water with a hair dryer, space heater, or some other non-inductive load. If there is a short, the circuit is cut from that outlet; inductive loads in the rest of the house aren't involved.

Well there can still be an inductive load that you're disconnecting... Like the vacuum cleaner you idiotically used to try and clean a wet carpet...

Luckily, the problem I described is almost a non-issue. Deaths due to electrocution in buildings with a GFCI have fallen to pretty much zero - there were only four deaths due to electrocution at home in the UK last year (where voltage is very high and RCD's are common). That figure includes deaths by suicide, lightning indoors, and deaths where an RCD wouldn't help such as poking around inside CRT's, so it's entirely possible an RCD is already saving every life.

It's quite a few years ago now, but the thing I remember was pain in the moment, and then very sore muscles in my hand and arm, presumably because the muscles were convulsed by the shock. I was sore for a couple of days and then I was fine.

While a regrettable experience, it's extremely unlikely the RCD saved your life. Being shocked by 240V domestic supply is a thing that happens all the time, and deaths are very rare. Usually you'd have to have current passing through your heart, as if you grabbed a hot wire with one hand and were standing barefoot in a puddle with the opposite foot. Grabbing the end of a M-M extension cord like you described would probably result in current mostly flowing through your hand a little, then to the neutral or ground conductors.

Grateful to the same regulators that didn't outlaw suicide cables?

This is one nice thing about electric in the US - household voltage is mostly 110v, with special outlets for the occasional exception that requires 220v. And even in those cases, it's not 220v on one wire, it's just two wires of 110v.

I've been shocked by 110v countless times (well, maybe a dozen or so), and it's just an momentary shock (in both senses) and nothing more. Not recommended! Be careful! Circumstances (water) can make it fatal! But still I've been fine.

Australia and lots of other countries use ~240v as normal household voltage. I've never been shocked by 240v, but from your description I'm really glad about that.

Are there any downsides for using 110v instead of 220v?

110V AC can be enough to contract your muscles involuntarily, so if you get unlucky you may find yourself unable to let go. It's definitely safer, but still not safe.

> Are there any downsides for using 110v instead of 220v?

Not really, except that most appliances will only use 110v instead of 220v, because most power outlets are 110v with a few special 220v outlets set up specifically for heavier appliances. Usually 110v is perfectly adequate anyway, but electric kettles in America are slower.

Depends on person. I've accidentally touched 220V several times and only felt a little stinging. One time I was kneeling on wet grass. But - please don't try it yourself, I'm just very lucky and probably a bad conductor, you might be not.

> Are there any downsides for using 110v instead of 220v?

You need thicker wires and higher current to carry the same power. In Europe electric kettles are much more common because they can use up to 2kW in most households without any problems.

> even in those cases, it's not 220v on one wire, it's just two wires of 110v.

This is not really correct. Voltage is potential difference, so the voltage of a single conductor as measured from a single point is always zero, as there's no difference. Similar to how a boulder on top of a hill on Earth has potential energy from gravity, because there's a difference in height, and a force acting on that mass. That same boulder with no hill or gravity has no potential energy.

In America, residential panels are generally wired with three current carrying conductors (hot, hot, neutral), and a ground. Each hot is one leg of a 240V transformer, and the neutral is a center tap, which has 120V of potential difference (voltage) between both hots. In 120V circuits, one hot is combined with the neutral for 120V of potential. Other circuits and outlets can combine two hots for 240V of potential, or two hots and a neutral for both 240V and 120V capability, such as might be used by your dryer, with large motors and heaters driven by the higher voltage, and control circuitry being powered by the lower voltage.

> Are there any downsides for using 110v instead of 220v?

Because the current required for the same amount of power at a lower voltage is higher (Ohm's law), thicker wire is required to carry that current, and more heat is generated.

Source: DIYer who's wired my own garage, including a 100A subpanel and various circuits, which was all permitted and passed inspection.

110v delivers less power at the same amperage, and higher amperage drives a need for a thicker conductor.

As a kid (in Europe), I've shocked myself a few times with 230V. Breakers didn't save me, but what did I don't know either. One time I rember pulling a cable (and forgetting I had plugged to other end in) and being amazed at the strong buzzing when I tried to grab it (which I did repeatedly).

I kind of hate that the notice points to a safety code (NFPA 70 in this case) but in order to see it, you have create an account in order to read it. If you want a copy of the code, you have to pay.

Not sure how it works, but there is a "Free Access" button here...leads to a registration form.

https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-stand...

There is free-to-read-online access to the code.

You need to pay to download or get a printed copy, but the code is free (as in beer) to read.

Google brings up a few PDFs, dunno if they're the correct ones: https://www.google.com/search?q=NFPA%2070%20filetype%3Apdf

UpCodes cofounder here, couldn't agree more. We're fighting the Law Publishers for free, ungated access to the law. They think they own the laws, it's insane.

Previous Hacker News thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19617073

We host a lot of laws based on the NFPA 70 BTW (see https://up.codes/codes/general). We take a ton of heat for hosting the law, it's messed up.

I think your beef here is with legislatures, not publishers like NFPA.

It takes a lot of work to write and maintain these codes. NFPA, a private organization, gets money to do this by charging for the code.

Maybe legislatures should be paying NFPA to develop these things, rather than paying nothing for them and leaving NFPA to figure out a way to fund them. Then legislatures could buy a license for them, or demand that they be put into the public domain.

But it's not fair to blame NFPA for charging for these things after they fronted the significant effort to develop them.

A significant misconception is about who writes the codes. I haven't looked closely at NFPA's model, but many of the Law Publishers actually have outside volunteers write the codes - government officials, industry professionals and interested third parties.

Another misconception is around where their revenue comes from. ICC for example (who we know the best given their 2 lawsuits against us), makes 80.0% of their revenue from program services, including consulting, certification, and training, which do not rely on profiting by limiting access to the law (see their last 990). These non-profit organizations are extremely lucrative and pay their executives many times the median non-profit executive salaries.

We've had various laws based on ICC codes on our site since 2016, and they're making more money than they've ever made (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/363...).

par for the course with these types of codes though.

In France if the law references a norm and makes it mandatory then the norm must be publically accessible for free.

Here is the list of all the norms that must be available for free to the public in France:

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/contenu/menu/autour-de-la-loi...

Electrical code for residential building is called "NFC 15-100" in France.

