Power Tester Used: amzn.to/3C8NCqI Remember Suicide cords should never be purchased or used. Backfeeding is illegal & it can and has killed people. *This video is for entertainment purposes in a testing environment with safety controls in place. I do not recommend purchasing these cables or attempting any of the testing shown* Backfeeding a generator into your power system without an interlock safety device will always be illegal & is totally unsafe.
That's a great video. I didn't realize the hots and neutrals were connected inside, so I was one of those expecting sparks, and that you were brave doing so with light, rubber gloves. 😊
Background, I'm a master electrician. So just FYI, its pretty common in houses to break that little tab off the side of the outlet to separate the top and bottom plugs so you can wire one constant hot and the other controlled by a switch for a lamp. In those cases, its not guaranteed that the 2 outlets will be the same phase. Hope nobody tries this at home! At least you have a disclaimer, I'm sure everyone will read that...
My DUMB ASS room mate took a plug apart, twisted the two wires together and plugged it back in .....idk wtf they did exactly but it immediately caught the socket on fire when plugged in
Seriously. Videos are getting oddly long. Surprised he didn't explain the basic of electricity as a side note then read an add. Then finally explain the outlet with an affiliate link to buy outlets and cables
I would suggest not wearing those gloves with electrical circuits. Those could possibly burn into the skin and painful to remove with an electrical accident. I’ve unfortunately known people in the electrical industry that have made this mistake.
an arc flash in this situation (this cord, 120v, etc) that would make these gloves a danger is highly unlikely. While these gloves aren't thick enough to ensure no shock - I believe there is a definite added layer of safety in the specific use for this video.
@@ian3580 we all know those types of glove rip very easily. It’s a false sense of protection. Any little pin prick hole is 100% failure in protection. I would rather use my hands than wear gloves that would make me complacent.
As an electrician for the last 25 years that is exactly the result I expected...keep one end plugged in that outlet then plug the other end into an outlet that's on an opposite phase if you want to see sparks fly
@@edwardfrostickblois4191 no that's what I really thought. Not everyone knows. I don't know anything about electricity. I even muted thinking there would be a blast
My son wants to be an electrician and this was a great chance to get him to try to figure out what would happen. Unfortunately he decided that nothing would happen _"because there was no load attached"_ so I had to explain that if it did work the way people were thinking, that wire would demand as much power as your power source could provide until it burned up or the breaker tripped. We've got a ways to go lol.
@@Eric-vs2he I doubt he did. He's trying to say only a numbskull would think anything would happen. If you don't know how electricity works, it's best to stick to standard devices in normal usage.
He could be dead wrong... many kitchen plugs will be split into 2 separate circuits and he would have caused a dead short melting the cord and blowing breakers.
Yeah I just watched a bunch 20 minute videos for 2 minutes that I cared about. When I saw this video was less than 3 minutes I was surprised and also stoked! That will earn some subscribers quick
1:00 Actually that's exactly the outcome I expected. You're just connecting the same wires together. Since there's no voltage difference, nothing happens. Connecting the Line side to the Ground or the neutral side on the other hand would get spicy.
Yup, flip the polarity of the plug and it will get red hot and the rubber will likely catch fire before the breaker flips. I think the bad reputation comes from the fact that before cheap imports from China, people would make their own cords from those DIY plugs at home depot. Get a few beers in a redneck and wiring those things backwards is terrifyingly easy...
MAJOR WARNING: Occasionally an individual receptacle will be wired with a separate circuit on each plug, with 240 VAC between the hots. As an example, I was once hired by an apartment complex after their maintenance crew attempted to replace an under-the-sink receptacle which resulted in tripped breakers. What their crew failed to recognize was that the original receptacle was wired for two separate circuits, one for the dishwasher, and the other for the disposal. For this to work, the receptacle common tab must be removed, otherwise the result is a direct short between phases. DO NOT PLUG IN A SUICIDE CORD EVER. Also: HIRE A LICENSED ELECTRICIAN. Silver Cymbal, be careful about representing this in this way.
And checking one side of a receptacle with a meter and checking the other side of the receptacle with a meter will give you a separate reading of 120 volts it will not tell you it’s a different phase. The way around that would be to check both hot sides of that duplex receptacle to see if you get 208-240 volts. Then you’ll know it’s a split fed receptacle and to never plug in a suicide plug! Shouldn’t do it anyways!
@jamesbarnes1897 The broken tab? Easy! Sometimes an outlet has one receptacle switched, such as for a lamp and the other is not switched. It is possible that someone's electrical plan fed the light circuit from one breaker and the non-swithed from another breaker, causing a possibility of 2 phases being supplied to the outlet with a potential of 240 VAC. Bretgreen5314 stated a similar situation where a Garbage disposal is on one circuit (under the sink) and is switched and the dishwasher shares the same outlet and is on another circuit. The chances of two breakers being used, side-by-side, and this being two different phases is more likely than not to happen. I don't think the NEC says they have to be two separate circuits, but it's considered a good practice because a disposal is considered an appliance, just like a refrigerator is and should be on it's own circuit.
Hmmm. This almost gave me PSTD! When I was six, I saw a two-prong wire lying around with its other end stripped and copper exposed. Curiously, I plugged it in both sides of an outlet and got the shock of my life! In a split second, suddenly there was a VERY LOUD SCARY SPARK, soot, and blister burns on my hands. Also it blew a fuse. Apparently there was a lamp with a bad plug that it was gonna be spliced to. I was nicknamed "Livewire" for a long time after that! Subsequently, I took electronics in vocational school and had jobs dealing with electricity for years!
While most videos will drag on with 10+ minutes and filler, you explained it well and within the appropriate time without losing my attention. Bravo, Sir.
I was looking up reviews for earplugs, Don know why this video was recommended, but I'm thankful I clicked on it, because now I know another random fact to break awkward silences when out with friends. Thank you!
I worked hardware stores for years, without fail every Christmas I would have to explain several times to people why this cord can't be bought, and is extremely dangerous. The dull looks on people's faces as I explained will never leave me.. It's because they strung their Christmas lights backwards, and have the wrong end at the outlet. **Edit** wow, thanks for all the comments, hilarious read through 😂
@@kennethbailey6634 It would never be used as we saw in this video. There is no purpose to putting the 2 ends in the same outlet. Such cords are usually homemade and are used by people who are trying to hook up their generators to their homes in a dangerous/illegal way during power outages.
The best use of this chord is for extracting the sour apple flavor from within the outlet. People keep telling me to stop doing that though. They say I have to be taken to the hospital afterwards, but like… I don’t recall any of it, and I really feel like I would remember something like that.
Don't ever do this in a kitchen. In many older homes they use what is called a split plug arrangement, the upper and lower halves of the outlet are on separate breakers and share the neutral wire. When it was installed a tang on the outlet was intentionally broken off to separate the halves. The two breakers are on the opposite bus bars in your panel and if you measured across them you would get 240 V. This is done to give full 15 amp capacity to each of the two outlet sockets. Plugging a suicide cord into a split plug will give you all the fire works you would expect. Modern homes have moved to conventionally wired 20 amp circuits because they can be protected by a GFCI. You have been warned!!!
Yeah man. I’ve wired older kitchen outlets and we used to cut the brass that jumped the two hot sides together so we could have two breakers on one outlet. So of course it’s 240v. Between the two hot sides of one outlet and shorting those would be not good. Now with GFCIs being kitchen and bathroom code, you can’t jury-rig it the old way and that’s a good thing. If he’d have tried that suicide cord on one of our rigged outlets from the 80’s, it would have been much more exciting. I hope nobody in an older house tries this suicide cord assuming it’s just fine. If those two receptacles are on separate breakers on opposite buss bars…Boom! You shorted 240v. Hope you had safety glasses on. Both breakers will trip but not without some sparks and possible arc-welding involved. I think he needs to clarify this for those who think his experiment is completely safe to try in their homes. I was a licensed electrician when I was 16 years old in the sixties when a rule used to be, reach into a fuse box with only one hand. That way, the electricity can’t cross your heart and kill you. An apprentice when in attics they used bare wire on stand-offs on dry wood joists. Many houses burnt down. I’m 60 years old now. Still an electrician. So, I’ve dealt with 12,280 volts coming into substations with rain drip pans on the ceilings and water on concrete floors. Still alive after 60 years. Now here’s this kid with a “suicide cord” on RUclips and explaining how completely harmless it is. Not good my friends. If you don’t understand how electricity works from the transformers to your homes, please don’t f*ck with it.
@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ, You know what else Jesus said? Don’t mess with electricity. “It’s the gates of hell.” Well, he didn’t say that, no electricity back then, but it’s fun to mess with stupid trolls.
I remember being an electrical engineer working with the navy and assigned to a transformer restoration on a 50 year old neglected hotel substation in Hawaii. I’m not navy, I’m a subcontractor who worked with submariners I went to the hotel and the chief engineer said the contacts were welded shut. 12,480 volts at 500 amps. Not cool. They needed to be opened. You can’t shut down an active hotel with guests who think they’re in paradise, so I looked for the transfer switch. Put my meter on it. Checked the springs. Looks operational. The problem is the breaker on the transformer. One leg would disconnect, the other wouldn’t. Spring broke. Huge spring broke. The thing with high voltage breakers and contractors is spring speed. Between on and off it has to be super-fast or it’ll weld itself shut. That’s fine for power but you’ll be hard pressed to ever turn it off again. It’s magnetic. Electromagnetic. One side fails, you’re screwed and we were. Face-shield time. Leather gloves, a dry 2x4. I slammed the contractor to closed and everything came on. Didn’t weld. That’s good. Everyone cheered like I was a hero. Not even close. Called Hawaiian Electric and they came out for emergency supply and all the tourists in the hotel thought nothing was wrong. That’s how it should be, and it was. Fireworks for Aloha Friday, everything above ground goes as planned. In the substation, complete mayhem. We were able to transfer power seamlessly and I remember that as my proudest moment. Nobody noticed a thing besides us. The lights in the hotel didn’t even flicker as we shut the transformer down. Hoops and hollers about the fireworks on Aloha Friday as we’re covered in sweat in the substation. We didn’t get to enjoy the fireworks display but you know what? We didn’t care. We were the silent heroes in the bilges for everyone else to enjoy this night. I loved every moment of it. Even though I saw no fireworks. I heard them, but what we were doing was for the others, the building, the guests, and everything that revolved around it. Radio chatter on secret channels, nobody knew that we were the hero’s of this at all. I thought that so cool. One transformer just had to go. We’d hire a crane in the morning when nobody is looking. The building was built around the mechanical things too large so they called in a helicopter. Nobody was hurt during the Aloha Friday celebration that happens every Friday, but they noticed the helicopter the next morning and asked security what’s going on. No big deal, just replacing a transformer, go on about your day. Have fun in paradise. Everything worked out fine. Nobody had a suicide cord to test a single circuit. This guy needs to figure out if he’s talking electrical he better make damn sure what he’s talking about before wasting all our time and putting morons in jeopardy. Don’t tell home owners or renters to plug a “suicide cord” into outlets no matter what.
@@Woodstock271 Not sure you ever really got it if you think reaching into a fuse box with one hand won't kill you. Sounds like you just got lucky. Current does not pass through your heart via each arm like there's some concealed cable running up each one. If you are grounded, current hitting you pretty much anywhere on your body will disrupt your heart rhythm. Your entire body is conductive and your nervous and vascular system will carry current to places it shouldn't be.
It just hit me how dangerous these truly are, I kinda figured they wouldn’t be too bad because you’d just turn the outlets off before plugging the cable in, so there’d be no risk of it electrocuting you. But I live in the UK, where everything is fused and grounded and all outlets have switches, I didn’t realise that in a lot of America you don’t have switches, making this a real deathtrap. Watching you plug that cable in live genuinely made me feel massively tense as I knew what it could theoretically do, it’s a really good thing the outlets were connected like that.
For anyone in regions with different standards: DON'T EVER DO THIS! Here in the Netherlands for example, plugs can be inserted in two ways, even with grounded sockets. The chance of having shortcircuits is 50%. And with the 230 V we use, this can be lethal. So just like Silver Cymbal said: do not do this, for any reason, ever!
@@r30413 Yeah 230 V and 1500 A dirrect current :D In Europe we are just welding and galvanize everithing and it's enough for us. We are happy with that.
Precisely. Or that the 2 sockets are actually one piece and not 2 different lines internally that could eventually be wired one different from the other. Unlikely but never second guess when you're dealing with live circuits.
FYI You can break those side tabs in order to put the bottom and top outlets on different circuits, breaking the tabs electrically separates the top and bottom outlet. The most common reason to do this is if you want the top or bottom outlet to be switched for a lamp, but still want the other outlet to be fully powered.
The electrical code does not permit putting the bottom and top outlets on separate circuits when the separate circuits are controlled by different breakers. So if you have to turn off two separate breakers to kill power to both outlets, it is not allowed.
@@brianleeper5737 Ahh, exceptions on top of exceptions. As you say you cannot have top and bottom outlets on separate breakers, but you could place them on opposite poles of 'double pole' breaker. This places 240V between the two 'hots' and if you plugged a suicide cord in I'd expect a significant arc as the contact was made, followed by the breaker tripping.
just wanted to say thank you for the vid format, quick and straight to the point thats how everyone should do this, im just amazed you did not give us 15 mins of filler before doing what everyone was here to see!
I call those types of videos "Plexiglass Man" How many different angles do you need to show me the piece of transparent plexiglass? Apparently 5 seconds of each of the three-axis gimbal possible combinations. It is now a running joke with family.
I agree - for the longest time RUclips has been telling creators, that you better get some watch time or we just will not promote your video. The creators have felt forced to make their videos at least 12 to 17 minutes long. I'm glad to see a video of this length showing up in my feed, it gives me encouragement too.
@@guitarmeetsscience Yep, YT these days is like telling a chef to make it 3% sauce and 97% the cheapest pasta you can find and make sure it's an oversized plate. Also tell them upon serving it up what brand the pasta is and why it's the best in existence, hand them a stack of coupons for it and command them to not only finish the entire dish no matter what, insist they hand them out to everyone including their pets, else never come back to this place and make sure none of our friends/family will, either.
