Separate the cord from the device | Hacker News Reader

Separate the cord from the device

bookofjoe2.blogspot.com

61 pointsbookofjoe50 comments

As much as I truly love replaceable cords, I'd be more than happy enough if I could just unscrew the shell of the device, unscrew the power wires from where they attach, and put in any cord. Where I care about waterproofing, some silicone caulk is an extremely cheap (and removable) fix.

Unfortunately practically everything you can buy now is welded plastic halves, or easily-broken clips. So even when you might be able to do this internally, you have a high chance of breaking the shell even if you know what you're doing.

This is such a terrible idea for sump pumps!

We're not even getting serviceable devices, serviceable parts is next level.

Right: There's a spectrum of choice here, it's not as binary as "you must throw away the whole device if the cable breaks" versus "conveniently detachable with two fingertips or a light breeze."

You mentioned waterproofing, and I think another major factor is how often the device (and indirectly the cable) is going to be moved around, and which stresses and strains will be placed on the connection. What's best for my printer is not what's best for an immersion-blender.

This is my pet peeve about USB-C laptop docks. The vast majority of them have a captive cable, usually about 10cm long. It's a failure point, often an inconvenient length, and makes them much harder to pack.

I see both sides, having a removable dock-cable is nice but then you run the risk of users using low-spec cables that don't work with the dock, and people blame the dock.

I imagine that is one of the reasons. It probably also lowers costs a little.

Sometimes the market rejects making products worse to lower costs or discourage user error. I wish that was the case here.

I grew up in the UK. Electric kettles are more common there than they are in the US because:

- People drink at all times of day, and

- Household power sockets can deliver a lot of power (a typical $30 kettle in the UK is rated at 3kW vs. US where 1.8kW is normal even for more expensive ones)

Anyway, before kettles became cordless[0], they all had detachable leads. And there was a standard. So you could use any 'kettle lead' with any brand or model of kettle.

To this day I still use 'kettle lead' to refer to the type of cable used to power a desktop PC.

[0] the kettle itself has no cord, but the base has a hard-wired cord

One of the best moka pots I owned is the Bialetti Elettrika [1] which comes exactly with a detachable lead like the one you mention. But for me, coming from outside of the UK and never experienced the kettle lead situation, it has always been the opposite, the pot has a ‘computer lead’ :)

[1] https://www.bialetti.com/ee_en/moka-elettrika.html

'One of'!!!

How many moka pots does one person need?!?

Personally own 4, though now they are gathering dust now that I switched to an espresso machine.

I've always called them kettle leads, I don't even know what the real name for them is. Everyone I've known in IT calls them that. That's basically their official name in the UK :p

Because the cord is rated for the appliance. It is a fire thing. Let customers swap out cords and one of them will use an underrated cord and cause a fire. Or they will use a cord without a ground.

Ironically, Christmas lights make great (ie safe) extension cords because code mandates they have biult-in fuses, unlike any other cord which is just wires without any overcurrent protection.

One very practical reason that comes to mind is waterproofing. Kitchen counters get wet, and office desks do not. Anything with a plug is at greater risk of shorting.

https://www.sunbeam.ca/en_CA/kitchen-appliances/sunbeam-1.7l...

/thread

C13/C14 connectors are even known as "kettle leads" in some places.

Commonly referred to as "jug plugs" in Australia.

Kettle plugs in the UK, close enough. I'm not sure if most kettles even use them at this point.

“Kettle lead” is definitely good here too. It is, after all, more than just a plug.

Yeah, I know, I was just giving the colloquial name for them in the UK. We like calling things plugs, including what you might call a socket or outlet. Not exclusively but very commonly.

I'm from the UK (although haven't been there for a decade+) and remember "lead" being used in place of "cable" or "cord" by those around me. Plug would be the other end, which goes into the Mains.

A plugged-in kettle is not as likely to fall into a bowl of water as a hand mixer.

I tried to figure out how to buy that exact kettle recently because I typically store mine away in a cupboard (and so a "cordless" kettle with separate base is just an annoyance to me) and couldn't find it anywhere.

I had to settle for a Proctor-Silex branded unit that was only sold by Home Depot online. It does not have a detachable cord.

Sure but that's what gfci is for no?

Anyway IMO lamps are usually the worst offenders.

Not every house has GFCI, and old ones are not always retrofitted.

From top of my head, there are two main reasons:

1. C13/C14 is a bulky set of connectors, and fitting them to compact(er) things are not always easy. This also means cable needs additional care to keep somewhere else and label. Why label? See 2.

2. Not all appliances use the same amount of power. C13/C14 is an overkill for a small, non-grounded appliance. Use a figure 8 then, alright, but what happens when you mix your coffee grinder cable with your powerful hand blender's cable and use it at max power? Hot things. Not the soup, but burning cables.

In this age where we use aluminum cables because it's cheap, mixing low and high power appliances' cables will become a liability fast. Using unique connectors will make the reason to have detachable cables moot, and drive up the price.

Standardization? The awesome thing about standardization is, three are too many standards to choose from.

I’m a big fan of this notion. My hot water dispenser has a magnetic power dongle kinda like macbooks MagSafe, but bulkier [0]. Ideally something like that would be more standardized across appliances the way some of the other three prong power cords are.