Vendors will usually publish short and well made documents referencing the essential stuff from NFC 15-100 when installing electrical hardware.

Example of Schneider:

https://www.se.com/fr/fr/work/support/local/reglementation/n...

The correct solution here is for the courts to treat Amazon like a retailer.

If your local hardware store sells you one of these, then they (assuming the manufacturer cannot be found) assume liability for whatever damage it does.

Exactly.

You order it from Amazon, you pay Amazon, it's shipped in an Amazon box, and arrives on an Amazon truck, but they aren't liable for anything because you didn't buy it from Amazon.

Amazon gets away with so much it’s not even funny. What a joke.

ToO bIg toO fAiL

As politicians would say, Amazon is too big and if we had to close it down, there would be too many job losses, that would be a political suicide.

In my opinion that is one of the problems of late stage capitalism - corporations are allowed to grow out of control like cancer.

It is not capitalism then. It is a bastardized state sponsored social-fascism. The Society that owns it is small and not benefiting the entire population but it is still state sponsored and state encouraged.

A.k.a suicide cables.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/suicide_cable

Lots more here, as well: https://twitter.com/cursedcables?lang=en

AliExpress is filled with cursed connectors!

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

One look at the image and my immediate reaction is "no way anyone would be stupid enough to buy something like this"

It's like an utterly evil version of that "HDMI to Gardena" meme, only it actually exists and Amazon carries it...

https://external-preview.redd.it/AOlxnd9E3WMW3KID3LhjpL3o70s...

My undergrad was electrical engineering. I work as an engineer. I'm not inclined to buy one of these (and not just because I could simply make one if I wanted).

One look at that image, and the reaction of a lot of people would be "they wouldn't sell it if it weren't safe".

Should the nanny state prevent the sale of such things? Well, ignoring that the nanny state disallows the sale of things like cannabis in many locations, I argue that people who are smarter than average can make things that the person of average intelligence is likely to unsafely use. We can post all of the dismissive comments we like, but a lot of people are $SOMETHING_OTHER_THAN_ELECTRICIAN_OR_PHYSICIST. If you look at that item and your reaction is "unsafe", well, good for you and thank your preferred deity for the privilege you've been given. Now see if you can spare a thought for those to whom it is not obvious. You've got your blindspots, too, but it doesn't necessarily make you stupid.

So, I have a very good understanding of basic physics. I have a very good ability to critically think. I am, what I would consider, educated and intelligent.

And there was a time in my life when I googled "double male cord" because my snow-blower has a female plug for the electric start that is supposed to go to a converter box specifically sold by the company, and I lost it and didn't want to pay $100 for a new one.

Had I not paused and thought twice, I absolutely could've purchased one without thinking, or made one myself.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, people can be stupid, even if they're smart.

I think that just underlines his point though, you started going down that path and then had the ability pause and think critically for a moment.

Had the knowledge too though. Many people lack the knowledge of how things work, as well as the inclination to stop and think before acting.

Sometimes even smart people might forget to pause.

Whoever green lit the decision to use a female NEMA plug plus a specific converter box should be banned from product design. It would have probably been fractional cents more expensive to use a male plug on the snow blower.

If you plugged your double cord into the snowblower and never unplugged it, it wouldn't be that unsafe.

People can't see it's a shitty idea because they're operating at the level of clicking on Amazon and assuming it wouldn't be sold if it weren't safe. This shouldn't be a CPSC warning, but rather a prosecution.

I myself have made a suicide cable to move a load from one circuit to another without shutting it off. But doing the wiring myself made it very clear that I was off the beaten path, and so I had to really think through what I was doing. There's a few obvious concerns with the use I've described here, but I'm not going to write them out because they should be either readily apparent, or you should not be doing such things.

It's the same territory as working with line voltage on a test bench, floating an oscilloscope, etc. All things that can be done safely when you're knowledgeable and focused on the task at hand. But should never be normalized into every day relaxed life, even if you "know what you are doing".

Electricity is like magic to most people. If you ask around you'll find that folks don't have the vaguest idea how it works. All they know is "plug it in and it turns on". These people are eating and sleeping inches from voltages that could easily kill them. Safety measures are fairly good (even with the terrible US plugs), but safety devices can only go so far.

I would strongly encourage that everyone (even those who aren't interested in technical subjects) learn the water analogy and some electrical safety fundamentals.

You don't have to know all the physics, but you should be given a basic intuition of what current, voltage, resistance, and power are.

There's a fun little book called "There Are No Electrons" the premise of which is that most early education on electricity is full of bullshit analogies, but that those are also misleading and confusing, so it basically sets out to present a different set of incorrect-but-useful analogies that're easier to understand and are good-enough to give you decent intuition for how electricity works—even if it's "well ackshually" entirely wrong.

Water analogues kinda assumes you somehow know hydraulics but not electrics tho.

I've used fluid analogies for intuition, even working as a professional design engineer. It's much easier to feel flow, pressure, momentum, etc than try to develop an independent intuition based solely on equations.

I'm actually starting to learn hydraulics at the moment and it's a head trip. I know these schematic symbols must have some kind of method to them, but what. Also all of these components are just created by drilling holes in metal blocks? One simple trick manufacturers don't want you to know.

Yeah but it's only similar from a very far away. Like just simple resistor, in electronics flow increases linearly with voltage, in hydraulics it doesn't.

Or how in some hydraulics system it's not really the flow that's the motivator for action, like in simple hydraulic brakes it's not the flow of the fluid in a circle that powers anything, it's just that the push on fluid on one side pushes the brake pad on the other. So it's not really a flow but wave of pressure (which is kinda how current actually flows in the conductor anyway...)

> simple resistor, in electronics flow increases linearly with voltage, in hydraulics it doesn't

Sure. I'm not advocating substituting electronics components with a similar seeming hydraulic one and then taking it literally, but rather guiding your basic intuition. The linear resistor is actually much nicer than the nonlinear orifice when it comes time to calculate. And some times the fluid model even does a better job encouraging one to pay attention to things like parasitics, which are too easy to ignore when looking at a circuit diagram without them.

> in some hydraulics system it's not really the flow that's the motivator for action, ... it's just that the push on fluid on one side pushes the brake pad on the other

Like the gate of a common FET.

I mean most people know it's a terrible idea, it's just that 0.1% of a population of 330 million people is 330k people, and I don't think that 0.1% is from a failure of our education system

Why would you think that most people would just know it’s a terrible idea? After all, the vast majority of (digital) cables that people use mostly work just fine so long as they fit—leaving aside vagaries of USB-C and Thunderbolt.

