Cliff's Hardware, near 18th and Castro, San Francisco.
Smack dab in the SF Castro District.
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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I can’t think of a not insane reason anyone would need one.
People want them around the holidays because they hang their lights in the wrong direction and end up with 2 female plugs where they needed one to be male.... So the want the danger adapter because they are not wanting to take anything down
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You can run something like a house off a generator with one if the main breaker is off; in an emergency and the operation reasonably well planned out (don’t overload wall lines you plugged into, etc.) it might be a net benefit. On the reg is asking for death cause there’s safe ways to do it that sane people would plan for on the reg
That would surely only power a single circuit (due to isolation) and if you have to be selective, a critical circuit like your fridge isn't really likely to have a wall port on the same circuit near where you'd happily have your fume emitting generator..
I'm no electrician but I've generally installed automatic transfer switches (ATS) for mine site server cabinets that then power UPS racks and the transfer switch automatically or manually can switch from mains to generator if mains power goes out (which at a mine is all the time). I feel like a similar and safe system must exist for homes. Or something no different to switching solar to grid and back.
But again, not an electrician.
If you disconnect the mains then the power will be backfed through one of the circuit breakers and back out to others. If the breaker you plugged naughty plug into is off, it’s isolated. Otherwise, it’ll power whatever circuit breakers are on on the breaker panel.
If you don’t disconnect from the mains you’ll kill a person working to fix the electrical lines for your neighborhood.
Yes, safe and automatic things exist to switch automatically - or even hook up a generator in a pinch manually but safely (no naughty plug needed).
Defo don’t backfeed your abode unless you’re gonna die due to some major emergency!
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Laughs in XLR cables.
Anderson repeeseeent
Why do people want them so bad tho
They want them because they're being lazy/cheap. No, seriously. They're called widowmaker cords for a reason, but inevitably some muppet with two plugs and some wire will come up with the brilliant idea that one of these will work for.
One really sneaky and dangerous place these get made are generator backfeed cheater cables for houses. You see them in RVs, Xmas lights etc too, but generator backfeeds are super dangerous because they're also juggling two potential power sources. A backfeed is where a house/building is disconnected from the grid just by flipping off the main panel breaker, then it's "backfed" by a generator going into another breaker in the panel. Usually, without any type of safety interlock to keep the mains voltage off when the generator is on, or vice versa.
Afaik, this is illegal per housing code almost everywhere that I've seen, but still every now and then some yahoo thinks "wait, if I make a two-ended cable and put a receptacle on the house, I can remove the generator easily without any of the expensive safety crap!" And then grabs a live male plug when they fuck up and didn't shut off the generator or mains voltage...
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If you have a cabin or an RV that's wired for electricity, but you don't have any power coming in on the mains, or you don't have mains, you can backfeed the system by plugging your generator into one of the outlets.
The proper thing to do is to use a special outlet that's made for a generator, and perhaps an isolator switch as well, but if you don't have those then you might think to yourself, why don't I just make a male to male plug? It definitely works, but it's also dangerous if you or anyone unplugs it while the system is hot.
While true, the this time of the year part of the poster makes me think it’s for people putting up Christmas lights who ran the string backwards and don’t want to switch it around. This is also more dangerous because it ensures that a live male plug is lying around far from the suicide cable itself.
Christmas lights they accidentally wrapped backwards with the male end of the string all the way at the top of the tree
Honestly, I've passed the last 2 or 3 minutes trying to make some use form them up. I've come empty-handed.
They can technically be used to power your home from a generator... but please don't
Just don't forget to disconnect the breakers. This is AC, not DC. Additionally to voltage, you'd also need to perfectly match frequency and phase.
Oh fuck. They can.
Will they burn before the wall wiring? Who knows?!?
Will you forget to shut the breaker down before plugging? YES! How is that even a question?
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Just because a cable like that blows y'alls fuses?!
It's pure fire!
More like dickbutt phobia. This is hate against double sided dildo sex
Electrified double-sided dildo sex, no less!