[0]: https://youtu.be/E2WrHHRYrV4?t=108

Ah, Zojirushi, great rice cookers .

Elecom makes USB cables with "MagSafe" style connectors.

https://www.elecom.co.jp/products/MPA-CCMA10BK.html

I loved having one of these until the non-stick coating inside started flaking off badly after a couple years.

Nowadays I'm only touching steel and/or glass on these things. An all-steel-interior Zwilling kettle has lasted me twice as long already, and looks brand new (on the inside) if I give it a brief acid cleanse to remove deposits. It's not quite as convenient or as stable temperature, but I'm more than happy to have something that lasts many times longer.

Two-layer, thermopot-style kettles are a thing; I own one. All-steel interior is a natural consequence.

What brand? I couldn't find any last time I looked, and I do generally prefer the dispenser style (slower to hit a temp, but rock solid once there, and basically always ready to go. surprisingly useful / habit-altering).

Right! [0] Apparently there are not many standard connectors like these, but I found at least one [1] ...

0: https://www.zojirushi.com/blog/design-explained-our-easy-rel...

1: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/breakaway-magnetic-connect...

Regulations make detachable cords of electric kitchen appliances hard.

Most need double isolation and water-proofing, hence not detachable.

It could probably be done, but it likely needs a different type of connector, akin to M12/M8

My Ankarsrum Assistent mixer has a detachable power cord with a standard C13 connector.

It seems to be possible, but it’s likely cheaper to have fixed connectors.

Also product liability. If you give a domestic hair dryer a 12 ft cord, someone will use it in the shower.

If you give an insta-pot a 6 ft cord, someone will drape it off the counter and a child will pull it.

UL standards actually limit cable length for many appliances.

https://www.intertek.com/standards-updates/ul-1026-electrica...

I believe you can't put an outlet on the side of a kitchen island anymore because too many toddlers were able to grab an appliance by the cable and pull it down onto their heads. In the USA at least.

This is understandable, not easy to fix, and deeply frustrating for people who don't have or intend to get toddlers.

The one integrated cord that bugs me is the one in my 1987 vintage ADA MP-1 rackmount guitar pre-amp. Every time you take thing out of the rack to do something with it, like diddle around the circuit board, there is always that cord dangling out of it and getting in the way. The connections have become flaky somewhere as well.

I keep telling myself one of these days I will convert it to a C13 connector. Or C5, it that would fit better.

Headphones are a big one for me. By their nature, the cords are often going to get snagged and tugged on and are pretty much guaranteed to fail before the headset itself does. I'm pretty happy my current Sennheiser headphones have detachable headphone cables, though the shaky ground the company itself is on makes me wonder if I should stock up on a few...

My $300 Sennheisers have a detachable cable. My son's $99 Sennheisers have a detachable cable. My $25 almost-noname headphones have a detachable cable.

I think a detachable cable is a widespread option, as long as the headphones are large enough to make accomodating it easy.

That's one of the reasons I love Festool's tools, nearly all of them have detachable power cords. It's a proprietary connector, but it makes it very convenient if you own a few of their tools. Both the power and dust hose have twist lock connectors that stay firmly attached in use.

Erm, let's not.

Take one look at the mess of incompatible detachable cords that come with LED lighting fixtures from China to see what results.

They could have used bog standard IEC 320-C5 cables, but they didn't. Why? Because they wanted to cheap out on the conductor AWG and IEC 320-C5 is quite specific about the conductor gauges and current capacities.

So, the LED lighting manufacturers produced a bunch of cables that are in almost exactly the same shape and size factor as IEC 320-C5 while being just enough incompatible to not invoke the certifying authorities--all to save a couple pennies in copper.

The plug between the cord and the device must be sturdy and meet regulatory standards

So it is expensive

It is cheaper to just attach the cord

That is the reason

plenty of devices have separatable cords. My rice cooker has a PC style plug. My water kettle has a magnetic plug.

Some of that is because they want a single factory assembly line to produce one device that works in many locales. They build the rice cooker with the universal socket, then ship the right kind of cord when they package the product for a specific locale.

One of my InstantPots uses a standard power cable with an IEC connector. A couple days ago, I couldn't find its cable and was able to reuse my spare power cables for my PCs which was a huge win.

Why? To not get water in

Detachable cables should honestly be standard on most kitchen appliances. Once you’ve experienced it on PCs and monitors, fixed cables just feel outdated.

I'm not sure if it's a full standard (eg UL), or an informal one, but one reason you might not want detachable cords on kitchen appliances is because the cords are intentionally short to avoid dangerous accidents. If cords are swappable, you lose this property.

There have been enough Crockpots and similar kitchen appliances pulled down by children onto themselves that it's driven two trends in the American kitchen:

- Short power cords, to avoid cords being accessible from below

- Placement of power outlets: to ensure there are enough to be used with the short cords and not tempt extension cord usage, and to keep outlets and cords plugged into them inaccessable.

There's a lot of tension in that last one, and the NEC has gone back and forth on how to regulate outlet placement, eg on kitchen islands, and where they should be allowed to go.

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