> Why would you think that most people would just know it’s a terrible idea?

I dunno, statistic about deaths from electrocution?

And why would they connect overall statistics about deaths from electrocution to that particular thing? Lots of ways to get electrocuted.

Sure but they're pretty much overall, so adding "coz he used a suicide power cord" would show even less people actually affected"

The problem isn't that it won't work, it's the exposed live prongs.

Your estimate could be extremely high. What those quick with a dismissive comment forget is that 15% of the population has an IQ of 85 or less. So to answer the FAANG-employed Stanford grad's question of "how could anyone be this stupid?": easy, a non-trivial percentage of them are born that way.

Regardless, there are plenty of my Microsoft/Google/FB-employed neighbors that I wouldn't trust around anything more dangerous than what comes out of a USB port, either.

Probably because the alternative is to not have power during the (increasingly common) blackouts.

I'm assuming that is the alternative due to there not being a proper way to accomplish this goal that does not cost thousands of dollars.

There are reasonably priced (under $100, though not under $3 like a common receptacle) male power inlets.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Reliance-Controls-30-Amp-Power-I... is the first one I found on Google (4-wire for 240V center-tapped), but there are many, including a 120V version: https://www.amazon.com/Leviton-5278-CWP-Straight-Flanged-Rec...

Even these, if hardwired to the building's service, represent some risk, but the risk is to the people poking fingers into the box, which could reasonably have a locking cover on it. If that male inlet is powered only via a transfer switch or a back-fed breaker that's normally off, the risk is much, much lower than a double-male cord.

Unless it is installed properly, that is just as dangerous as the cord in the article, as long as you remember the "plug generator in last" rule.

In particular, both can kill hapless power company employees by unexpectedly backfeeding into downed parts of the grid, and they have similar carbon monoxide/fire hazard issues.

(Not that there is anything wrong with the product; I wish they were mandatory, so they'd reliably be inspected after installation!)

I don't know what percentage of electrical work is inspected, but I would certainly not characterize it as "reliably". There are aisles full of electrical equipment sold at Home Depot and Lowes. The (vast?) majority of that is getting installed with no inspections.

Inspections are hard to avoid when you build a new house, or perform major renovations.

If the outlet were required at that point in time, there wouldn't be a temptation to improperly retrofit the outlet in later.

Most building codes (as adopted by the AHJs) do not require systems not part of the job to be brought up to current code if they met code at the time of install, are in good repair, and are not being significantly worked on. You can add an addition without converting all the old bedroom breakers to AFCI. (That represents a much higher safety risk than any generator inlet could possibly be.)

Well yeah, but if the addition (or your new EV, which might actually support working as a home backup battery) requires a new panel, then the port would be required.

On the other hand, generators are rapidly becoming obsolete, so this might be akin to requiring installation of upgraded coal shoots.

My local code allows me to replace outlets without any permit/inspection. With toddlers around I've replaced a lot of outlets with modern safety outlets (have a shutter so you can't stick something in the hot slot).

I've done other electric work that has passed inspection.

The actual chance of your generator backfeeding the grid is nigh nill. The issue is that all your neighbors are still connected. The moment your generator touches the grid it acts as pretty much a dead short.

Not saying it can't happen. The main one where it could is if the break is between your house and everybody else. But in the vast majority of situations you will instantly pop the dinky 15a breaker

The correct low-budget way to connect one of these is using an interlock kit:

https://www.se.com/us/en/product/HOMCGK2C/load-center-access...

You need the inlet, the kit, and a correctly sized breaker that is suitable for backfeeding.

Yes!

Not only is a mechanical interlock a code-compliant method to properly protect downstream line workers but it is also a simple and comprehensible component that costs very little and never breaks.

We have a whole-house generator connected to our main panel and I made a very deliberate decision not to add the complexity and fragility of an automatic transfer switch. The little metal tab will always work and nobody will ever be confused.

I highly doubt that having an electrician come out to install an outdoor inlet would cost thousands of dollars.

It definitely would be thousands to get one of these installed in California. The electricians cost way over $100 per hour.

Also, a backflow cutoff is required by law, as are permits, inspections, etc.

San Jose has setback requirements, requires a concrete pad (for hardwired installations), and charges various fees:

https://www.sanjoseca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument?id=4499...

It wouldn't surprise me if you could get a deal on "new generator; free installation" though.

The parts alone to do it properly are several hundred dollars - the inlet box is around $60, 25 feet of 10/3 cable is $100 (obviously more for longer - wiring has gotten really expensive the past few years), circuit breaker $20, interlock kit is $150 (https://interlockkit.com/product/square-d-kit-k-5010-125-200...). Plus permit and inspection ($150 is the cheapest permit in my town). That's already $480 and you haven't even talked to the electrician yet.

If you get lucky and find an inexpensive electrician AND the inlet you want to install is located very close to the panel (minimal drilling, short wire, etc.), you can probably get it done for less than $1000, but probably not a whole lot less.

Installing an outlet yourself? Buy one for $10 or something, more if it's some special outlet, maybe spend an hour or two at most with the actual install.

Hire an electrician to install it for you? Between markups and labor, easily several hundred bucks at the very least. A thousand is entirely plausible.

Ignorance is expensive, knowing how things like electricity and plumbing work will save you money and help make life more fulfilling.

My city charges $300 just to pull a permit, and an electrician charges $100 just to show up. Then at minimum you'll need a new branch circuit, breaker, conduit, fittings, outdoor box, wire, interlock kit, and the outlet. And you better hope your breaker box has availability for a new branch and that it's recent enough for an interlock kit. If not, you'll need to replace the entire panel and all circuit breakers. And in my jurisdiction, grounding requirements had recently changed, and my local inspector required that I bring the grounding up to code in order to have any work approved.

As a layperson, electricity is one of those things that seems really complex and dangerous to mess with. But we've managed to abstract it down to "plug this cable into a socket" or "flip a switch". I remember doing the V = IR calculations in highschool, the difference between alternating and direct currents, as well as the relationship between volts and amperes.

