The last extension cord you will ever need.
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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at least it's short enough that it will only reach two plugs on the same panel, thereby guaranteeing that the first things that blow are breakers.
Yeah, not what I need. I need NEMA 5-15 to CAT6 adapter
the P in PoE stands for Pulverization
Alternatively, One can plug one end in, then you have a creative new way to parent.
"Didn't mow the lawn? C'mere Billy, hold out your palm."
i managed to do that to myself once in my sleep; i had managed to wrap my arm around a lamp cord which came out of the plug, and when i rolled over i managed to put my thumb on the exposed wires.
I'll never understand why the US refuses to modernize the horrid NEMA 5 connectors. A recessed receptacle, insulators around the base of the live and neutral blades, spring-loaded detention mechanism to keep the connector from slipping out... in its current state, it's only two steps removed from sticking the bare wires into the socket.
Because everything the EU and the rest of the world does is stupid. By adapting things from other countries would be akin to acknowledging that other countries can do some things better than the US. But this can't be, since the US is Numbaaa 1! /s
Tbh insulating the blades bases would be a huge step in the right direction, and there's no remodeling required.
At least for homeowners, factories would need new production lines presumably.
- Arrogance: we especially don’t want to do it because the rest of the world does.
- Cost: not the equipment, though that can get pretty pricey considering we up the margins on everything, but mostly labor; labor is ungodly expensive (they cry insurance or (my fave) “you’re paying for the years of experience”).
- We have gotten use to having regular house fires in houses made of paper.
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Would that only happen if one outlet were wired backwards (hot to neutral and vice-versa)?
If both outlets are wired correctly, as I'm envisioning it, the extension cord is parallel to the existing branch.
Same if both outlets are wired (the same) incorrectly.
But if one outlet is wired correctly and one has its poles swapped, then you are shorting hot directly to neutral...
But also being a 3-prong outlet...assuming everything is wired correctly...the short would either be redirected to ground and either trip the breaker or trigger a GFCI...no?
IANAElectrician. Just a high dude thinking about circuits.
Worth mentioning that the point of a suicide cord like this isn't to connect two outlets together...really no reason to do that...it's usually used to hook up a generator (or other load-center, like say a campground plug) to a branch circuit when the home/rv/load doesn't have an inlet. It's also extremely dangerous if used incorrectly, and there are several ways to very easily use it incorrectly.
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Unless one of your outlets is wired backwards, plugging this into 2 outlets on the same side of your electrical panel won't do anything.
If you were able to plug it into outlets on different sides of your panel, then you just created a 240v short and the cable is going to be real-spicy real-quick.
then the thermal breaker would jump
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Unless you accidentally touch one of the prongs after plugging one end in... 😅
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The lovely suicide cord.
Worth mentioning that it is plenty safe...if used appropriately (for attaching a generator to a house that doesn't have an inlet).
It's when it's not used appropriately that's a problem. And it's very easy to not use it appropriately.
Worth mentioning that they are absolutely not safe as the exposed prongs are energised. They are called suicide cords for a reason. All it takes is to plug the cord into a running generator or working outlet first and the exposed terminals are now live.
Its also worth noting that they very often kill linesmen working to desire the utility because people use them to hook up their generators without turning off their main breaker which back feeds onto the grid.
Proper generator inlets are very readily available and if you don't want to go that route, just plug your fridge and other important devices into your generator with extension cords.
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Murphy's law says it will be used wrong, and as such it is a bad design and a bad idea.
There are alternatives that are better, this has only the advantage of being cheap.
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Are you supposed to do it? No. Is it safe? Also no. But did lots of our grandfathers run their Christmas lights with an odd mismatch of cords including one of these? Yesss with a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other, they sure as hell did.
Those of us that remember our grandparents getting away with it are a product of survival bias.
Never even heard of this - is this an American thing?
Is burning down your house or electrocuting the linesman fixing your power outage because you backfed onto the transformer with your cheater cord and energized the neutral to 25kv? Fuck yeah! It's an American tradition!
(I'm Canadian btw and we have much the same stupidity here...)
TBH one does not simply patch into a UK-style ring circuit. Those who do have chosen death.
I must have gotten pale when some festival organizer handed me the end of a cable with a male plug. 'Your electricity supply, here you go!'
Me: '... ???'
Organizer, still waving the cable end around: 'Just use an adapter!' (he barely managed to omit the 'stupid woman' in his answer ...)
I don’t get what you were supposed to do with a plug and an adapter.
I was gonna mention something like a USB Type-C cable, but that's not really electricians' territory, is it?
USB-C is kinda sorta hermaphroditic.
When USB-C-compliant devices are connected, they have to negotiate which side is upstream and which is downstream. So yes, they're hermaphroditic, just like snails.
In contrast, the non-compliant USB A-to-A cable that Ugreen uses with its own devices is closer to hyenas. If you know, you know... and don't you wish you didn't.
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Here's a handy reference: everything downstream of a plug socket is electronics, everything upstream of a plug socket is electrical.
Sincerely, an electronics engineer that works in the electrical field.
USB-C is specifically designed so it can swap between different modes safely by way of devices being able to communicate what they need from a plug via dedicated pins in the socket. So yeah, you can have USB-C male/male cables and it's going to be safe as long as you use it with compatible devices.
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How else will my generator power my house?
...
And your house, and your house
Ok i get the electrician joke, but what is this love wins thing? Its like a screenshot of two posts and the bottom is cut off
Bc when you plug something into the socket wrong, it always causes a full nuclear explosion! Yeesh, how did you not know this already...? (/s)
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