If the plugs are polarized, then there is no problem for the SAME (unmodified) receptacle. You are guaranteed to have the same phase, by construction, as you have shown. The danger is if you connect to another wall receptacle, which may or may not be the same phase of the house supply (it is possible in an old house). It would be like connecting the "red" and "black" wires of your fuse box. You will be creating a very hot copper plasma, which may or may not be ok depending if your face or house is flammable or not. And then the breakers will trip stopping the arcing and melting. In a single receptacle, it is possible to break off the bus connecting the two sides and have two separate circuits feeding the top and bottom (why would somebody do this? I don't know). All bets are off for that situation. How did you know your receptacle was unmodified? What you are supposed to have done after the 0:52 demonstration of the voltage-checking devices, was to use a regular voltmeter to check that the potential difference between like terminal of the receptacles is zero. That way you know for sure the live terminals are connected to the same phase of the house feed. I realize you made the video for demonstration of the normal situation. I'm writing this for others.
Th e reason you would do that is ....lets say for a kitchen, 2 1500 watt appliances can use 1 receptacle without blowing the breaker (1 receptacle..2 breakers) or if you have 240v going into a receptacle box you can make each single plug 120v! Making a comment on vids like this LOuie, you should know this
Following a finish for another guy this week, couldn't figure out why I had two separate live cables in a box (more complicated troubleshooting at first). He ended up putting two circuits in a box on a remodel for a dishwasher and disposal. So two circuits on one outlet, completely separate from each other. There's another reason why you would have to do this.
My mother-in-law was complaining about receiving a shock from the kettle when she was leaning on the kitchen sink's s/s draining-board, so I tested the double power-outlet & found that the active & neutral cables were connected the wrong way around. Easily fixed with the power off at the fuse-box. Also tested every outlet in the house, but fortunately there were no other problems. However, the strangest thing was that they had been living in their house for over 25yrs since having it built, & that power-outlet had been installed that way, but as her arthritis had worsened my M-in-law was finding she needed to lean on things more & more!
It was commonly done in the 70s when they were installing radiant heat in the ceilings. They usually didn't have an overhead light, and so they would install one wall receptacle upside down to indicate that it had been modified and they would wire the bottom or in this case the top(?) to the light switch so it could control some type of plug in lamp or light stand. The other slot in the receptacle would be normal 120v without a switch.
It would depend if you were connecting a +120V and -120V circuit together, or if you were connecting two + 120V circuits (or two -120V circuits). It would be different for the hot side of the plug (the narrow prong/slot on the right) and the neutral side of the plug (the wider prong/slot on the left) The neutral side of the plug wouldn't have any effect, since they would both be at 0 volts, no voltage difference, no current flow. For the hot side, if both were +120V, then the difference between the two is zero volts, and the effect would be identical to the situation shown in the video, with the one caveat that you would be running current in parallel through the two breakers. If for example, you have a 15 amp circuit breaker on both, and you tried to draw 20 amps through a plug on your now combined circuit, you might end up drawing 10 amps through each breaker (since they are run in parallel) and each set of wires in the walls and would therefore not trip either breaker, whereas if you tried that on a single breaker you would trip the breaker. If you connected a +120V and -120V side of the bus bar in the main electrical panel, that would be like short circuiting the hot and neutral side of a 120 volt circuit, but now you're shorting a total difference of 240 Volts, so I would imagine it would be like a regular short circuit with double the power.
I think you forgot some pretty critical and dangerous caveats. If this was a split receptacle, you could have backfed another circuit (if it's switched, but the same leg), or caused a short across both hot legs (240v). which could be significantly more exciting than your demonstration.
Well, it will just create arc flash that will make you crap your pants, and then the breaker with pop. The main danger of this cable is that when you plug in one side, exposed live wire is sticking out of it, and it becomes very tempting to poke someone with it, and go to jail.
@@retabera WTF are you talking about, he stopped to say, the real danger here is this is live right now, and then he voltage tested it for emphasis. Way to Karen out and prove you didn't even watch the whole video
When I saw you open up the outlet I remembered the two were already electrically connected but during the initial experiment I expected a breaker to trip. Cool video!
When your grid power goes out and you plug your generator into your house outlet without disconnecting the grid, your generator power goes back into the grid with serious consequences for those linemen working to restore power. That is why these cables should be illegal. Only a house that has been setup for generator power should be allowed to connect a generator during an outage. Generators are installed all over Florida and Vermont, but they don't use these cables to do it. You can legally and safely setup solar and generator power along with grid power, but it has to be done correctly. These shouldn't be called suicide cables, they should be called murder cables.
Well the power companies are dumb for not supplying their employees a simple $20 current sensor to prevent such accidents. Even after flipping breakers, I still use the current sensor to double check.
ב''ה, in an emergency, pull the whole house disconnect, however confirming that's worked is sufficiently difficult. Around Hurricane Sandy utilities began offering a simple automatic/intrinsically mechanically disconnecting generator socket that slots in as part of the meter assembly.
The reason why it isn't illegal is you have legal uses for it. You have stupid people who use it in illegal ways that have killed people but you still have the legitimate use case of a house set up for 2 power inlets to it. Unsure how that would work as i am not in that field but when it is working like it should no power should feed back onto the grid. In the USA anyways you do have other countries that that is a thing and i am unsure how they do electrical cable and electrical wire maintenance when the power plant connection goes down.
Its on the same phase. It has to be 180° out of phase (120° for three phase service) for anything to happen. It is possible for a single duplex receptacle to have 2 separate circuits. An outlet has a tab that joins the upper and lower terminals together. If you're using it on 2 circuits, then you break the tab. This is common in a kitchen for the dishwasher and garbage disposal. Each has its own breaker, but they use a common outlet. If the 2 different circuits are on different phases and you did what he just did, you would have done whats known as "double feeding". Its a line to line fault and is a violent short. You wouldn't want to be looking at the arc flash. you can check with a multimeter by putting each probe in the "hot" side of the outlet. If it shows over 200 volt (220-250 for residential or 208-230 for commercial) then the outlet has 2 circuits on opposite phases. Do not plug suicide cord in this outlet.
As a guy who installed a 3-way light switch in the attic once during high school that surely must have violated electrical codes, but worked and never burned the house down, I had expected a blown fuse or tripped circuit breaker. Live and learn, but also learn to hire an electrician, like I did.
Interesting video. I know others have previously commented on this topic, but I wanted to add more. Clearly Silver Cymbal you clearly explained/proved that there wouldn't be an issue in your particular outlet (which would be the same as most outlets in our homes). However if you have a split outlet where the top and bottom plugs come from different circuits (breakers) AND from different phases, there will be a problem. Remember that most homes are fed 240 VAC hydro via two "hot" 120 VAC lines out of phase plus one neutral. If the top outlet was fed from one phase and the other outlet from the other... you would a serious problem. You are basically then shorting out the 240VAC feed to your entire house (ie shorting one "hot" 120 VAC phase with the other). But, fortunately the breakers (or fuses) for both separate circuits should blow pretty quickly when you do this. Typically "split" outlets are found in kitchen outlets (in newer homes). Your video is good in explaining what happens, identify safety concerns and make us think.
A very good additional point Rick F. I found your comment to be the 7th comment when i viewed the video and hopefully it stays that way. While watching the video I felt like all the info you stated in your comment should have been mentioned. Hopefully nobody ever actually tries this in a kitchen on an outlet that was wired on 2 breakers so that large wattage appliances like toasters ovens and microwaves can be run simultaneously.
Exactly what I expected to happen. However... you should mention that sometimes these types of outlets are in fact separated. Sometimes the little connecting tab is broken off, usually so that half of the outlet can be switched (with a wall switch). I don't know if current codes allow for this any more, but this was very common back in the 1970s (when my house was built).
Would still be the same circuit though so you would have the same effect. You are correct about the tabs though. Its so you can have a lamp in the room that works off the light switch.
Exactly try that in a kitchen plug they are seperate circuits to run for example a toaster and a kettle in the same receptacle. The tabs will be broken. That suicide cord will trip the breakers
So what would happen if I took a 20 foot suicide cord plugged it into two different outlets across from each other on the living room? I figured he'd address something like this after explaining why a single plug doesn't go kaboom.
You can definitely break the tab these days (allowed by code). I have an outlet in my garage with the tab broken off, as it has two separate runs, one to each plug, with each on it's own 20am breaker on the panel. This way I can run more heavy duty tools simultaneously, as I have a total of 40amp available (2 x 20).
@@larrym603 Very few kitchen circuits are run like you describe, code wants kitchen duplex outlets to alternate legs but almost never are alternate legs hooked into the same split duplex outlet. But if you have a kitchen wired like you describe pull the outlets out and make o video of it so we can see that setup.
excellent job explaining this ,I've replaced outlets in my house pretty easily done with breakers off ,but knowing exactly how the outlets actually work is very important, thanks we can always learn something new .
I had to replace a broken light switch before - the only thing I knew about it was to turn off the breaker first, but otherwise I was clueless. But, because of that, I was very careful to closely observe where each wire was connected on the bad switch (even taking pictures on my phone in case I forgot) and just moved each wire to the exact same point on the new switch. The house didn't burn down, so I must have done something right. It wasn't until years afterward that Technology Connections put out a video explaining why light switches make clicking sounds and dissected one that I finally understood what each wire was, what it did and why hooking it up right was so important.
A guy at my church once asked why we don’t make plugs like that. As an electrical engineer, I was aghast at such a _shocking_ question knowing full well that some enterprising individuals will make such a thing with parts from their hardware store only to be in for a surprise of a lifetime (a shortened one). Sort of like people who have made fractal wood burners from microwave oven transformers. Plenty of sad tales there.
at hardware store I worked at least 1 personal a years wanted one or was buying the pieces for it at Christmas. i always made it a point not to tell him we don't have it, but to tell them they're an idiot
Honestly, if you actually built one and can't see the issue with live wires sticking out of a plug, I'd argue you have bigger issues than a suicide cord in your hand.
I made one actually blow many years ago. My Papa (Grandad on Dad’s side) made his own cord with both male ends, but his only had two prongs on each end, which were polarized, with no grounding prong. I did experiments like this, when I was little, to see what would happen. I did mine by first turning off the breaker for the outlet I was going to use then I plugged both ends up to the top and bottom receptacles. After I plugged them up, I went back over to the box and flipped the breaker back on. When I did, there was an immediate bright blue flash with a loud pop, and the male end in the top receptacle blew straight out of it along with a pretty good puff of smoke that smelled like something electric being burnt along with some black on that receptacle of the outlet. It did not trip the breaker, though, but I tripped the breaker back myself, after it happened, to unplug the other end. Oddly enough, the outlet itself was just fine, and both receptacles still worked afterward. The cord still worked, too, with there just being some black on the prongs on that end of the cord. It looked like maybe the load from both of the receptacles tried to collide against each other and ended up force blowing one side completely out of the receptacle. I don’t know if the fact that there was no grounding prong, even though the prongs were polarized on each end, made a difference, but it definitely didn’t like being hooked up in such a way.
The grounding wire should make no difference, everything should work fine without a grounding wire IF EVERYTHING IS CORRECTLY WIRED AND WORKING PROPERLY. The fuse should have popped, cus you just made a full short circuit with maybe 50-200 A or what that cord could deliver in a split second. Fuses must not connect if it would cause more than their specified rating to flow. So it shouldn't do anything in the first place. I would suggest your fuses being checked. The plug should not have popped out the receptacle. Receptacles must be tight, otherwise there is a possibility the connections are loose, overheating the socket and cause burns. So I would suggest checking the receptacles.
It was nice to see a video on this. I already knew the answer, so I wasn't surprised. I think you would get the same results even if the clips on the outlet were removed as long as they are connected to the same line. However I did have an interesting similar situation a couple of years ago that was a bit shocking. I ordered some of those 2 ft LED tubes for my aquarium lighting. The tubes can be plugged in from either end and since there were four tubes, there were also four plugs. I don't remember why I tried it (it seemed logical at the time), but with one end of the light plugged in (and the light lit), I used another plug to connect to the same line (but a different outlet) to the other end of the tube. There was a pop, the light went out, and a little puff of smoke actually came out of the light tube. Scared the hell out of me. In hindsight, I think the electronics within the tube changed the phase from one end of the tube to the other. The line fuse blew and I removed the plugs from both ends of the tube. Here's the really weird thing. After an hour (and feeling really stupid for frying my new light), I thought let's at least verify that the light is fried and I plugged it in (just one end this time). And believe it or not, it worked! Switched on an off as usual too. It's been a year and a half, and it's still working just like the other three. Not sure what actually caused the smoke, but apparently it either wasn't a vital component or the component wasn't completely fried. Might make a good subject for another video. I don't recommend this for the general public.
Hi. Sometimes LED tubes came in one format or connection, others came different. You only need to check if the 2 contacts in the same extreme are same point (electrically speaking). With a multimeter or an continuity tester is extremally easy. Greetings!
I am not used to US style electrical systems but arent those tabs on sides designed to be broken off so you can wire upper and lower plug to a different circuit/phase(leg?)
In basic terms, the reason nothing happened is because both of those outlets are on the same phase. If you were to use that cord to connect two different outlets that are on the same phase nothing would happen. If you were to connect that cord to two outlets that are on different phases, that's when the sparks would fly before causing one or both of the circuit breakers to for those outlets to trip. Also, in the US backup generators that use a suicide cord use 240volt and not 120volt which use both phases to power aplences like electric stoves, electric whole house heaters and electric hot water heaters. Also 240volt and 120volt use a different type of outlet.
Also as long as you haven't messed up the connection on the suicide-cord (active/neutral/earth connection wrong), nothing will go zap! An outlet-tester is very useful to own, as even an incorrectly wired extension-cord will work plugged into a correctly wired wall-socket, but then becomes deadly when plugged into an incorrectly wired power-outlet! Somewhere I have on old bakelite double-adapter which were banned from use here in Australia decades, which I would open & show alongside a legal one from that time. Side by side you can clearly see the difference as the illegal adapter swaps the active & neutral pins on one outlet!