While fascinating, none of that translated to real world working knowledge. In fact I was greatly surprised to learn about how my outlets are actually wired when I had to get my home's electrical panel replaced. Turns out, swapping electrical outlets and switches is actually really easy, but I only felt confidence once I had an electrician show me. Otherwise I would still be too worried about burning my house down

We spent hours calculating the impedance and current and resistance and whatever in dozens of complicated circuits in undergrad, and I can't tell you how a basic home electrical installation works. File that under "things that everybody should know but school doesn't want to teach".

It's not just knowing how to do it, it's actually doing it right that counts. That's something nobody can guarantee, but experience (and professional insurance) can help with.

When I was a small child with endless un-jaded curiosity and no fear I once took a pair of cutters to a power cable plugged into a live 120v US outlet; it made an incredibly bright arc that I could see the afterimage of in my vision for several minutes and a deafeningly loud pop (In retrospect may have been the first stage of my tinnitus). For years growing up I would look at the replacement power cable for that electric typewriter and always feel pretty dumb.

Obviously nobody should learn that way and I'm thankful to not be dead or otherwise, but I was kind of disappointed growing up that in school I was never taught why this was a bad idea, even when I asked all I got was a wide eyed stare and a stern 'never do that again', never a 'So that's a bad idea and here's why..' Maybe in an alternative life I'd have become an electrician? Who knows.

For a very few milliseconds you were an electrician - they don’t call them Sparky for nothing, after all.

I wish they'd just do quick, practical examples.

This is what happens when you mess with mains voltage and chuck a fork into a circuit. Maybe even a dead rat/frog. This is what happens when you put too much power into a wire, and let them watch it catch on fire.

I knew power was conceptually dangerous when I was a kid. I didn't realize how dangerous until I tried to change a light switch as a teenager, and didn't realize the house had multiple breaker boxes. Watching fairly thick copper wires melt themselves scared the hell out of me.

I won't do anything over 12v myself to this day. I'm too hasty and easily distracted for it to end well.

Just try and find those male-male cords for other outlets than US ones (try Schuko for the European variant). You will find that they're much more rare or even impossible to find.

Realizing that these cables basically exist only in one variant, which is for US style outlets, should tell you a lot ;-)

It probably tells us that the power grid is more reliable in Europe (less rural areas etc). Very few people own a generator.

The fact it got taught in school is only lightly correlated to what adult will know. It's also indirect, like, math teaches you everything you need to know to calculate load or do your taxes, or home budget, yet people have problems with it coz they never had someone teach them how to apply knowledge to real problems

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.

It's not mentioned, but this is DEADLY for innocent linemen too.

They check the line before working and it's dead. They start work and some idiot without a proper transfer switch backfeeds through the transformer hitting them with 14k volts.

How often does this actually happen? I would hope that almost anyone using one of these have the sense to turn off their main breaker.

The kind of people this safety advisory is for don't know what a breaker even is.

If not enforced mechanically, it's really easy to forget though. The last time I needed to power my house with a generator, it was because the power went out during a horrendous thunderstorm at 3am. We have a sump pit with a battery-powered backup, but when I checked on it right after the power went out I discovered the backup couldn't keep up with the volume of water coming in (it had been raining for hours already, and we ended up getting over 6" of rain that night).

I had less than 10 minutes from being awoken at 3am to having to have the generator up and running to prevent our basement from getting flooded. And of course, we had nothing but flashlights and there was a thunderstorm raging outside (where I obviously needed to set up the generator).

It would have been way, way too easy to forget one the many critical steps (and critical order of steps) in that scenario to use a suicide cord safely.

A battery powered transfer pump may be worthwhile as another backup. Had your generator decided not to start you’d be sunk.

It doesn't happen very often because odds are you also connected your neighbors and they are drawing enough power to trip one of your breakers.

It does happen though, which is why linemen normally short out any wire they think should be dead before working on it. (or they apply working on live wires rules for wires they think are dead)

How would they get 14kV, assuming the output from the generator is just 110v?

Honest question, I was wondering this before and I assume you know more about it than I do.

Transformers work both ways. From the substation to your nearby transformer, it goes 14.4kV to 240v (ignoring split phases and 3-phase power). When you generate inside your house, it goes the other way and boosts from 240v up to 14.4kV (albeit with fewer total amps than the substation is generating, but enough to kill).

The US NEC (national electric code) requires any backup generator to use a transfer switch. The switch has on-off-on positions with one "on" being for main power and the other being for the generator. That "off" position in the middle ensures that you can't physically connect the generator and main power at the same time (preventing this issue entirely).

Unfortunately, most people don't know what a transfer switch is or what it does. For people that do know, installation cost is probably an issue as they'll cost a couple thousand dollars to have installed. In my opinion, they should be a requirement on new construction, but I guess people don't want to pay the cost.

Thanks so much for the explanation! That the transformer works both ways makes perfect sense, and I'm a little irritated that I didn't think of that in the first place.

There is no way the kind of portable generator that most ordinary people would buy could energize a transformer that steps up to 14 kV. I suppose it might just be possible for the little pole mounted 50kVA ones that are common in many rural areas of the world but they generally don't step up to 14 kV. Most such transformers would look like a dead short to such piddling little generators

I've heard of these referred to as "Jesus cords," as in you're going to meet Him soon if you mishandle it.

But really, if you're going to hook your house up to a generator, you should have a proper transfer switch installed. You don't want to risk energizing the neighborhood distribution lines by feeding power into them. Those transformers work both ways.

An interlock kit and appropriate aux plug box is also legal and code in many places. An expensive transfer switch is not required.

How is your poxy little 3 kVA portable genny going to power the local network without tripping its own breaker?

It genuinely does happen. I can't find a summary of how often, but if you Google "lineman electrocuted back-fed generator" you can see a bunch of cases.

It's not enough power for everyone in the neighborhood to have power, but it's enough that the lines have thousands of volts in them when the utility company thinks they're dead. The amps are low, but enough to be lethal.

Surely the lineman should have isolated the line before working on it.

But of course the person connecting the generator is very much at fault for not isolating their house from the network.

Yep, 50 to 100 milliamperes can kill, all you need is enough voltage to overcome the resistance of human skin, which is 1 million ohms when dry and a few tens of kohms when wet.

Honestly, they should just mandate a 240V generator port (with a grid cutoff interlock!) on main service boxes moving forward.

Ideally, there would be some different standard connector so that the port would only work with inverter-style generators that have constant frequency / voltage as load shifts around.

Otherwise, people would end up frying appliance computets with cheap generators.

Of course, this would lead to an identical headline, but the body of the article would warn about extreme equipment damage, not imminent death.

I have to admit I am kind of curious to know what these 110V cords do in practice. Are half the outlets on the other side of the 220 pair?

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.

Wow. I guess the anti-entrapment pull cord isn't enough? I wonder if you can you put in a wheelchair accessible egress door instead.

I believe it was done as a result of incidents during wildfires. People lost power, couldn't open their garage door, and died in their home. It does make sense for accessibility reasons.

I'm not sure that's cheaper than putting extra door in... certainly more after battery dies and needs to be replaced.

I think the problem was not being able to get their car out of the garage? Walking speed isn't fast enough to escape a wildfire, I guess?

No way - fire can spread at from 10-20mph.

Little-known way to save yourself, and all it takes is a match. Start a fire where you are, let it burn downwind. Follow it.

See, the fuel is burned there, and the approaching wildfire will have to go around your new dead spot!

It's much cheaper than just the material for exterior door, let alone installation. They just use cheap SLA batteries. They're about $50 more than openers without a backup.

Yes. For thing you don't use.

> 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.

"This stupid thing for $100 doesn't matter, we already have stupid thing for $1000" is not a great argument either.

If you are running a 110v cord you only care about the fridge, furnace, and sump pump (You might have a different list, but it is something like that). you can arrange for them all to be on the same phase.

Back feeding seems insane. Most residential circuits are rated for 15A. A 5000 watt generator can produce over 40 amps at 120V. Seems like a good way to start an electrical fire.

Yep. There are some edge cases where it is convenient (eg trip all circuits except lighting) to ensure load is safe but kinda dicey that make random consumers understand and implement that

Residential circuits are also protected by 15A breakers. You could generate a lot more than 40 amps of draw by shorting a (traditionally) energized circuit.

There's not a big risk of overcurrent here, since the 15A breaker will trip on overcurrent even when it's being backfed. The main hazard with these suicide cables is of electrocution, both inside your house due to the exposed blades being energized, and of linemen working to restore the power.

Isn’t the usual advice to turn off your main breaker? Both to protect a lineworker and to avoid stalling your generator by trying to power up the neighbourhood?

I’m not sure I want to see the Venn diagram of people who would buy this cable, and people who would know they need to do that.

Keep in mind that backfeeding your house won't actually work unless you disconnect from the grid. Your little generator cannot power the whole grid. You'll pop a breaker immediately. So even a total idiot isn't going to electrify the neighborhood (though they could cause serious momentary risk).

I know a couple people who use this approach. They're some of the most electrically savvy people I know. I don't get worked up about it.

They're out there.

Do you think the people using this sort of cable acknowledge things like "the usual advice"?

if you do this you absolutely need to turn off your main breaker.

Better advice is to use a proper inlet, with either a real transfer switch, or a mechanical lockout if allowed in your jurisdiction.

If you're using a cord like this, you almost certainly don't have anything but your brain preventing you from using it wrong. Brains aren't always enough.

The breaker isn't part of the circuit, though. Generator connects to in-wall distribution which connects to appliances. You only go across the circuit breaker on the way to the mains line, which is (hopefully) disconnected. Or else it's not, and indeed you'll get overcurrent protection for any attempt to power your neighbors appliances.

If you make a cable to plug a 15A outlet in your home into a 15A outlet on the generator, then hopefully the generator has its own breaker that would trip if too much current was drawn.

If you plug your house directly into a 40A outlet (which has a different shape) then, yeah, you're screwed.

If you plug your generator directly into a dryer/oven outlet, it should be on a dedicated branch circuit, and everything else you load in the house will actually have two breakers between it and the generator... one for the branch you're feeding from to the bus, and one from the bus to each branch circuit. And the generator probably has a third.

The only real difference between this setup and a proper generator hookup is a mechanical interlock so that the main and feeder branch breakers can't be on at the same time, and the gender of the generator hookup outlet.

Most houses are wired with master breaker(s) connecting the house to mains lines, and various slave breakers connecting the various lines around the house to the master breaker(s).

If you plug a generator into a wall outlet, that power will pass through the slave breaker protecting that particular circuit as the power flows around to the rest of the house.

The breaker is the part of the circuit for the other circuits

you'd have something like

    gen -> circuit A -> main bus -> circuit b-> load
                           | 
                        main fuse/switch
                           |
                         outside

So loads on circuit A would not be protected by any fuse but ones at circuit B would.

Also circuit A would allow full generator amps to the devices there, no RCD protection either.

This is generally why Solar installs don't work with the power out. They just shut off to prevent back feeding into the grid. (That and I think the dc->ac converter syncs with the 60hz of the US grid)

We don't have a battery but if you install a backup battery I believe there is circuity to cut the power off from the grid when powering your house.

Battery backups and generators definitely include an automatic cutoff switch (by law).

I wonder what happens when the grid comes back up at a mismatched phase. If only mythbusters were still around. :-)

The fuse would blow, because you have mains ->main fuse -> circuit fuse -> generator

Maybe? What if it's a slow-blow fuse / breaker, and the phase is just a little bit off?

If it was alternator driven generator it would most likely drift into phase with the network, as the network would either break, or allow it to spin faster depending on in which direction the difference is.

That's actually how the big generators are synced, if there is less load you will see frequency of network increase slightly until the amount of generation drops, similarly in other way.

Inverter based one, hard to tell, entirely depending on code driving it.

But taking into consideration even 20V over low resistance wire could be 20+ amps it would probably trip pretty quickly.

Isn't it more common to use a dryer outlet with a 240v input?

I'm not sure what is most common. Most people with a generator are only wanting to run the fridge, furnace and a couple pumps, all this can be arranged to run from a single 120v phase, and finding a 120v outlet one the right phase near the generator is easy enough. In particular no need to move the dryer when doing this. However larger generators have 240v and it is easy enough to plug them in. The only people I know who have done this used a 240v welder outlet, for whatever that is worth.

Personally I'm glad my house as an automatic transfer switch. power goes off, generator starts, and lights go back on. Last time the power went it was planned so I had the generator running and the transfer happened fast enough for my servers to stay up.

In my experience, yes.

I've seen more "suicide cables" with a male 14-30R (dryer plug) and male L6-30R (twist and lock type, usually on generators) than I can count.

RL hardware stores are well aware of the problem, and often put up signs (especially around Christmas time) to discourage these shenanigans. Here's a nice collection.

https://twitter.com/kobunheat/status/1336134415336964096

Does CPSC not have the authority to fine Amazon or otherwise get them to stop selling these things? That seems like it would be much more effective than a post on a website.