Same here. We also don't do split outlets here. We have multifase outlets, but those have different sockets, usually earth, neutral and 3 phase and are clearly incompatible with standard mains plugs.
Pretty much. If they're on the same 3 wire, then they're already connected. Kinda freaky looking, tho. (not an electrician, but I like to play with stuff)
Thanks exactly what I expected. It’s the same circuit. I am not an electrician but have done my own work. Now the idea of using the generator with that cable is something I never thought of
don't. *theoretically* it's possible to sever your boxes connection to the grid to contain the generator's power to your own home, but many people don't do that correctly, and wind up backfeeding electricity into what are supposed to be dead lines (during an outage). This is incredibly dangerous for the electricians trying to repair lines, and regularly causes fatal accidents.
I was at a hardware store one December and a picture of a "suicide cord" was on display. Under it was this message: "We do not sell or make extention cords with dual male plugs. If you need one, you set up your Christmas lights wrong."
As someone from a country where polarisation isn't important I was expecting it to go wrong, I was also scared cuz in USA you can have plugs next to each other that are out of phase
I have done this at the Power Plant I worked at. We had a CEMS analyzer on a running Boiler Steam unit that was online from a UPS that needed to have a battery replacement without doing an outage. I made the same plug he had and back feed the output of the UPS input with the utility power during the outage. You have to know how to do this without damage to equipment and personal injury. That is why they call it the Death Cord.
Fired? Nope. They probably wrote him a procedure/work package giving him permission to do this. It's amazing what I&C, PME and OPS can do to stay online lol
I'd be cautious doing this, as those tabs that electrically connect the two outlets are made to be removed. Usually they are removed to have a switch to control one or both of the outlets. In that case it would have the same (no) result. However it could also be used to put each outlet on a seperate fuse, for example in a kitchen or workshop where you may want multiple high power electronics. in this case it could be possible that each outlets' hot is on a separate phase, which means you would have a very bad time.
@@davidsoulsby1102 Not really. IIRC electrical code (at least in my area) specifies that the outlet for a refrigerator must be on its own circuit, with at most a clock on the same circuit. As you might want a microwave in the same area, it could be a good idea to have the top outlet on a completely separate circuit, or on the same circuit as the rest of the kitchen, as it is likely that if the fridge's compressor kicks in while the microwave is running you will blow a fuse.
@@xilstus1776 So 2 separate circuits, 2mm apart, in the same box, isn't bad practice? Tracking from moisture on either the inside or outside in a kitchen where water, grease, are commonly used 🤔. I suspect the registration is talking about running a physical separate circuit, different cable, box, outlet.
Old post but another point to make is you can take a long version of this cable and plug into another circuit and youd have a 50/50 chance of it doing nothing or tripping both circuits. Because there is 2 legs on residential electric service and the breakers in panel are on alternating legs, if you cross 2 circuits on the same leg of the phase it wont do anything except create a redundant path, if you cross 2 different legs you will create a 240volt short and blow both breakers. The only exception to this is modern electrical services use AFCI protection on all breakers so they will trip regardless.
Dude , your awesome no long speeches just answers and quality content. Not only did you explain why you showed why ....great job. Definitely earned my sub
Something I learned around my dad and other trained electricians: remember, outlets have one side as neutral and other as live just for convenience and standardization when wiring, they actually switch places 50/60 times a second depending on where you are.
Most electricians would probably tell you to stay away from those cords to begin with, though I don't think arc flash is the particular hazard they're worried about @@jimballard7217
@@jimballard7217 It's fine, always going to be hot to hot and neutral to neutral if the outlet is wired correctly. If it was unpolarized 2 prong, you could flip one and get a hot-neutral short and likely trip the breaker, hopefully, before the cord caught fire. That said, don't own one of these or do that.
As long as the hot and neutral wires weren’t crossed then you should be fine. If there was a cross in the cable you may be in a little trouble, fire at the worst and popped breaker at the least. What’s also exciting is if you plug into another plug on a different breaker.
@@jamesgoggle3421 It's just not as simple as that. Electricity to the home is three phase (L1, L2, and L3, mutually 60° out of phase), but only two phases go on a single breaker. If you plug the cord between a circuit that uses L1-L2 and a circuit that also uses L1-L2, and they have the same polarity, nothing will happen. However if the other circuit is L1-L3, you're now shorting L2 to L3. If your electrical system uses two-pole breakers, at least one breaker will trip. If you have single-pole breakers or old fashioned fuses, and they're connected to L1 in the fuse box, you will trip the main fuse, but not before you've had some severe overcurrent. Depending on your electrical system and the type of main fuse, it could take several seconds and be a fire hazard. In short, if you plug between different circuits you're doing things to your electrical system that are extra extra dangerous and you may burn your house down. Do not.
@mc1847 There are 240 volts between the two phases, just as there are 120v between a single phase and neutral. This voltage allows current to move along the wire (with very little resistance stopping it), so you would generate a short circuit. In the very short amount of time before the breakers reacted, twice the current and four times the power would be dissipating on your wire vs a phase to neutral short. You would get some fireworks and, hopefully, one or both breakers would trip before something melted (probably your cord near the prongs).
@@tykjpelk No you are wrong too, three phase is common in Europe only and some other countries outside the US, and more important, at least in the US and Europe, not two phases are connected to an outlet and breaker, but one phase and neutral. And also wrong, even if you connect outlets with the same phase, neutral and that phase could be switched (to code in Europe or not to code in the US but possible either) and thus cause short circuits.
I did expect it to catch fire or something worse. But it is fascinating to know why it did not do that. You did a great explanation and illustration of why it did not.
That’s pretty cool that you have testers in the forms of outlet plugs. Honestly never seen that before, my dad has these little stick like things with a plastic flat nipple on the end(he used to do repairs and maintenance live generators). Even seen those stick things being used by other electricians as well who came into the house when I lived with my mom.
@@dylanharding5720 a socket tester is standard kit in the US too alongside probe testers and ncvt testers, these people just don't do electrical work and dont really think to look these things up to be honest.
The more I observe others explain their grasp of electromotive force, the more grateful I am for my teachers and the time they gave to give me an absolute treasure
I know of a case where a suicide cord was used to back feed per from one house to its neighbour. This was in the UK where the feed to each house at the time was single phase nominal 240V, but the power company rotates the phase between houses. Connecting to a house that has two intermediate houses would have produced this null result, and that's what the folk who did it were expecting. While power to one house was off at the main switch it all worked great, illegally stealing power that was metered by next door's meter instead of their own :( However when one of the naughty household turned on the main switch while forgetting to disconnect the suicide cable the live wires (hot wires) of two different phases were connected, and at 240V the difference between phrases is 440V with almost no resistance. BANG! They managed to blow both company fuses and the lights momentarily flickered along the whole of their street. They then had some explaining to do: to the power people, to their neighbours, to the police, and to the magistrates...
@@blacknoir2404 yes, that's always a good idea, then you can isolate the ends from each other before unplugging. Even better, have a breaker near each end of the cord if it's going further than a few metres. Then you can always keep yourself safe by using the bearer breaker. If you remember if course. It's still not recommended as it's too easy to forget. Perhaps with a breaker it should be called the "are you sure suicide cord"
When I was kid my grandfather and I built me a club house in the back yard. He wired the clubhouse to have lights and power. He made me a 50ft extension cord with 2 males to get power from the house when I was using it. Worked like a charm and never had any problems. I was just not allowed to use it when it was raining.
For safety reasons you should have mentioned that plugging the hot end into a different plug, or if this receptacle is split like in most kitchen receptacles, on two different circuits you would energize a circuit that was potentially turned off at the breaker box.
1 receptical will never be on seperate circuits and unless your running to a different room all the outlets will be on the same circuit in that room unless its an old house someone remodeled and didnt get the proper permits for
electrician student drop out here. ;-) I thought I'd add that you can break that tab off and have two independently wired outlets. This can be useful if you want to attach a wall switch to one of the outlets for a lamp and have the other one always on. If someone does this correctly and you plug in a suicide cord, you'd see the same results. If someone screws up the neutral wiring on the switched side, which is a very common problem in the real world, then you will have an exciting surprise in store for you.
There could be other types of wiring configurations for an outlet like this. The top and bottom could be fed from two different circuits if the connecting tabs have been removed. If those two different circuits are from two different legs in the panel you might be looking at much different results.
Agreed. Sometimes the hot legs can be split (remove the tab connecting the two outlets,) and be wired with 240volts. It allows more power at the outlet. Plug that thing in, and it goes BOOM!
Not on these types of plugs. They're made for 120 only. The tabs to disconnect are only to have a switch turn power on and off on one side of the plug while the other is constant. Theoretically someone could run 2 different phases but that wouldn't be an electrician that does that. Granted I've not been an electrician for about 15 years but I was one for 3 years in my late teens early 20s
That's what I was curious about....plugging into 2 separate circuits would be feeding 240v to each outlet....sparks would fly and both breakers would more than likely trip???
Do an experiment that actually shows what happens with the phase mismatch like you'd get if you had a generator connected and the main breaker was closed when the power came back on :)
You have to complete a circuit for anything to happen. That means hooking the "hot" side to the "neutral" side or the ground (which is bonded to the "neutral" in the main panel). Only then will there be a flow of current. Just for peoples information, alternating current (AC) changes direction (in the US) 60 times a second. That means the current flows from the "hot" to the "neutral" and then from the "neutral" to the "hot" 60 times a second. So in reality, both are hot. The "neutral" is only called "neutral" because it taps into the transformer coil in the middle of the coil whereas the "hot" is attached to both ends of the transformer coil. That is why your main panel has two "hot" wires coming into it and one "neutral" wire. To get 240 volts your circuit will have to be attached to both "hot" wires. To get 120 volts your circuit will have to be attached to the "neutral" wire and one of the "hot" wires. Electrical panels are designed so that each "hot" wire supplies power to every other row of circuit breakers. That is why attaching a device to two adjacent circuit breakers that are next to each other vertically will get you 240 volts. When you do that you are getting the full voltage output of the transformer's entire coil. That is also why you do not have a "neutral" wire connected to the neutral bus bar on a 240 volt circuit.
Technically, the current alternates within it's own circut. The neutral is there to balance the load from the phasing. There are many circuts that don't have neutrals. Especially for motors.. However, at the tap yes. (For simplicity of someone who would look at a circut and assume they need a neutral to comeplete a branch circut... or even sub panel.)
@@_Jake.From.Statefarm_ The average household transformer has a 220/240 coil in it. The sole purpose of the neutral is to get 110/120 volts from that same coil by connecting to the center of the coil. That is why and the only reason why it is called "neutral." Alternating current is called alternating for a reason. And that reason is because electricity flows both directions half the time, because it alternates the direction it travels. Only circuits that use 220/240 volts do not have neutrals because they are 220/240 volt circuits, not 110/120 volt circuits. If you want a 110/120 volt circuit then you must have the "neutral" wire in the circuit
@@oldtimefarmboy617 I fully understand that and most households don't have transformers at all (on the property), they are connected to one generally at the pole. I made it clear that you weren't wrong about the nutral from the tap. I'm simply stating that branch circuits dont always have neutrals for people who aren't journeyman electricians, not that they should be touching any thing to begin with . There is no need if the circuit is balanced.. I didn't want to get into theory class for people who dont understand resistance, disipation, unbalanced loads, and things they likely won't see in an electrical system. Just that they do exist, I never stated a single pole circuit wouldn't need one... You inferred that I thought that.
@@_Jake.From.Statefarm_ A transformer at the house or one the pole makes zero difference. The average household transformer is connected to only one phase at the pole. There is no phasing and no phasing to balance out. The only purpose of the "neutral" wire is to get 110/120 volts from a 220/240 volt coil. And alternating current has no polarity. The use of the word polarity in the industry is only a technical term to standardize how things are wired up so no matter where you go everything is done the same. It is like a gallon is a gallon and a foot is a foot and a pound is a pound everywhere you go in the United States and if some tells you to go east you know exactly what direction they are talking about.
@@oldtimefarmboy617 I dont need a lesson guy. You keep being up shit I never said, nor claimed. I never said it did matter if it was on a pole.. and I know how transformers work and their different configurations. I've been a JC for 15 years and have worked in multiple facets of the trade. I've started in commercial/industrial became a foreman, worked in the generator sector, and later a lead at a major data center.
If you try that on a plug where the tab is removed and the other plug is on the other half of your panel you could create a 240v short circuit across your hots.
Yep, it only makes 240 volts if the hot for each, was on a different phase. Otherwise, it just links the two together as the same 120 volts they already were….just like the tie bar on the receptacle, that was linking the two halves.
Resi service neutral is center tap on transformer on street near 0v which electrically is the same as ground. Hot is +120 and -120 of a single phase for a grand total of 240v
Now show us what happens when you have 2 dedicated circuits on one duplex with one on the left -110V supply and one on the right +110V supply in the circuit box and you plug in the suicide cord.
Many outlets, such as in kitchens, have the link between the two hot terminals removed, with the 2 sides connected to separate breakers or fuses. These will have 240V between the 2 sides and will provide a bit of a spark as you short out 2 breakers/fuses. Also, those 6 outlet blocks are actually 2 x 3, not 1 x 6, to allow for those split outlets. You can verify this by testing for continuity between the 2 rows of 3. There shouldn't be any.
@@TheEulerID Those split outlets are always on separate phases. If they were on the same phase, it would be easy to overload the neutral. With opposite phases and a balanced load, there is no current in the neutral. With the same phase, the neutral could have twice the rated current. To support these outlets, there are ganged breakers, one on each phase or blocks for holding 2 fuses, again on opposite phases. Any other use of the split outlet is a violation of code.
@@James_Knott Would it be legal to put them both on the same phase if you pulled separate neutrals? I know there would be no point to it but just hypothetically.
@Marty's 4x4 I have never seen that. I have seen plenty as I described, including 2 in my kitchen. To do what you want would require ganged breakers on the same phase and it's not possible with any panel I've seen. You need ganged breakers to ensure there's no power in the outlet box, when the breakers are tripped.