Plugging things in that SHOULD NOT be plugged in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08LjkN1k70

In the video, the guy made once of those cords and uses it to electrocute all different kinds of things.

ElectroBOOM made his whole career on videos like that.

Still can't watch him, I get anxious

Really? I mean, it's all staged/planned. In his earlier videos, like the electric guitar one, even the spark is fake and edited in.

Most of it is fake or calculated (taking real shocks he knows are safe.) Sometimes it's real though, he nearly got himself killed when a Jacob's Ladder fell on his lap. That was real, unintentional, and extremely dangerous.

I know he's a skilled EE and minimalizes chance for that but still, accidents happen and I'm also not exactly fan of essentially masochism on screen

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 there is risk you send power to the pole outside your house which is extremely dangerous if a linemen is working on said pole with the belief that the power is dead.

Rehang your christmas lights...

Of course but for many the solution is a cheap cord or hours of work taking down and rehanging lights. Many will opt for the cheap time saving solution.

the suicide cord is one of those things that you make when you need it. The thing is supposed to look sketchy because it is sketchy. Like big ugly ball of duct tape sketchy.

when you correct the error that required the cord in the first place, you disassemble the suicide cord as penance for having created such a thing, and to ensure that it doesn't find its way into use somewhere else.

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.

Three prong males won't always fit into two prong females. It would depend on the molding on the christmas lights.

my bad I am now realizing the scenario we are talking about. Disregard my no sleep reply.

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 integrated with a shower head, and usually provided with a standard electrical cord. The safety of these items is obviously good enough that we don't have multiple stories of electrocutions from them, but it doesn't seem right that Amazon can sell these to people where Lowes and other hardware stores cannot.

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.

This is my sentiment, too. I tried to shop for $20-30 dress shirts in 6XLT, and it was a hot mess of availability and off brands. No thanks. Spent $70 at a local store instead.

Funny how quickly the sales tax loophole was fixed, since it directly affected legislatures, but bypassing consumer protection laws at massive scales gets ignored.

Once Amazon went national and retail is already on life support, the sales tax loophole didn’t have much protection. It just made it easier for smaller competitors to take some of their business.

Especially nowadays when eBay even collects sales taxes on sales into states (even sales from me as a Canadian).

Are you sure that Lowes can't sell heated shower heads? Maybe they choose not to sell them for liability reasons.

Or demand reasons. If Amazon only sells a couple dozen a year, they just need to keep a few in a single warehouse at all times whereas lowes would need to keep it in stock in a minimum number of stores that is greater than 1.

My experience with Lowes has been they "carry" many items that can actually only be shipped to you or the store after being purchased online.

Don't pretend that "liability reasons" is due to ethical concerns about the safety of the product.

Someone would buy it off a shelf at Lowes, would take Lowes to court, and Lowes would lose. It wouldn't be profitable.

Conversely, if someone bought a dodgy product from a drop-shipper listing on Amazon and got hurt by it, do you think that Amazon would be successfully sued? Empirically, that happens but they're still profitable and and still not refusing to list products for safety except in the most egregious circumstances. Would you sue the drop-shipper? They'd probably disappear or have zero assets. Would you sue the overseas manufacturer? Good luck with that!

The fact that it's profitable for Amazon and not for Lowes is exactly what the parent meant when they said "...it doesn't seem right that Amazon can sell these to people where Lowes and other hardware stores cannot."

> Don't pretend that "liability reasons" is due to ethical concerns about the safety of the product. Someone would buy it off a shelf at Lowes, would take Lowes to court, and Lowes would lose.

Is this not exactly what “liability reasons” implies? Surely if it was an ethical argument they would’ve written “ethical reasons” instead.

> Don't pretend that "liability reasons" is due to ethical concerns about the safety of the product.

Your view point is "the only reason any business might not want to electrocute people is because they've decided it won't be profitable after wrongful death suits"?

Presumably you work for a business. Would you electrocute people if you determined it would be profitable after wrongful death suits?

Try asking this question to the Christopher Columbuses and the Purdue Pharma executives of the world.

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.

> The green wire which is a neutral has no place to fasten inside the plastic body. It just goes inside, connects to nothing, while being exposed in the path of the water, presumably to keep water that was too conductive from shocking you

I have nothing to say to this. Wow.

Maybe I’m dumb but what else would the ground on a completely plastic enclosure be connected to?

The ground wire is floating in an area that would have water in it, sometimes being electrically connected to the water, sometimes not, depending on the flow, how the wire is bent, etc.

He measures leaking voltage to the pipe and the water and gets readings.

There are actual safe inline electric water heaters with inbuilt GFCI, proper grounding, probably other protective circuits, etc.

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.

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

I mean, sure, you can make them work, but this particular one wasn't done correctly

> 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.

I'd imagine making one with PTC (element that decreases resistance when heated, self-regulating temperature) would prevent that but that would add a buck or two on material bill

I believe you that accidents don't happen often with them. But, on the other hand, you're describing a scenario where you:

- Melted the enclosure, probably exposing the wiring, maybe near your hand if you reached up to see what was happening

- While you might have been standing on a drain that was an excellent path to ground

And, if the ground wire is meant to be constantly in contact with the water, there's certainly cheap ways to ensure that, that are better than "exposed stripped end randomly sits in the chamber".

The enclosure doesn't melt. The resistance splits, and no longer provides a path for electricity to flow, so it stops heating. No wires are exposed.

It's similar to an old electric bulb failure.

Electroboom did a video on the subject. It seems that they are actually safe. Not sure I'd be willing to try it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06w3-l1AzFk

And bigClive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNjA0aee07k

diodeGoneWild

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo99U3nVCnA

IIRC that lead law was spawned in response to Mattel selling lead painted toys and Mattel was made exempt!

Amazon is the magic law blanket. They take the payment, they store the goods, they ship the wares.. but it's WAGANFU brand that they have no serviceable address for that is responsible?

Gotta love limited liability! I believe American Express was one of the last public companies to convert from unlimited liability to limited.

That's not what limited liability means. It's about the owners/investors/shareholders of the company not being personally liable for debts (court judgements or loan payments) in excess of the company's assets.

Without it, simply holding stock in a company could theoretically expose someone to unlimited losses if the company had more liabilities than assets for whatever reason.