Large=neutral Small=hot That’s so much easier for me to remember than the gold and silver plates on the sides of the outlet! Easier to identify too, especially in dim lighting. Thank you kind sir!
@@robertmiler6652 almost all the time I’m doing this I’m dealing with subpar lighting, I’m not always able to confidently distinguish between the silver and brass. On top of that poor working memory on account of my ADHD has me constantly going back to the box to relearn this only to forget it as soon as I get distracted by bending, organizing, stripping the wires. It’s like constantly digging the pizza box out of the trash to find out what temperature and how long to cook it, every time… It’s funny how different brains can be, sometimes it’s frustrating.
There was a suicide cord in use in the old garage of our house we bought. The previous owner had jumped from one live socket to a mismatched panel of several sockets so he had more outlets to use, they were wired in the most peculiar way.
Note: When buying a home, always make your offer contingent on an inspection. Then have the house inspected by a certified inspector before you buy it. Your real estate attorney or buyers agent should have warned you. Radon, leaking fuel tank, aspestos, structural deficiencies, there are many things that can bite you without an inspection.
I've rarely been that stressed out on just watching a video on RUclips, when you were about to plug the second part in I was butt clenching. Funny that it does nothing in the end, but now I really want to see a setup that blows up
Before I even watch the video, I can already say that if you plug that suicide cord into both sockets, nothing would happen as long as the two sockets are coming from the exact same circuit, which they are 19 times out of 20. If they were each on a separate circuit and fed with the opposite phases, then yes, you’d have a 240V short circuit and you’d get a loud pop and hopefully that’s it because the breaker(s) feeding that fault should’ve tripped immediately.
I was thinking the same thing. I wonder, if using standard 20 amp circuit breakers, if the arc would be hot enough to weld or ruin the outlet tension. In my experience there would likely be some damage.
@@deang5622 Except wiring doesn't work that way. If you have a split receptacle, IT MUST be protected with a ganged breaker. Which means you have 1 from each phase.
Note to everyone. Some outlets have that bridge cut allowing for different circuits, if there is a difference in phases between them then it really would have ended differently.
Eliminating the bridge to run 2 different phases, let alone circuits, to different plugs of one outlet is possibly the dumbest thing you can do is literally asking for trouble.
@@GurtTheHurt I’ve seen it done in small kitchens to allow for a fridge and another appliance (usually a oven) to be run off of one outlet but 2 circuits. I’d rather use a 2 gang box but oh well. Although I have cut the bridge for some outlet in my living room, having one plug be always hot and the other be on a switch for a lamp. Technically different circuits same outlet, never really though about the phases though.
@@ButterfatFarms it was a simple demonstration and experimenting. Anyone who knows how electrical works already knew what would happen. This is to teach those who don't know. What they didn't explain is no one should use these cords professionals and especially DIY'ers. This is not the proper way to backfeed power and is incredibly dangerous
Hi, I follow your channel and thought I should mention this is dangerous to show people as a lot of older houses here in Canada would have the line side power of the receptacle separated which would allow us to send a seperate phase on the top and a seperate phase to the bottom. We call these split receptacles. Mainly used in kitchens. If someone were to test this under these circumstances, it would definitely blow. Depending how close this receptacle is to the electrical panel, it could essentially trip the 100A main as I've see this scenario happen before with people forgetting to break the tabs allowing phases to cross without a load.
I agree and am 100% against these cables and the use of them for generator backfeeding. I take a lot of heat as many want to believe for generator use they are safe when in fact they are not: ruclips.net/video/9kjpS1vfGio/видео.html
Not just Canada but USA too. Learned it from personal experience and tripped the main fuse because i forgot to remove the little tabs on the outlet. He should of covered that in the video.
I’m sorry if this is a dumb question: Wouldn’t it be the same result if the outlets weren’t connected? There’s no (or very little) potential difference between the two hot wires, or between the neutral wires.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the two outlets weren't already connected internally, you'd still have gotten the same result as long as both outlets are on the same breaker. But if they were on separate breakers, electricity would've built up at the breaker box and it would've tripped both breakers, or you'd melt something.
You are wrong. The phrase "electricity would've built up" is a bit non-sensical, but I'll try address what you're talking about. If you had hooked one end to 110 and the other to 220, that would've tripped breakers. As "Joe B" states, the most important thing is that the 2 AC waves be in phase, or nearly in phase. If they were out of phase, connecting them with this cable would either blow the breaker or quickly bring the two signals into phase, depending upon how far out of phase they were at the instant you connected them. Hope this helps.
@@iNowHateAtSigns electricity flows like water, if it doesn't have somewhere to go it can build up and cause overheating, melting, or fire. No the phrase is not nonsense.
@@johnwallace2638 Sorry to offend, John, but you are not correct. Your terminology is not correct, nor your understanding of electricity. The analogy of water to electricity is helpful in conceptualizing some basic principles like voltage, but electricity is not water and electricity doesn't "build up". CHARGE can accumulate across a DIELECTRIC, yes, but that's not what you're talking about. The buildup you mention in your recent comment is simply called VOLTAGE, which has little to do with what causes overheating, melting and fire. What causes overheating, et al, is dissipation of POWER in a RESISTIVE element such as a wire beyond it's rated CURRENT capacity. I hope you'll google some of the terms above and learn rather than taking offense to my corrections.
You can use an extension cord and bridge any two outlets in the house, as long as the live terminals are iof the same phase, nothing will happen. If the two outlets are fed from different phases, you'll end up tripping the main MCB.
I did this (the equivalent - forgetting to remove the tabs shorting the phases together on an outlet) some years ago. I didn't get anything dramatic,but saw all kinds of weird stuff. When I turned light off in one room, the ceiling fan in another went off and so on. What was happening was that the circuit breaker on one phase popped, then the shorted outlet fed power from one phase to the other. Was a real head scratcher until I figured out what was going on.
I can't believe how much I learned about wiring here, after maintaining my own homes for decades. Thanks to you all. Even your comment would sound like a sure bet that it wasn't possible, but you just have to think for a second..... and very cool, I must say!
Had this happen during hurricane Ian. I lost only one phase of power, half of my house was without power and any 240V appliances of course could not work.
Nice lesson. Next time you are doing this video explain why the 2 plugs are connected with a tab on each side. Technically as a builder when you’d say have a bedroom or living room and there is a light switch but no light on the ceiling, breaking the tabs out gives you w seperate circuits. So I that living room you may choose to have the top plug hot all the time but the bottom plug would be switched. Plug a lamp in the bottom one now you have a switched lamp. It’s important to understand the use of those tabs. You should NEVER use a dimmer in this type of circuit. Unless you are the only oerson using it. For instance you decide to vacuum and plug a vacuum into the wall outlet but you forget which plug is switched. Then you plug the vacuum in the switched plug with the dimmer, light bulb dimmer are not designed to operate any electric motor. You can get heat issues as the dimmer switch is less voltage and you can permanently damage your vacuum. Anyway it’s a good thing to know . The switched plug should be marked or colored different. A factory won’t do that but a magic marker works well.
While explaining why it didn't go boom, you forgot to warn about split phase or three phase. They could be wired inde9endantly, resulting in 240V 8r 208V between the two h8t terminals, then you probably don't want to try that experiment.
@@lashaunbeazer9264 it is possible to have two 120V sockets powered from one 240V circuit. Remove the hot bridge between them. Ground and neural to both, and either hot to each. I know I have seen a video mentioning they had a socket like this. I think they had two 120V sockets fed by 240V, but wanted to replace them with 4-pin 240V sockets to use a welding machine. I'm not at all an expert on American wiring code, but I think it's interesting to observe how they are different from the system commonly used in Eorope, where we have 230V single phase and 400V three phase, while the American system is 120V single phase and either 240V split phase, or 208V three phase.
It isn't *always* the case that the top and bottom of the outlet are on the same circuit. Years ago, I got a letter from the condo assn - basically saying that if you needed to change an outlet in the dining room, to please have them come and do it. So I was curious - I got out my voltmeter, and started to measure. If I measured across the two hot terminals, I got 208V - basically different circuits that were on different phases of a 3-phase feed. I don't know the how/why it got to be this way - apparently the whole building was wired that way since they sent the letter around to everyone in the building. So if you were to naively replace the outlet (and forget to break off the tabs), you would get some fireworks. In any event, your experiment with the suicide cord on that specific outlet, you would fry something somewhere.
There's no load and they are both AC circuits. As long as you didn't crosswire/short the hots to the neutral, you would still get the same result. Remember that 208V is Alternating current and already cycling from +208 to -208 60 times per second when you were measuring it (or half that for each individual receptacle/socket/plug). So even for two plugs that had separate circuits, as long as they were wired correctly, no fireworks would occur. The only way that would happen is if the separately wired plugs had one side that was wired in reverse, hot to the neutral side and vice versa. However we would have been able to see this on his plug testers if that was the case.
So when both poles from the service box end up in the same room, then unluckily in the same receptacle box, and get wired to the same receptacle that has it's tabs split, you can create a live 220 volt with this cord. The day you comprehend this statement the universe will smile upon you.
The comments are mostly about what will happen plugging in a suicide plug into a house outlet. The mention that it's illegal to back feed a generator onto a incoming line drop to your home. This is a DEADLY practice as a lineman for the Electric company who is up on a pole is working on a dead branch circuit to your neighborhood. He's checked the line & knows it is a dead feeder circuit because a tree has fallen & broken the line from the pole. For safety, He pulls the neighborhood fuse that has the line dead until he's completed his repairs & then he'll go to that fuse switch & re energize that feeder again. In the meantime, Joe has gotten out his generator & suicide plug, Filled it with gas & plugs it into his garage outlet to power up a few things in the home. That 120 or 240 volts he puts on the meter box goes back out to the pole transformer. A transformer does the job of taking approx. 13, 000 volts on the branch circuit (that wire on the top of the poles that goes into the top of a transformer hanging on it) when its operating properly, And steps it down to a relatively residential safe 240/120 volt house feed. BUT A transformer works either direction. That generator voltage goes out the breaker panel in the basement, through the electric meter, out to the pole transformer, WHERE It's stepped up to 13,000 volts AC & travels down that suddenly now live line to a block away where that lineman is restringing it through the insulator eyelet on a pole. Yes, Your right, That generator will not power that block of homes for more than a couple of seconds & pop a breaker or something else. BUT That won't save the poor lineman who knows he's working on a safely dead feeder line. He's now laying at the bottom of the pole. Just a little more info about how a grid works.
Understand your point clearly and don’t recommend it unless a transfer switch is in place. However, there is a “safe” way of being stupid if one doesn’t mind potential for a fire, easy to turn off the Main so back feed doesn’t occur when the lineman completes the connection.
Exactly my thoughts...if you need to backfeed then shut off the main and seperate whats being backfed from rest of the grid...it also keeps what lil power your generating where it needs to be instead of feeding the entire system which is dangerous and leeches your power away from the necessities your trying to power in the first place.@andrewbeaupre1867
Hopefully others read this and understand what is said here. A transfer switch (installed accurately) is the best choice. In a pinch with little options, and last ditch effort (HIGHLY DONT RECOMMEND TRYING) please turn off the Main, and only using smaller breakers to transfer loads as you mentioned. It can be done “safely “ but it does not immune a person or household of potential fires or electrical wiring damage.
As an electrician, that was the result I was expecting it could have shorted out had it been 2 circuits pulled to that receptacle one on A phase and 1 on B phase (or C phase if you're in a commercial building)
I have to admit the thumbnail brought me here. I been in the electrical industry for more than 30 years. I knew that nothing was going to happen. But the topic "suicide cord" got me intrigued.
1:20 My immediate, intuitive guess (after getting past the whole "exposed terminals connected to mains power" bit) was exactly what happened. Live connects to live, neutral to neutral, ground to ground. You're shorting each pin to itself, so nothing happens. Let's keep watching... ...even if the two outlets were disconnected (e.g. to connect one to a light switch), you'd still be connecting neutral to neutral, ground to ground, and live to live; in most cases, such applications are on the same breaker. Worst case scenario, the "suicide cord" would act as a switch, turning on anything on the same circuit as the switched outlet. Even if they were on different breakers, *maybe* you'd trip a GFCI.
if you connected two outlets that were on different hot legs they'd be out of phase and you'd get 208 or 240 across the cable and something would probably trip or burn up
in theory you could still cause a short to ground if at least one end of your cable lacked the features that enforce polarity (ie no third prong or unequally sized prongs)
@Flying C Land Wrong. Almost all US homes are two phase, with phase to neutral voltage being 120V and phase to phase being 240V. Most commercial buildings are three phase, with 208V phase to phase.
@Flying C Land So how many phases are there? If it's the same phase, the voltage between them is zero. It's not. There are two phases, and they're 180 degrees out of phase. Yes, the two phases are created by splitting up one phase, but it's still two phases.
So, I have a fun one for ya! I've seen outlets with the center bond taken out, and each outlet is fed off from a different phase. Essentially giving you 220 at that outlet if you chose to feed from that. So what would happen in that case where the outlet is being fed from different phases?
When guessing what will happen, this is exactly what I'm expecting since the outlet is on the same leg circuit and as a result, nothing happens. What will happen if you plug the suicide cord to other leg? I think the circuit breaker will just trip since it shorts between both legs. By the way, this is how you can get two 120v outlets from each leg into single 240v. I've done this when I needed a 240v application, such as my 240v induction burner and my EV charger. Legs are also known as phase and every home have 240v split phase, one 120v on each leg.
Once when I was a teen, I was helping my parents remodel our house. I had a power tester, and I decided to see if the tester would work on two opposite ends of a screw on the side of an outlet. The screw had a current passing through it. The moment I put both ends to the screw, bam! I saw a big electrical explosion between my hands, and the circuit immediately flipped. It scared the living daylights out of me, but fortunately I wasn't injured. The tester had burned marks in it and it never worked again.
I knew what was going to happen, BUT, and here's the thing, if the cable is cross-wired or the two outlets are indeed different circuits and had their live/neutral reversed, you will trip your breakers. Anyway, I'm assuming cross-wiring is not something to expect on these cables and you also checked the correct wiring of both outlets beforehand with the tester, so I expected nothing to happen, and I was right ;)
It's unlikely they'd be cross-wired, but they can be split-wired. Neutral can be connected to both neutral sides, but opposite live wires can be connected to the live sides of the outlets. That way you'd trip the breaker with that cord.
Well, if this is for beginners, he should have mentioned that the receptacles could have different phases (common used in the US cus of their low 120 V) or neutral and live could be switched (common in many countries all over the world where that's just not specified). He also should have explained the basics, not only one single incomplete fact.
You seem to know your stuff. I live in a townhouse in my master bedroom's bathroom I had the switch for the fan go out to the point it worked but when you turn the light switch off you could not flip it in the upright position back on without pushing it in and flipping it upward. Literally around a week later the same thing happened to my dining room light where I had to push the switch in and up to turn it on. Do you know of this, is it a built-in safety feature?
Backfeeding through a wall outlet limits the maximum generator output to the size of the panel breaker on that circuit. A better way to do it is to have a dedicated input breaker but no matter what, you MUST turn your main breaker OFF! The most common scenario is that the 20 amp breaker on the circuit you're backfeeding trips instantly as your puny Predator attempts to power everyone else's house that's on the same transformer. You'll never get anywhere that level of power in a store-bought generator.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Power Tester Used: amzn.to/3C8NCqI Remember Suicide cords should never be purchased or used. Backfeeding is illegal & it can and has killed people. *This video is for entertainment purposes in a testing environment with safety controls in place. I do not recommend purchasing these cables or attempting any of the testing shown* Backfeeding a generator into your power system without an interlock safety device will always be illegal & is totally unsafe.
That's a great video. I didn't realize the hots and neutrals were connected inside, so I was one of those expecting sparks, and that you were brave doing so with light, rubber gloves. 😊
Yes and no, if off grid its a legimate way to feed a cottage but of course better to have 30 amp or higher panel feed from a generator.
Background, I'm a master electrician. So just FYI, its pretty common in houses to break that little tab off the side of the outlet to separate the top and bottom plugs so you can wire one constant hot and the other controlled by a switch for a lamp. In those cases, its not guaranteed that the 2 outlets will be the same phase. Hope nobody tries this at home! At least you have a disclaimer, I'm sure everyone will read that...
My DUMB ASS room mate took a plug apart, twisted the two wires together and plugged it back in .....idk wtf they did exactly but it immediately caught the socket on fire when plugged in
@@RoryVanucchi I can't think of any cable having 'back-to-back, uninsulated male plugs is acceptable.
Thank you for not turning this into a 35 minute video.
TheEvilFoxy
@@Maria00900 byronobrien3121
Seriously. Videos are getting oddly long. Surprised he didn't explain the basic of electricity as a side note then read an add. Then finally explain the outlet with an affiliate link to buy outlets and cables
You know he wanted to!!
😂 Real @@XenoTravis
I would suggest not wearing those gloves with electrical circuits. Those could possibly burn into the skin and painful to remove with an electrical accident. I’ve unfortunately known people in the electrical industry that have made this mistake.
But it would make for a good video
an arc flash in this situation (this cord, 120v, etc) that would make these gloves a danger is highly unlikely. While these gloves aren't thick enough to ensure no shock - I believe there is a definite added layer of safety in the specific use for this video.
@@ian3580 we all know those types of glove rip very easily. It’s a false sense of protection. Any little pin prick hole is 100% failure in protection. I would rather use my hands than wear gloves that would make me complacent.
Yeah I don't recommend these either as a form of protection.
Those gloves are nitrile.
As an electrician for the last 25 years that is exactly the result I expected...keep one end plugged in that outlet then plug the other end into an outlet that's on an opposite phase if you want to see sparks fly
Exactly right. He must think we're stupid.
@@edwardfrostickblois4191 no that's what I really thought. Not everyone knows. I don't know anything about electricity. I even muted thinking there would be a blast
My son wants to be an electrician and this was a great chance to get him to try to figure out what would happen. Unfortunately he decided that nothing would happen _"because there was no load attached"_ so I had to explain that if it did work the way people were thinking, that wire would demand as much power as your power source could provide until it burned up or the breaker tripped. We've got a ways to go lol.
Most people expect an explosion from that thumbnail alone probably
Agreed do it on a split plug. Usually found in a kitchen so people don't blow a breaker using a toaster and microwave at the same time on one outlet.
Funny how 0:10 about backfeeding a generator to your house illegally is the most watched part of the video. 😂
lmfao gridless behavior
Exactly, but not surprised 😂
They are the ones playing with fire.. or electrical outlets.
I had to repeat it to hear what he was even talking about. I never heard of that befoew
What does Back feeding a generator to your house mean? Like I get generators I just don’t understand what that plug would do
As a person who stuck a paper clip into a wall outlet two days ago, this is life-changing information.
One question:
Why?
@@Eric-vs2he He didn't want to die wondering...
@@MaZaKeRaL 🤣
@@Eric-vs2he I doubt he did. He's trying to say only a numbskull would think anything would happen. If you don't know how electricity works, it's best to stick to standard devices in normal usage.
I did that at least two times as a kid
I appreciate you delivering the goods without wasting the viewer's time like 99% of youtubers. Thank you
don't listen to this guy , ask an electrician what a split receptacle is and how it can explode when this kind of cord is plugged in.
@@jimballard7217 A split receptacle should definitely have been mentioned but doesn’t negate the info here.
Like the yiutube commercials that use his video here in the netherlands abd make it a commerciak for cheaper electricity....
Wow, a youtube video where someone actually got straight to the point. Instant like for you good sir
He could be dead wrong... many kitchen plugs will be split into 2 separate circuits and he would have caused a dead short melting the cord and blowing breakers.
@@snsjeep I wasn't planning on mythbusting it lol
Yeah I just watched a bunch 20 minute videos for 2 minutes that I cared about. When I saw this video was less than 3 minutes I was surprised and also stoked! That will earn some subscribers quick
This post was brought to you by RAID SHADOW LEGENDS
@@snsjeep yh but generally two rings wouldn’t be on the same socket 😊
1:00 Actually that's exactly the outcome I expected. You're just connecting the same wires together. Since there's no voltage difference, nothing happens. Connecting the Line side to the Ground or the neutral side on the other hand would get spicy.
Yup, flip the polarity of the plug and it will get red hot and the rubber will likely catch fire before the breaker flips. I think the bad reputation comes from the fact that before cheap imports from China, people would make their own cords from those DIY plugs at home depot. Get a few beers in a redneck and wiring those things backwards is terrifyingly easy...
MAJOR WARNING: Occasionally an individual receptacle will be wired with a separate circuit on each plug, with 240 VAC between the hots. As an example, I was once hired by an apartment complex after their maintenance crew attempted to replace an under-the-sink receptacle which resulted in tripped breakers. What their crew failed to recognize was that the original receptacle was wired for two separate circuits, one for the dishwasher, and the other for the disposal. For this to work, the receptacle common tab must be removed, otherwise the result is a direct short between phases. DO NOT PLUG IN A SUICIDE CORD EVER. Also: HIRE A LICENSED ELECTRICIAN. Silver Cymbal, be careful about representing this in this way.
I was thinking the same thing. He should have mentioned the break away tabs on the side of the receptacle.
@brianj7367 He did but did not explain that they can be broken out.
And checking one side of a receptacle with a meter and checking the other side of the receptacle with a meter will give you a separate reading of 120 volts it will not tell you it’s a different phase. The way around that would be to check both hot sides of that duplex receptacle to see if you get 208-240 volts. Then you’ll know it’s a split fed receptacle and to never plug in a suicide plug! Shouldn’t do it anyways!
@@bobdamico3715 Wow, exactly!
@jamesbarnes1897 The broken tab? Easy! Sometimes an outlet has one receptacle switched, such as for a lamp and the other is not switched. It is possible that someone's electrical plan fed the light circuit from one breaker and the non-swithed from another breaker, causing a possibility of 2 phases being supplied to the outlet with a potential of 240 VAC. Bretgreen5314 stated a similar situation where a Garbage disposal is on one circuit (under the sink) and is switched and the dishwasher shares the same outlet and is on another circuit. The chances of two breakers being used, side-by-side, and this being two different phases is more likely than not to happen. I don't think the NEC says they have to be two separate circuits, but it's considered a good practice because a disposal is considered an appliance, just like a refrigerator is and should be on it's own circuit.
Hmmm. This almost gave me PSTD! When I was six, I saw a two-prong wire lying around with its other end stripped and copper exposed. Curiously, I plugged it in both sides of an outlet and got the shock of my life! In a split second, suddenly there was a
VERY LOUD SCARY SPARK, soot, and blister burns on my hands. Also it blew a fuse. Apparently there was a lamp with a bad plug that it was gonna be spliced to. I was nicknamed "Livewire" for a long time after that! Subsequently, I took electronics in vocational school and had jobs dealing with electricity for years!
Or your cable had crossed wires? Or your two outlets were actually on different circuits?
PTSD? I'd see a shrink...
@@PauxloE OIC Perhaps. Come to think of it not sure if there was an outlet cover on the wall on it or if some electrical work was being done
@@jw5031 Haha...I do. - Still. :). Had to have them move the loveseat away from the wall. LOL
@@PauxloEmore than likely crossed wires!
While most videos will drag on with 10+ minutes and filler, you explained it well and within the appropriate time without losing my attention. Bravo, Sir.
Here here!
I was looking up reviews for earplugs, Don know why this video was recommended, but I'm thankful I clicked on it, because now I know another random fact to break awkward silences when out with friends.
Thank you!
I worked hardware stores for years, without fail every Christmas I would have to explain several times to people why this cord can't be bought, and is extremely dangerous. The dull looks on people's faces as I explained will never leave me..
It's because they strung their Christmas lights backwards, and have the wrong end at the outlet.
**Edit** wow, thanks for all the comments, hilarious read through 😂
This is one of the funniest comments I've ever read
This would be so dangerous, as it would expose live prongs on the other end.
I never even heard of this chord. What is the purpose of putting those 2 ends in the same outlet.
@@kennethbailey6634 It would never be used as we saw in this video. There is no purpose to putting the 2 ends in the same outlet. Such cords are usually homemade and are used by people who are trying to hook up their generators to their homes in a dangerous/illegal way during power outages.
The best use of this chord is for extracting the sour apple flavor from within the outlet.
People keep telling me to stop doing that though. They say I have to be taken to the hospital afterwards, but like… I don’t recall any of it, and I really feel like I would remember something like that.
Don't ever do this in a kitchen. In many older homes they use what is called a split plug arrangement, the upper and lower halves of the outlet are on separate breakers and share the neutral wire. When it was installed a tang on the outlet was intentionally broken off to separate the halves. The two breakers are on the opposite bus bars in your panel and if you measured across them you would get 240 V. This is done to give full 15 amp capacity to each of the two outlet sockets. Plugging a suicide cord into a split plug will give you all the fire works you would expect. Modern homes have moved to conventionally wired 20 amp circuits because they can be protected by a GFCI. You have been warned!!!
Yeah man. I’ve wired older kitchen outlets and we used to cut the brass that jumped the two hot sides together so we could have two breakers on one outlet. So of course it’s 240v. Between the two hot sides of one outlet and shorting those would be not good.
Now with GFCIs being kitchen and bathroom code, you can’t jury-rig it the old way and that’s a good thing. If he’d have tried that suicide cord on one of our rigged outlets from the 80’s, it would have been much more exciting. I hope nobody in an older house tries this suicide cord assuming it’s just fine. If those two receptacles are on separate breakers on opposite buss bars…Boom! You shorted 240v. Hope you had safety glasses on.
Both breakers will trip but not without some sparks and possible arc-welding involved. I think he needs to clarify this for those who think his experiment is completely safe to try in their homes.
I was a licensed electrician when I was 16 years old in the sixties when a rule used to be, reach into a fuse box with only one hand. That way, the electricity can’t cross your heart and kill you. An apprentice when in attics they used bare wire on stand-offs on dry wood joists.
Many houses burnt down. I’m 60 years old now. Still an electrician.
So, I’ve dealt with 12,280 volts coming into substations with rain drip pans on the ceilings and water on concrete floors. Still alive after 60 years.
Now here’s this kid with a “suicide cord” on RUclips and explaining how completely harmless it is. Not good my friends. If you don’t understand how electricity works from the transformers to your homes, please don’t f*ck with it.
@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ, You know what else Jesus said? Don’t mess with electricity. “It’s the gates of hell.”
Well, he didn’t say that, no electricity back then, but it’s fun to mess with stupid trolls.
I remember being an electrical engineer working with the navy and assigned to a transformer restoration on a 50 year old neglected hotel substation in Hawaii. I’m not navy, I’m a subcontractor who worked with submariners
I went to the hotel and the chief engineer said the contacts were welded shut. 12,480 volts at 500 amps. Not cool. They needed to be opened. You can’t shut down an active hotel with guests who think they’re in paradise, so I looked for the transfer switch. Put my meter on it. Checked the springs. Looks operational. The problem is the breaker on the transformer. One leg would disconnect, the other wouldn’t. Spring broke. Huge spring broke. The thing with high voltage breakers and contractors is spring speed. Between on and off it has to be super-fast or it’ll weld itself shut. That’s fine for power but you’ll be hard pressed to ever turn it off again. It’s magnetic. Electromagnetic. One side fails, you’re screwed and we were.
Face-shield time. Leather gloves, a dry 2x4. I slammed the contractor to closed and everything came on. Didn’t weld. That’s good.
Everyone cheered like I was a hero. Not even close. Called Hawaiian Electric and they came out for emergency supply and all the tourists in the hotel thought nothing was wrong. That’s how it should be, and it was. Fireworks for Aloha Friday, everything above ground goes as planned. In the substation, complete mayhem. We were able to transfer power seamlessly and I remember that as my proudest moment.