A history of the application of limited liability to corporations: https://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgeLibrary/resources/abla/abld_....

The term "limited liability company" was created much more recently to as a sort of corporation-lite entity that had this essential attribute without all the other corporate formalities. The tax laws decided to treat LLCs as non-corporations unless the elected otherwise, removing one of the major costs of having the liability protection.

Partnerships, the default/unorganized form of joint business ventures, do not have liability protection. Later, limited partnerships were created that did, but limited partners could not participate in everyday business. Thus, the corporation and later LLC were the only forms that allowed managing investors to protect themselves from excess business liability.

This has nothing to do with whether or not Amazon is liable for products third parties sell on their site.

And of course the "brands" selling these products are under random names like SFHBEE that will disappear overnight. No accountability if anything goes wrong.

This is a good thread on it: https://twitter.com/ColeSouth/status/1550230795230781440

In 1968 Bolivia, the only way you could shower is with these heated heads, because there were no hot water tanks. 220v, with exposed connectors.

So anyway I'm standing in the shower under one of these heads, feet in a puddle. I raise my arm to wash an armpit, and the back of my hand touches the bare connector.

It tingled a bit.

Multiple people in the military in Iraq died in shower trailers on bases (2003-2008) due to improper wiring. I went into one where you could detect current in metal walls (not in the shower area, but an ungrounded piece of backsplash and shelving above sink...); I had someone stand in front of the door to keep people out and went over to the base electricians to yell at them.

I remember one summer camp I went to as a kid where the showers were "spicy". Much in the same way a 9 volt battery feels on your tongue. In hindsight... what the hell???

Yeah -- especially given that skin itself isn't a great conductor, for it to feel like 9v on (even wet) skin vs. on your tongue, it's substantially more than a 9v battery...

I visited Costa Rica this year and this is what the rental house had. Bit freaky.

I was curious and found this:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/IHeat-2-5-kW-1-5-GPM-Electric-Sh...

Interesting comments on the reviews:

> It worked for a few minutes before blowing the circuit breaker of gfci switch everytime. Good idea but pulls way too much power on an outlet to really be useful. Also you need to keep the water pressure very low, for it to actually warm up, if the pressure is too strong it won't warm it up quickly enough.

> I'm confused on how to use this. The description mentions use for "Outdoor showers, Pool Side showers" and other outdoor examples, but the sticker on the unit specifically says INDOOR USE ONLY. The instructions say that you must locate the shower head a MINIMUM of 6 feet from the plug, but the cord is only 5 feet 10 inches. Plus, if the head is installed at the minimum height of 6 feet, that means the plug has to be 6 feet high too, since any angle would make it less than 6 feet away. There is no way to replace the cord, no way to hardwire it (as the instructions recommend, which is even more confusing), and you can't use an extension cord. More confusion arises on electrical requirements. It says to use 10 AWG minimum, but the cord is 12 AWG (which only supports 20A). It requires a 30A breaker, and it says it draws 23 amps - but the largest standard receptacle made only supports 20A (L5-20), and you'll only find a 20A breaker on an L5-20 circuit. Any 20A outlet you find will also only have 12 AWG wiring. Beyond all that, I tested it by connecting it outdoors to a 20A circuit. I set the flow rate to 0.75 GPM, and purged the air as per instructions. I started by taking power readings. There are 5 temperature settings; readings were, from Low to High: 9.5A, 13.5A, 16A, 18.5A and 20.3A. So at all settings except High, it was actually within the 20A breaker limit. Unfortunately, it always starts on High when you plug it in. I checked the water temperature with my hand when it was on High, and it was really hot - too hot for a shower, at least 110 F. Then I grabbed the thermometer to take readings, but something happened - I'm not sure what, but it basically broke. On High, it dropped to 90 degrees. My inlet temp was 75. It was still heating a little, but not like before. I adjusted flow to make sure the activation point was reached, but no success. Testing aside, I don't think this puts out enough heat to be effective even if it works as advertised. You would really want to use it when the water is very cold, which means you would need maximum heat, which means running it at 0.5 GPM. You're not going to get much shower at that rate.

> It says to use 10 AWG minimum, but the cord is 12 AWG (which only supports 20A).

You can run 30 amps in 12 gauge wire if the run is short enough, which that cord seems to be.

I think that is the only part of your story that isn't a what...

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 particularly expensive (relative to the cost of the generator, or burning down the house, or death).

> 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.

> Power inlets aren't particularly expensive (relative to the cost of the generator, or burning down the house, or death).

Most portable generators that people would buy to power their house during an outage are in the $500-$800 range (e.g. https://www.harborfreight.com/generators-engines/generators/...).

In another post I noted the costs, but proper installation of a generator inlet at my house, done DIY but to code with a permit and inspection, would cost me $480 just in parts. For the vast majority of people, this is not a DIY job as it involves opening the main panel, so for most they will need an electrician.

So, I'd argue that a proper power inlet is actually quite expensive, roughly equal to the cost of a low-end generator (the type most people are going to be buying for an occasional outage situation). Though I certainly agree with the last part ("relative to the cost of...burning down the house or death").

I bet you could spend some time and find any number of people who have bought $80k electric cars and half-assed the charger installation.

Back in 1999 we had a huge storm that cut the power for millions of people across the country. Our home was not spared as a tree fell on its power line. The power company was completely overwhelmed by the scale of the damages plus it somehow forgot about us so that it took more than a month to get the cable repaired.

Luckily our neighbor still had the electricity running so I made a short male-to-male cord to connect a normal extension cord between our two houses. I knew what I was doing but I was definitely not comfortable with such a solution!

I had no idea you could actually buy such cords, I thought it would obviously be outlawed considering you can easily kill yourself if you're not careful... iirc I destroyed the cord as soon as it had served its purpose because it's a really bad idea to have such a thing at home!

I bought one of these from Amazon last year and I've received two warning emails from Amazon, along with a refund. My use case is connecting a portable generator to my house. It's all completely safe if you know what you are doing. You turn off the main breaker (between the meter and the AC mains connection), then you plug one end of the "suicide cable" into some outlet, and the other end into the generator output. Another related use case is to connect the two different phases together so the generator can power the whole house instead of half the house. For that you need two of these.

I am reading this story about 6 hours after it was posted here.