Nobody noticed a thing besides us. The lights in the hotel didn’t even flicker as we shut the transformer down. Hoops and hollers about the fireworks on Aloha Friday as we’re covered in sweat in the substation. We didn’t get to enjoy the fireworks display but you know what? We didn’t care. We were the silent heroes in the bilges for everyone else to enjoy this night. I loved every moment of it. Even though I saw no fireworks. I heard them, but what we were doing was for the others, the building, the guests, and everything that revolved around it.
Radio chatter on secret channels, nobody knew that we were the hero’s of this at all. I thought that so cool.
One transformer just had to go. We’d hire a crane in the morning when nobody is looking.
The building was built around the mechanical things too large so they called in a helicopter.
Nobody was hurt during the Aloha Friday celebration that happens every Friday, but they noticed the helicopter the next morning and asked security what’s going on. No big deal, just replacing a transformer, go on about your day. Have fun in paradise.
Everything worked out fine. Nobody had a suicide cord to test a single circuit. This guy needs to figure out if he’s talking electrical he better make damn sure what he’s talking about before wasting all our time and putting morons in jeopardy. Don’t tell home owners or renters to plug a “suicide cord” into outlets no matter what.
@@Woodstock271 Not sure you ever really got it if you think reaching into a fuse box with one hand won't kill you. Sounds like you just got lucky. Current does not pass through your heart via each arm like there's some concealed cable running up each one. If you are grounded, current hitting you pretty much anywhere on your body will disrupt your heart rhythm. Your entire body is conductive and your nervous and vascular system will carry current to places it shouldn't be.
Just don't do it! You've seen the video, so you know what happens!😁
Really happy you didn't turn nothing into a 6-10 minute RUclips video. Loved the short learning.
But first we have to understand the history of electricity....
I love the 20-minute prank vids that end up having no real point or satisfying ending. NOT!
It just hit me how dangerous these truly are, I kinda figured they wouldn’t be too bad because you’d just turn the outlets off before plugging the cable in, so there’d be no risk of it electrocuting you. But I live in the UK, where everything is fused and grounded and all outlets have switches, I didn’t realise that in a lot of America you don’t have switches, making this a real deathtrap.
Watching you plug that cable in live genuinely made me feel massively tense as I knew what it could theoretically do, it’s a really good thing the outlets were connected like that.
this would be extremely dangerous in pretty much every part of the world. as only the UK and Australia used switched plugs.
@@ryuukeisscifiproductions1818 You could cut power to the outlet by turning the breaker off
For anyone in regions with different standards: DON'T EVER DO THIS! Here in the Netherlands for example, plugs can be inserted in two ways, even with grounded sockets. The chance of having shortcircuits is 50%. And with the 230 V we use, this can be lethal. So just like Silver Cymbal said: do not do this, for any reason, ever!
bruh u guys run direct current?
or what
@@r30413 Yeah 230 V and 1500 A dirrect current :D In Europe we are just welding and galvanize everithing and it's enough for us. We are happy with that.
@@matelabanc2516 never mind that, i tought they use the funky ones like the one in the vid
@@r30413 230Vac. What I mean is you can flip your plug 180 degrees, no matter the type of socket, and you will still be able to plug it in.
@@sander-MW3 I was thinking u where taking about "tripods" like the one in the vid, since u cant flip them...
For this experiment I would make sure though that the suicide cord is not crosswired by doing a continuity check on each end of the cord.
Yeah, I wanted to mention that
Exactly like in most kitchen where I live ;)
Good point!
PLEASE PIN THAT ONE! DIYers can become DIErs with one simple error of mixing up the wires on repair plugs.
Precisely. Or that the 2 sockets are actually one piece and not 2 different lines internally that could eventually be wired one different from the other. Unlikely but never second guess when you're dealing with live circuits.
FYI You can break those side tabs in order to put the bottom and top outlets on different circuits, breaking the tabs electrically separates the top and bottom outlet. The most common reason to do this is if you want the top or bottom outlet to be switched for a lamp, but still want the other outlet to be fully powered.
then do we get our boom?
@@dbaker280 yep
Or, just stretch an extension cord from any other outlet in the house and make a SUPER SUICIDE CORD, muahahahaha
The electrical code does not permit putting the bottom and top outlets on separate circuits when the separate circuits are controlled by different breakers. So if you have to turn off two separate breakers to kill power to both outlets, it is not allowed.
@@brianleeper5737 Ahh, exceptions on top of exceptions.
As you say you cannot have top and bottom outlets on separate breakers, but you could place them on opposite poles of 'double pole' breaker. This places 240V between the two 'hots' and if you plugged a suicide cord in I'd expect a significant arc as the contact was made, followed by the breaker tripping.
I wish all RUclips videos were this simplistic and straight to the point in explanation. It goes to show someone's Theory of Mind.
I learned more in this 3 minutes than I did in the 1.5 years I took electronics class for.
is that supposed to be a self-burn? : p
Should've paid more attention in class
That must have been one shithouse of an electronics class then 😂
Were you sleeping through all of your classes? Cuz this video only taught one very basic concept....
Also mf during the class:😴💤🛌🛌🥱
just wanted to say thank you for the vid format, quick and straight to the point thats how everyone should do this, im just amazed you did not give us 15 mins of filler before doing what everyone was here to see!
I came here to say the same thing. Nothing worse than a video being about one single (relatively simple) question, but somehow being 17:00 long.
I call those types of videos "Plexiglass Man"
How many different angles do you need to show me the piece of transparent plexiglass?
Apparently 5 seconds of each of the three-axis gimbal possible combinations.
It is now a running joke with family.
I agree - for the longest time RUclips has been telling creators, that you better get some watch time or we just will not promote your video. The creators have felt forced to make their videos at least 12 to 17 minutes long. I'm glad to see a video of this length showing up in my feed, it gives me encouragement too.
@@guitarmeetsscience Yep, YT these days is like telling a chef to make it 3% sauce and 97% the cheapest pasta you can find and make sure it's an oversized plate. Also tell them upon serving it up what brand the pasta is and why it's the best in existence, hand them a stack of coupons for it and command them to not only finish the entire dish no matter what, insist they hand them out to everyone including their pets, else never come back to this place and make sure none of our friends/family will, either.
@@mustchoosewisely hahahahahahahaha that is it right there in a nutshell! 😆😆😆😆😆
If the plugs are polarized, then there is no problem for the SAME (unmodified) receptacle. You are guaranteed to have the same phase, by construction, as you have shown. The danger is if you connect to another wall receptacle, which may or may not be the same phase of the house supply (it is possible in an old house). It would be like connecting the "red" and "black" wires of your fuse box. You will be creating a very hot copper plasma, which may or may not be ok depending if your face or house is flammable or not. And then the breakers will trip stopping the arcing and melting. In a single receptacle, it is possible to break off the bus connecting the two sides and have two separate circuits feeding the top and bottom (why would somebody do this? I don't know). All bets are off for that situation. How did you know your receptacle was unmodified?
What you are supposed to have done after the 0:52 demonstration of the voltage-checking devices, was to use a regular voltmeter to check that the potential difference between like terminal of the receptacles is zero. That way you know for sure the live terminals are connected to the same phase of the house feed. I realize you made the video for demonstration of the normal situation. I'm writing this for others.
Th e reason you would do that is ....lets say for a kitchen, 2 1500 watt appliances can use 1 receptacle without blowing the breaker (1 receptacle..2 breakers) or if you have 240v going into a receptacle box you can make each single plug 120v! Making a comment on vids like this LOuie, you should know this
lol I was thinking the same thing, no difference in potential, no explosion. he just ran a short at the other end of the receptical.
Following a finish for another guy this week, couldn't figure out why I had two separate live cables in a box (more complicated troubleshooting at first). He ended up putting two circuits in a box on a remodel for a dishwasher and disposal. So two circuits on one outlet, completely separate from each other. There's another reason why you would have to do this.
My mother-in-law was complaining about receiving a shock from the kettle when she was leaning on the kitchen sink's s/s draining-board, so I tested the double power-outlet & found that the active & neutral cables were connected the wrong way around. Easily fixed with the power off at the fuse-box. Also tested every outlet in the house, but fortunately there were no other problems. However, the strangest thing was that they had been living in their house for over 25yrs since having it built, & that power-outlet had been installed that way, but as her arthritis had worsened my M-in-law was finding she needed to lean on things more & more!
It was commonly done in the 70s when they were installing radiant heat in the ceilings. They usually didn't have an overhead light, and so they would install one wall receptacle upside down to indicate that it had been modified and they would wire the bottom or in this case the top(?) to the light switch so it could control some type of plug in lamp or light stand. The other slot in the receptacle would be normal 120v without a switch.
So what would happen then if you plugged 2 totally different sockets/circuits together?
Try it kid
It wouldve gone as expected lol
It would depend if you were connecting a +120V and -120V circuit together, or if you were connecting two + 120V circuits (or two -120V circuits). It would be different for the hot side of the plug (the narrow prong/slot on the right) and the neutral side of the plug (the wider prong/slot on the left) The neutral side of the plug wouldn't have any effect, since they would both be at 0 volts, no voltage difference, no current flow.
For the hot side, if both were +120V, then the difference between the two is zero volts, and the effect would be identical to the situation shown in the video, with the one caveat that you would be running current in parallel through the two breakers. If for example, you have a 15 amp circuit breaker on both, and you tried to draw 20 amps through a plug on your now combined circuit, you might end up drawing 10 amps through each breaker (since they are run in parallel) and each set of wires in the walls and would therefore not trip either breaker, whereas if you tried that on a single breaker you would trip the breaker.
If you connected a +120V and -120V side of the bus bar in the main electrical panel, that would be like short circuiting the hot and neutral side of a 120 volt circuit, but now you're shorting a total difference of 240 Volts, so I would imagine it would be like a regular short circuit with double the power.
Wouldn't it just form a circuit between those two outlets?
I think you forgot some pretty critical and dangerous caveats. If this was a split receptacle, you could have backfed another circuit (if it's switched, but the same leg), or caused a short across both hot legs (240v). which could be significantly more exciting than your demonstration.
I was gonna say. I’m no electrician, but even I knew right off the bat how to get around that little obstacle
What the hell are you talking about? If it's a switched receptacle, NOTHING would happen.
That’s the point. There are dozens of potential applications other than the one demonstrated here. That’s not the only way these cords can be used.
Well, it will just create arc flash that will make you crap your pants, and then the breaker with pop. The main danger of this cable is that when you plug in one side, exposed live wire is sticking out of it, and it becomes very tempting to poke someone with it, and go to jail.
@@retabera WTF are you talking about, he stopped to say, the real danger here is this is live right now, and then he voltage tested it for emphasis.
Way to Karen out and prove you didn't even watch the whole video
When I saw you open up the outlet I remembered the two were already electrically connected but during the initial experiment I expected a breaker to trip. Cool video!
I thought the exact same thing. Totally forgot they were connected.
When your grid power goes out and you plug your generator into your house outlet without disconnecting the grid, your generator power goes back into the grid with serious consequences for those linemen working to restore power. That is why these cables should be illegal. Only a house that has been setup for generator power should be allowed to connect a generator during an outage. Generators are installed all over Florida and Vermont, but they don't use these cables to do it. You can legally and safely setup solar and generator power along with grid power, but it has to be done correctly. These shouldn't be called suicide cables, they should be called murder cables.
Well the power companies are dumb for not supplying their employees a simple $20 current sensor to prevent such accidents. Even after flipping breakers, I still use the current sensor to double check.
Transfer switch
@@CJForlorn sure until someone plugs it in while you're working on it
ב''ה, in an emergency, pull the whole house disconnect, however confirming that's worked is sufficiently difficult.
Around Hurricane Sandy utilities began offering a simple automatic/intrinsically mechanically disconnecting generator socket that slots in as part of the meter assembly.
The reason why it isn't illegal is you have legal uses for it. You have stupid people who use it in illegal ways that have killed people but you still have the legitimate use case of a house set up for 2 power inlets to it. Unsure how that would work as i am not in that field but when it is working like it should no power should feed back onto the grid. In the USA anyways you do have other countries that that is a thing and i am unsure how they do electrical cable and electrical wire maintenance when the power plant connection goes down.
Its on the same phase. It has to be 180° out of phase (120° for three phase service) for anything to happen. It is possible for a single duplex receptacle to have 2 separate circuits. An outlet has a tab that joins the upper and lower terminals together. If you're using it on 2 circuits, then you break the tab. This is common in a kitchen for the dishwasher and garbage disposal. Each has its own breaker, but they use a common outlet. If the 2 different circuits are on different phases and you did what he just did, you would have done whats known as "double feeding". Its a line to line fault and is a violent short. You wouldn't want to be looking at the arc flash. you can check with a multimeter by putting each probe in the "hot" side of the outlet. If it shows over 200 volt (220-250 for residential or 208-230 for commercial) then the outlet has 2 circuits on opposite phases. Do not plug suicide cord in this outlet.
As a guy who installed a 3-way light switch in the attic once during high school that surely must have violated electrical codes, but worked and never burned the house down, I had expected a blown fuse or tripped circuit breaker. Live and learn, but also learn to hire an electrician, like I did.
Was it just one 3 way or 2 😂
Interesting video. I know others have previously commented on this topic, but I wanted to add more. Clearly Silver Cymbal you clearly explained/proved that there wouldn't be an issue in your particular outlet (which would be the same as most outlets in our homes). However if you have a split outlet where the top and bottom plugs come from different circuits (breakers) AND from different phases, there will be a problem. Remember that most homes are fed 240 VAC hydro via two "hot" 120 VAC lines out of phase plus one neutral. If the top outlet was fed from one phase and the other outlet from the other... you would a serious problem. You are basically then shorting out the 240VAC feed to your entire house (ie shorting one "hot" 120 VAC phase with the other). But, fortunately the breakers (or fuses) for both separate circuits should blow pretty quickly when you do this. Typically "split" outlets are found in kitchen outlets (in newer homes). Your video is good in explaining what happens, identify safety concerns and make us think.