Immediately after reading I went to amazon.com and search "male to male e" at which point I was provided several autocompletes:

- male to male extension cord 3 prong - male to male extension cord adapter - male to male extension cord 10 ft - male to male extension cord black

and so on. BUT when I actually completed the search ("male to male extension cord 3 prong", the first autocomplete for me), I did not get any actual "suicide cords" in the results.

Thus I am forced to conclude that Amazon reacted in real time to this story. Curious if people in other areas are seeing the same thing?

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.

In my country (NL) it is advised against that (though it used to be common practice), since a bit of water pipe running from your house might have been replaced with a plastic one and the metal bit still sticking out into your house might not have the proper ground resistance to function as a proper earth wire.

The US used to allow metal pipes to be counted as a ground connection, but not anyway. The US requires metal pipes be connected to ground, but that is not the same as the neutral to ground connection.

Look down and see if the metal pipe is going into the ground? At least in cases where the different services enter the premise in close proximity.

Metal touching the ground does not guarantee a proper earth. The resistance might be to high to function properly under all circumstances a ground is needed.

1. This is a great PSA. I would absolutely buy this kind of cable not realizing it's dangerous.

2. What is wrong with our regulatory bodies that there hasn't been heat turned up on these marketplaces? Imagine going to CVS and searching for OTC ADHD supplements and getting results for research chemicals from XYZChems in Cambodia. I might buy them assuming that CVS would be more responsible than that.

Maybe someone can explain to me why my analogy doesn't track.

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).

There is the Anderson connector for DC applications. The concept could be extended with a center ground contact and retractable shields.

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 hurt or killed with lower voltages, but overall it would be safer.

> 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.

USB-C?

Scale up the size as needed... but if you don't have smart devices on each end you have more issues than just the plug... you don't want people plugging wall sockets into wall sockets for obvious reasons.

USB-C is not genderless. The cable is physically different from the port on my laptop and phone. They're suggesting a connector where there isn't a difference between a "plug" and a "cable".

Strictly speaking I agree it doesn't meet the definition of the word, but it achieves the goal of "only one type of cable"* so I think it's close enough.

*Someone is going to point out "extension cables" here, I'm going to ignore them.

They exist and just have cleverly designed housings that shield both pins and sockets. But it would be a bad idea for household power as it wouldn’t prevent you from doing things such as short two outlets together.

It's called USB-C

USB-C is not gender-less, it just allows to connect it when flipped

It's turning into a universal power cable, and either end can send or receive power.

That's genderless.

The gender of a cable isn't the thing which determines the flow, that's only convention after. The fact a USB-C cable with a male tip can either be a source or a load isn't a statement about its gender.

A genderless cable allows any cable to also double as an extension cable of the same type. I can't take a USB-C to USB-C male-to-male cable and use it as an extension with another USB-C male-to-male cable. I can't take a USB-C female device and directly connect it to a USB-C female device without getting some male-male cable. The gender of the cable matters, and without properly getting the right gender of cable and port I cannot connect things together.

See the Anderson Powerpole connector.[0] It is an example of a genderless connector. Any cable can double as an extension cable. The connectors are entirely fungible, there is no concept of a male or female connector.

USB-C is not genderless. That term has a specific meaning, and USB-C does not meet it.

[0] https://www.andersonpower.com/us/en/resources/PowerPoleResou...

Not cheaply

> instead of three: (female-male, female-female, male-male).

One. Male to female. From where power flows to where power is delivered.

There is no reason for F-F or M-M power cables to exist.

The whole point is to have power source never be male as that's exposed, energised metal.

You can get male/male USB-A cables. They are just as bad as the male/male power cables and should not exist either.

Thought experiment: Could you make one of these wires that is safe?

I think you'd have to start with human rated GFCI... Current GFCI systems aren't human rated (ie. they might fail, and should only be used as a secondary safety feature, not the primary way to stop the user touching the electricity).

I don't think so. There are failure modes that GFCI wouldn't catch. For instance, if you managed to grab both the hot and neutral prongs at the same time of the live end of your hypothetical GFCI-protected cord, it may not trip since the current would be passing through you but still returning on the neutral (maybe there'd be enough leakage to ground through your feet/shoes to trip it anyway, but I certainly wouldn't rely on that).

No GFCI needed to create this.

Start with a plastic cover for the end so that you can't touch the plug when it is not plugged in.

Next design an an outlet that retracts the cover above only when the main breaker is turned off. (this implies the outlet is built into your circuit box)

The way Christmas Lights are wired in the US is very different to the UK.

They usually come pre-wired with a standard 3-pin plug in the end, or a transformer block with a propreitary connector (probably outputting DC), so you don't have to worry about any of this extension stuff.

I bought one of these on Amazon last year for a specific use case, and I’m knowledgeable enough to use it safely. IIRC Amazon pulled the listing a few months later and gave me a refund because it’s obviously a dangerous product.

Can’t edit my comment, but I found the email from Amazon:

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has provided us information that indicates that the product listed above may present a substantial product hazard. Specifically, the extension cords may pose a potential shock and electrocution risk to customers.

If you still have this product, we urge you to stop using it immediately and dispose of the product. If you purchased this item for someone else, please notify the recipient immediately. There is no need for you to return the product.

Refunds will be issued to the original payment method used for the purchase, or if the original payment method is no longer available, we will apply an Amazon Gift Card to your account.

The safety and satisfaction of our customers is our highest priority. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you.

This is not an argument I like to use, but I'd say that if you were knowledgeable enough, then you wouldn't be using it.

I agree, if they were knowledgeable enough they would convert the load side of whatever they were trying to power from a female plug end to a male plug and use a traditional extension cord and not risk death.

It was a temporary solution until I had time to build things out the right way, which I am now in the process of doing.

Unless you're sealing it in a block of concrete, its not using it safely. The cable could easily get unplugged, which would then result in a very unsafe situation especially if someone isn't aware of the non-standard usage of the connector.

Ok fine. Reasonably safely. A safety level that I am comfortable with, in a situation where no one else is going to be involved.

Pfft, you can just cut the male ends off a couple old extension cords and twist the wires together, then wrap it in duct tape. Just don’t reverse the hot and neutral. /s

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.

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

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.

Okay, that makes more sense. Still a little weird that they can request that Amazon remove these items or face fines, regardless of it being a drop shipper.

The CPSC has the authority to prohibit unsafe items from being offered for sale, regardless of who actually puts it in the mail.

Ah. Ye olde widowmaker cables.

Oooh. A giant, well-insulated paper clip!

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