A very good additional point Rick F. I found your comment to be the 7th comment when i viewed the video and hopefully it stays that way. While watching the video I felt like all the info you stated in your comment should have been mentioned. Hopefully nobody ever actually tries this in a kitchen on an outlet that was wired on 2 breakers so that large wattage appliances like toasters ovens and microwaves can be run simultaneously.
Exactly what I expected to happen. However... you should mention that sometimes these types of outlets are in fact separated. Sometimes the little connecting tab is broken off, usually so that half of the outlet can be switched (with a wall switch). I don't know if current codes allow for this any more, but this was very common back in the 1970s (when my house was built).
Would still be the same circuit though so you would have the same effect. You are correct about the tabs though. Its so you can have a lamp in the room that works off the light switch.
Exactly try that in a kitchen plug they are seperate circuits to run for example a toaster and a kettle in the same receptacle. The tabs will be broken. That suicide cord will trip the breakers
So what would happen if I took a 20 foot suicide cord plugged it into two different outlets across from each other on the living room? I figured he'd address something like this after explaining why a single plug doesn't go kaboom.
You can definitely break the tab these days (allowed by code). I have an outlet in my garage with the tab broken off, as it has two separate runs, one to each plug, with each on it's own 20am breaker on the panel. This way I can run more heavy duty tools simultaneously, as I have a total of 40amp available (2 x 20).
@@larrym603 Very few kitchen circuits are run like you describe, code wants kitchen duplex outlets to alternate legs but almost never are alternate legs hooked into the same split duplex outlet. But if you have a kitchen wired like you describe pull the outlets out and make o video of it so we can see that setup.
"If i'm going down, i'm taking you down with me."
"Sure but you're not going down at all"
When people break out the angle grinder to open up stuff, you have my full attention
Omg SAME PAGE CLUB!!
excellent job explaining this ,I've replaced outlets in my house pretty easily done with breakers off ,but knowing exactly how the outlets actually work is very important, thanks we can always learn something new .
Terribly said.
@@Physics072🤓
I had to replace a broken light switch before - the only thing I knew about it was to turn off the breaker first, but otherwise I was clueless.
But, because of that, I was very careful to closely observe where each wire was connected on the bad switch (even taking pictures on my phone in case I forgot) and just moved each wire to the exact same point on the new switch. The house didn't burn down, so I must have done something right.
It wasn't until years afterward that Technology Connections put out a video explaining why light switches make clicking sounds and dissected one that I finally understood what each wire was, what it did and why hooking it up right was so important.
A guy at my church once asked why we don’t make plugs like that. As an electrical engineer, I was aghast at such a _shocking_ question knowing full well that some enterprising individuals will make such a thing with parts from their hardware store only to be in for a surprise of a lifetime (a shortened one). Sort of like people who have made fractal wood burners from microwave oven transformers. Plenty of sad tales there.
at hardware store I worked at least 1 personal a years wanted one or was buying the pieces for it at Christmas. i always made it a point not to tell him we don't have it, but to tell them they're an idiot
I don't understand a single thing you said dude.
What’s this fractal wood burner you speak of ?
Honestly, if you actually built one and can't see the issue with live wires sticking out of a plug, I'd argue you have bigger issues than a suicide cord in your hand.
I did that for a while. Always felt good being still alive when I walked away.
I made one actually blow many years ago.
My Papa (Grandad on Dad’s side) made his own cord with both male ends, but his only had two prongs on each end, which were polarized, with no grounding prong.
I did experiments like this, when I was little, to see what would happen.
I did mine by first turning off the breaker for the outlet I was going to use then I plugged both ends up to the top and bottom receptacles.
After I plugged them up, I went back over to the box and flipped the breaker back on. When I did, there was an immediate bright blue flash with a loud pop, and the male end in the top receptacle blew straight out of it along with a pretty good puff of smoke that smelled like something electric being burnt along with some black on that receptacle of the outlet. It did not trip the breaker, though, but I tripped the breaker back myself, after it happened, to unplug the other end.
Oddly enough, the outlet itself was just fine, and both receptacles still worked afterward. The cord still worked, too, with there just being some black on the prongs on that end of the cord.
It looked like maybe the load from both of the receptacles tried to collide against each other and ended up force blowing one side completely out of the receptacle.
I don’t know if the fact that there was no grounding prong, even though the prongs were polarized on each end, made a difference, but it definitely didn’t like being hooked up in such a way.
Many years ago - I did the same (fuse box and no breakers) - same result though.
The grounding wire should make no difference, everything should work fine without a grounding wire IF EVERYTHING IS CORRECTLY WIRED AND WORKING PROPERLY.
The fuse should have popped, cus you just made a full short circuit with maybe 50-200 A or what that cord could deliver in a split second.
Fuses must not connect if it would cause more than their specified rating to flow. So it shouldn't do anything in the first place. I would suggest your fuses being checked.
The plug should not have popped out the receptacle. Receptacles must be tight, otherwise there is a possibility the connections are loose, overheating the socket and cause burns. So I would suggest checking the receptacles.
It was nice to see a video on this. I already knew the answer, so I wasn't surprised. I think you would get the same results even if the clips on the outlet were removed as long as they are connected to the same line. However I did have an interesting similar situation a couple of years ago that was a bit shocking. I ordered some of those 2 ft LED tubes for my aquarium lighting. The tubes can be plugged in from either end and since there were four tubes, there were also four plugs. I don't remember why I tried it (it seemed logical at the time), but with one end of the light plugged in (and the light lit), I used another plug to connect to the same line (but a different outlet) to the other end of the tube. There was a pop, the light went out, and a little puff of smoke actually came out of the light tube. Scared the hell out of me. In hindsight, I think the electronics within the tube changed the phase from one end of the tube to the other. The line fuse blew and I removed the plugs from both ends of the tube. Here's the really weird thing. After an hour (and feeling really stupid for frying my new light), I thought let's at least verify that the light is fried and I plugged it in (just one end this time). And believe it or not, it worked! Switched on an off as usual too. It's been a year and a half, and it's still working just like the other three. Not sure what actually caused the smoke, but apparently it either wasn't a vital component or the component wasn't completely fried. Might make a good subject for another video. I don't recommend this for the general public.
Hi. Sometimes LED tubes came in one format or connection, others came different.
You only need to check if the 2 contacts in the same extreme are same point (electrically speaking). With a multimeter or an continuity tester is extremally easy.
Greetings!
I am not used to US style electrical systems but arent those tabs on sides designed to be broken off so you can wire upper and lower plug to a different circuit/phase(leg?)
In basic terms, the reason nothing happened is because both of those outlets are on the same phase. If you were to use that cord to connect two different outlets that are on the same phase nothing would happen. If you were to connect that cord to two outlets that are on different phases, that's when the sparks would fly before causing one or both of the circuit breakers to for those outlets to trip. Also, in the US backup generators that use a suicide cord use 240volt and not 120volt which use both phases to power aplences like electric stoves, electric whole house heaters and electric hot water heaters. Also 240volt and 120volt use a different type of outlet.
He already described it in basic terms. Your version was just better 😁
Now can we see the video with the sparks?
So, essentially, as long as the outlets are both in phase, that thing is no more or less dangerous than a standard extension cord?
Also as long as you haven't messed up the connection on the suicide-cord (active/neutral/earth connection wrong), nothing will go zap! An outlet-tester is very useful to own, as even an incorrectly wired extension-cord will work plugged into a correctly wired wall-socket, but then becomes deadly when plugged into an incorrectly wired power-outlet!
Somewhere I have on old bakelite double-adapter which were banned from use here in Australia decades, which I would open & show alongside a legal one from that time. Side by side you can clearly see the difference as the illegal adapter swaps the active & neutral pins on one outlet!
As an electrician, that was exactly what I was expecting!
As NOT an electrician, me too.
lol
Same here. We also don't do split outlets here. We have multifase outlets, but those have different sockets, usually earth, neutral and 3 phase and are clearly incompatible with standard mains plugs.
Being a bit of a specialist in model railroad wiring and circuitry, it was also what I expected. A whole lot of nothing.
Pretty much. If they're on the same 3 wire, then they're already connected. Kinda freaky looking, tho. (not an electrician, but I like to play with stuff)
Thanks exactly what I expected. It’s the same circuit. I am not an electrician but have done my own work. Now the idea of using the generator with that cable is something I never thought of
And you should never, ever, do. Don't do it. Get a transfer switch
You can feed your generator back onto the grid. That is a real big mistake- very unsafe.
don't. *theoretically* it's possible to sever your boxes connection to the grid to contain the generator's power to your own home, but many people don't do that correctly, and wind up backfeeding electricity into what are supposed to be dead lines (during an outage).
This is incredibly dangerous for the electricians trying to repair lines, and regularly causes fatal accidents.
@@rickhawkins218 i think any sane person would just manually turn off their main breaker before that.
@@voidseeker4394 That's the problem. We trust too many people to be sane. Sadly, too many people don't think about things like that.
I was at a hardware store one December and a picture of a "suicide cord" was on display. Under it was this message:
"We do not sell or make extention cords with dual male plugs. If you need one, you set up your Christmas lights wrong."
As someone from a country where polarisation isn't important I was expecting it to go wrong, I was also scared cuz in USA you can have plugs next to each other that are out of phase
I have done this at the Power Plant I worked at. We had a CEMS analyzer on a running Boiler Steam unit that was online from a UPS that needed to have a battery replacement without doing an outage. I made the same plug he had and back feed the output of the UPS input with the utility power during the outage. You have to know how to do this without damage to equipment and personal injury. That is why they call it the Death Cord.
You weren't just doing that to save your arcade Frogger game? Or maybe Roy?
Of all those fancy acronyms CEMS, UPS, SCFM, NOX, DCS, PLC, GC, I bet your favorite is uS/cm.
You should've been fired.
Fired? Nope. They probably wrote him a procedure/work package giving him permission to do this. It's amazing what I&C, PME and OPS can do to stay online lol
I'd be cautious doing this, as those tabs that electrically connect the two outlets are made to be removed. Usually they are removed to have a switch to control one or both of the outlets. In that case it would have the same (no) result. However it could also be used to put each outlet on a seperate fuse, for example in a kitchen or workshop where you may want multiple high power electronics. in this case it could be possible that each outlets' hot is on a separate phase, which means you would have a very bad time.
Very true. bad practice but very possible....
@@davidsoulsby1102 Not really. IIRC electrical code (at least in my area) specifies that the outlet for a refrigerator must be on its own circuit, with at most a clock on the same circuit. As you might want a microwave in the same area, it could be a good idea to have the top outlet on a completely separate circuit, or on the same circuit as the rest of the kitchen, as it is likely that if the fridge's compressor kicks in while the microwave is running you will blow a fuse.
@@xilstus1776 So 2 separate circuits, 2mm apart, in the same box, isn't bad practice?
Tracking from moisture on either the inside or outside in a kitchen where water, grease, are commonly used 🤔.
I suspect the registration is talking about running a physical separate circuit, different cable, box, outlet.
@@davidsoulsby1102 1mm is plenty space in a dry environment for
That still would make no difference
Old post but another point to make is you can take a long version of this cable and plug into another circuit and youd have a 50/50 chance of it doing nothing or tripping both circuits. Because there is 2 legs on residential electric service and the breakers in panel are on alternating legs, if you cross 2 circuits on the same leg of the phase it wont do anything except create a redundant path, if you cross 2 different legs you will create a 240volt short and blow both breakers. The only exception to this is modern electrical services use AFCI protection on all breakers so they will trip regardless.
Dude , your awesome no long speeches just answers and quality content. Not only did you explain why you showed why ....great job. Definitely earned my sub
Your?
@@ppal64
Yes, illiteracy is the wave of the future. Didn't you know?
you're*
@@ppal64 you beat me to it. Haha
@@ReligionAndMaterialismDebunked is it really that important? I'm trying to give my man a compliment and everyone is worried about punctuation.....
I actually winced when you plugged in that top plug! 😂 Very interesting, thanks for posting!
so gay wires
So what? Why do we need this plug for them??? Weast of time.
Yeah gay wires
The gayest of wires.
It always was.
Adam and Dave would appreciate not being ATE RIMED 🤣🤣🤣
Something I learned around my dad and other trained electricians: remember, outlets have one side as neutral and other as live just for convenience and standardization when wiring, they actually switch places 50/60 times a second depending on where you are.
I work in electricity, and i knew exactly what would happen, but as you were plugging it in, you somehow had me second guessing myself.
Same. Even though I understand electronics, my heart still stopped beating for that moment
I was hoping the bridge was cut 🤣🤣😂
I kind of expected a safety feature like that. Makes sense to have them as one circuit.
At first thought I was thinking a shorting plug or aka circuit breaker locator plug lol
Wtf duuuh
As an electrician this was what I expected. Great short to the point video!!
Most electricians would probably tell you to stay away from those cords to begin with, though I don't think arc flash is the particular hazard they're worried about @@jimballard7217
@@jimballard7217 It's fine, always going to be hot to hot and neutral to neutral if the outlet is wired correctly. If it was unpolarized 2 prong, you could flip one and get a hot-neutral short and likely trip the breaker, hopefully, before the cord caught fire. That said, don't own one of these or do that.
As long as the hot and neutral wires weren’t crossed then you should be fine. If there was a cross in the cable you may be in a little trouble, fire at the worst and popped breaker at the least. What’s also exciting is if you plug into another plug on a different breaker.
Nothing just the same if the same voltsge
@@jamesgoggle3421 It's just not as simple as that. Electricity to the home is three phase (L1, L2, and L3, mutually 60° out of phase), but only two phases go on a single breaker. If you plug the cord between a circuit that uses L1-L2 and a circuit that also uses L1-L2, and they have the same polarity, nothing will happen. However if the other circuit is L1-L3, you're now shorting L2 to L3. If your electrical system uses two-pole breakers, at least one breaker will trip. If you have single-pole breakers or old fashioned fuses, and they're connected to L1 in the fuse box, you will trip the main fuse, but not before you've had some severe overcurrent. Depending on your electrical system and the type of main fuse, it could take several seconds and be a fire hazard.
In short, if you plug between different circuits you're doing things to your electrical system that are extra extra dangerous and you may burn your house down. Do not.
What if you plugged it into another outlet on different phase.
@mc1847 There are 240 volts between the two phases, just as there are 120v between a single phase and neutral. This voltage allows current to move along the wire (with very little resistance stopping it), so you would generate a short circuit. In the very short amount of time before the breakers reacted, twice the current and four times the power would be dissipating on your wire vs a phase to neutral short.
You would get some fireworks and, hopefully, one or both breakers would trip before something melted (probably your cord near the prongs).
@@tykjpelk No you are wrong too, three phase is common in Europe only and some other countries outside the US, and more important, at least in the US and Europe, not two phases are connected to an outlet and breaker, but one phase and neutral. And also wrong, even if you connect outlets with the same phase, neutral and that phase could be switched (to code in Europe or not to code in the US but possible either) and thus cause short circuits.
I did expect it to catch fire or something worse. But it is fascinating to know why it did not do that. You did a great explanation and illustration of why it did not.
That’s pretty cool that you have testers in the forms of outlet plugs. Honestly never seen that before, my dad has these little stick like things with a plastic flat nipple on the end(he used to do repairs and maintenance live generators). Even seen those stick things being used by other electricians as well who came into the house when I lived with my mom.
@@dylanharding5720 a socket tester is standard kit in the US too alongside probe testers and ncvt testers, these people just don't do electrical work and dont really think to look these things up to be honest.
The more I observe others explain their grasp of electromotive force, the more grateful I am for my teachers and the time they gave to give me an absolute treasure
All this comment is really saying is “Look at me, I’m smarter than other people.” Don’t try to pretend it’s about gratitude to your teachers.
@@therainman7777 i dunno, people are really dum
I know of a case where a suicide cord was used to back feed per from one house to its neighbour. This was in the UK where the feed to each house at the time was single phase nominal 240V, but the power company rotates the phase between houses. Connecting to a house that has two intermediate houses would have produced this null result, and that's what the folk who did it were expecting.
While power to one house was off at the main switch it all worked great, illegally stealing power that was metered by next door's meter instead of their own :(
However when one of the naughty household turned on the main switch while forgetting to disconnect the suicide cable the live wires (hot wires) of two different phases were connected, and at 240V the difference between phrases is 440V with almost no resistance. BANG!
They managed to blow both company fuses and the lights momentarily flickered along the whole of their street.
They then had some explaining to do: to the power people, to their neighbours, to the police, and to the magistrates...
should have spliced a breaker in line with the suicide cord
@@blacknoir2404 yes, that's always a good idea, then you can isolate the ends from each other before unplugging. Even better, have a breaker near each end of the cord if it's going further than a few metres. Then you can always keep yourself safe by using the bearer breaker. If you remember if course.
It's still not recommended as it's too easy to forget. Perhaps with a breaker it should be called the "are you sure suicide cord"
When I was kid my grandfather and I built me a club house in the back yard. He wired the clubhouse to have lights and power. He made me a 50ft extension cord with 2 males to get power from the house when I was using it. Worked like a charm and never had any problems. I was just not allowed to use it when it was raining.
For safety reasons you should have mentioned that plugging the hot end into a different plug, or if this receptacle is split like in most kitchen receptacles, on two different circuits you would energize a circuit that was potentially turned off at the breaker box.
Wasn't that emplied when he explained that the it was only ok because the two were connected on the sane circuit?
I was just about to make the same comment. Saw yours, so no point.
@@emilye709 You can't tell just from looking at the outlet that it is a split receptacle. You would have to inspect the complete unit to know this.
@@emilye709 Yes but often people don't realize the top and bottom plug can be on different circuits.
1 receptical will never be on seperate circuits and unless your running to a different room all the outlets will be on the same circuit in that room unless its an old house someone remodeled and didnt get the proper permits for
electrician student drop out here. ;-) I thought I'd add that you can break that tab off and have two independently wired outlets. This can be useful if you want to attach a wall switch to one of the outlets for a lamp and have the other one always on. If someone does this correctly and you plug in a suicide cord, you'd see the same results. If someone screws up the neutral wiring on the switched side, which is a very common problem in the real world, then you will have an exciting surprise in store for you.
You could say the result would be shocking
There could be other types of wiring configurations for an outlet like this. The top and bottom could be fed from two different circuits if the connecting tabs have been removed. If those two different circuits are from two different legs in the panel you might be looking at much different results.
That's true, and he definitely should have mentioned that.
But nothing would happen but a popped fuse and maybe a little bit of smoke.
Agreed. Sometimes the hot legs can be split (remove the tab connecting the two outlets,) and be wired with 240volts. It allows more power at the outlet. Plug that thing in, and it goes BOOM!
Not on these types of plugs. They're made for 120 only. The tabs to disconnect are only to have a switch turn power on and off on one side of the plug while the other is constant. Theoretically someone could run 2 different phases but that wouldn't be an electrician that does that. Granted I've not been an electrician for about 15 years but I was one for 3 years in my late teens early 20s
That's what I was curious about....plugging into 2 separate circuits would be feeding 240v to each outlet....sparks would fly and both breakers would more than likely trip???
1:35 Outlets are also looking so shocked by the result 😂
Do an experiment that actually shows what happens with the phase mismatch like you'd get if you had a generator connected and the main breaker was closed when the power came back on :)
Right! I want to see him get a longer cord and plug the other end to another socket across the room!
You have to complete a circuit for anything to happen. That means hooking the "hot" side to the "neutral" side or the ground (which is bonded to the "neutral" in the main panel). Only then will there be a flow of current.
Just for peoples information, alternating current (AC) changes direction (in the US) 60 times a second. That means the current flows from the "hot" to the "neutral" and then from the "neutral" to the "hot" 60 times a second. So in reality, both are hot. The "neutral" is only called "neutral" because it taps into the transformer coil in the middle of the coil whereas the "hot" is attached to both ends of the transformer coil. That is why your main panel has two "hot" wires coming into it and one "neutral" wire.
To get 240 volts your circuit will have to be attached to both "hot" wires. To get 120 volts your circuit will have to be attached to the "neutral" wire and one of the "hot" wires.
Electrical panels are designed so that each "hot" wire supplies power to every other row of circuit breakers. That is why attaching a device to two adjacent circuit breakers that are next to each other vertically will get you 240 volts. When you do that you are getting the full voltage output of the transformer's entire coil. That is also why you do not have a "neutral" wire connected to the neutral bus bar on a 240 volt circuit.
Technically, the current alternates within it's own circut. The neutral is there to balance the load from the phasing. There are many circuts that don't have neutrals. Especially for motors.. However, at the tap yes. (For simplicity of someone who would look at a circut and assume they need a neutral to comeplete a branch circut... or even sub panel.)
@@_Jake.From.Statefarm_
The average household transformer has a 220/240 coil in it. The sole purpose of the neutral is to get 110/120 volts from that same coil by connecting to the center of the coil. That is why and the only reason why it is called "neutral." Alternating current is called alternating for a reason. And that reason is because electricity flows both directions half the time, because it alternates the direction it travels.
Only circuits that use 220/240 volts do not have neutrals because they are 220/240 volt circuits, not 110/120 volt circuits. If you want a 110/120 volt circuit then you must have the "neutral" wire in the circuit
@@oldtimefarmboy617 I fully understand that and most households don't have transformers at all (on the property), they are connected to one generally at the pole. I made it clear that you weren't wrong about the nutral from the tap. I'm simply stating that branch circuits dont always have neutrals for people who aren't journeyman electricians, not that they should be touching any thing to begin with . There is no need if the circuit is balanced.. I didn't want to get into theory class for people who dont understand resistance, disipation, unbalanced loads, and things they likely won't see in an electrical system. Just that they do exist, I never stated a single pole circuit wouldn't need one... You inferred that I thought that.
@@_Jake.From.Statefarm_
A transformer at the house or one the pole makes zero difference.
The average household transformer is connected to only one phase at the pole. There is no phasing and no phasing to balance out. The only purpose of the "neutral" wire is to get 110/120 volts from a 220/240 volt coil. And alternating current has no polarity. The use of the word polarity in the industry is only a technical term to standardize how things are wired up so no matter where you go everything is done the same.
It is like a gallon is a gallon and a foot is a foot and a pound is a pound everywhere you go in the United States and if some tells you to go east you know exactly what direction they are talking about.
@@oldtimefarmboy617 I dont need a lesson guy. You keep being up shit I never said, nor claimed. I never said it did matter if it was on a pole.. and I know how transformers work and their different configurations. I've been a JC for 15 years and have worked in multiple facets of the trade. I've started in commercial/industrial became a foreman, worked in the generator sector, and later a lead at a major data center.
If you try that on a plug where the tab is removed and the other plug is on the other half of your panel you could create a 240v short circuit across your hots.
Yep, it only makes 240 volts if the hot for each, was on a different phase.
Otherwise, it just links the two together as the same 120 volts they already were….just like the tie bar on the receptacle, that was linking the two halves.
No it's still single phase. You need to learn the difference between hot and neutral.
Resi service neutral is center tap on transformer on street near 0v which electrically is the same as ground. Hot is +120 and -120 of a single phase for a grand total of 240v
Now show us what happens when you have 2 dedicated circuits on one duplex with one on the left -110V supply and one on the right +110V supply in the circuit box and you plug in the suicide cord.
Many outlets, such as in kitchens, have the link between the two hot terminals removed, with the 2 sides connected to separate breakers or fuses. These will have 240V between the 2 sides and will provide a bit of a spark as you short out 2 breakers/fuses. Also, those 6 outlet blocks are actually 2 x 3, not 1 x 6, to allow for those split outlets. You can verify this by testing for continuity between the 2 rows of 3. There shouldn't be any.
They have to be on separate phases, not just separate circuits.
@@TheEulerID Those split outlets are always on separate phases. If they were on the same phase, it would be easy to overload the neutral. With opposite phases and a balanced load, there is no current in the neutral. With the same phase, the neutral could have twice the rated current. To support these outlets, there are ganged breakers, one on each phase or blocks for holding 2 fuses, again on opposite phases. Any other use of the split outlet is a violation of code.
@@James_Knott Would it be legal to put them both on the same phase if you pulled separate neutrals? I know there would be no point to it but just hypothetically.
@@jtofgc I don't know, but I've never heard of that happening.
@Marty's 4x4 I have never seen that. I have seen plenty as I described, including 2 in my kitchen.
To do what you want would require ganged breakers on the same phase and it's not possible with any panel I've seen. You need ganged breakers to ensure there's no power in the outlet box, when the breakers are tripped.
Large=neutral
Small=hot
That’s so much easier for me to remember than the gold and silver plates on the sides of the outlet!
Easier to identify too, especially in dim lighting.
Thank you kind sir!
Black and brass both start with b. Works for me. Also smooth is hot if I'm working with lamp cord.
@@robertmiler6652 almost all the time I’m doing this I’m dealing with subpar lighting, I’m not always able to confidently distinguish between the silver and brass. On top of that poor working memory on account of my ADHD has me constantly going back to the box to relearn this only to forget it as soon as I get distracted by bending, organizing, stripping the wires. It’s like constantly digging the pizza box out of the trash to find out what temperature and how long to cook it, every time…
It’s funny how different brains can be, sometimes it’s frustrating.
There was a suicide cord in use in the old garage of our house we bought.
The previous owner had jumped from one live socket to a mismatched panel of several sockets so he had more outlets to use, they were wired in the most peculiar way.
Note: When buying a home, always make your offer contingent on an inspection. Then have the house inspected by a certified inspector before you buy it. Your real estate attorney or buyers agent should have warned you. Radon, leaking fuel tank, aspestos, structural deficiencies, there are many things that can bite you without an inspection.
I've rarely been that stressed out on just watching a video on RUclips, when you were about to plug the second part in I was butt clenching. Funny that it does nothing in the end, but now I really want to see a setup that blows up
Before I even watch the video, I can already say that if you plug that suicide cord into both sockets, nothing would happen as long as the two sockets are coming from the exact same circuit, which they are 19 times out of 20. If they were each on a separate circuit and fed with the opposite phases, then yes, you’d have a 240V short circuit and you’d get a loud pop and hopefully that’s it because the breaker(s) feeding that fault should’ve tripped immediately.
@@deang5622 Absolutely. Indeed, you are correct!
I was just thinking that… what if connected to the other phase.
Thanks for clearing that up. That would knock you on your butt. 😵
I was thinking the same thing. I wonder, if using standard 20 amp circuit breakers, if the arc would be hot enough to weld or ruin the outlet tension. In my experience there would likely be some damage.
@@td389 Uhm, why would it "knock you on your butt" if the fuse would blow???
@@deang5622
Except wiring doesn't work that way.
If you have a split receptacle, IT MUST be protected with a ganged breaker.
Which means you have 1 from each phase.
Note to everyone. Some outlets have that bridge cut allowing for different circuits, if there is a difference in phases between them then it really would have ended differently.
Exactly.
Eliminating the bridge to run 2 different phases, let alone circuits, to different plugs of one outlet is possibly the dumbest thing you can do is literally asking for trouble.
@@GurtTheHurt I’ve seen it done in small kitchens to allow for a fridge and another appliance (usually a oven) to be run off of one outlet but 2 circuits. I’d rather use a 2 gang box but oh well.
Although I have cut the bridge for some outlet in my living room, having one plug be always hot and the other be on a switch for a lamp. Technically different circuits same outlet, never really though about the phases though.
@@GurtTheHurt This was literally the standard way of wiring kitchen outlets for decades...
@@ButterfatFarms it was a simple demonstration and experimenting. Anyone who knows how electrical works already knew what would happen. This is to teach those who don't know.
What they didn't explain is no one should use these cords professionals and especially DIY'ers. This is not the proper way to backfeed power and is incredibly dangerous
Hi, I follow your channel and thought I should mention this is dangerous to show people as a lot of older houses here in Canada would have the line side power of the receptacle separated which would allow us to send a seperate phase on the top and a seperate phase to the bottom. We call these split receptacles. Mainly used in kitchens. If someone were to test this under these circumstances, it would definitely blow. Depending how close this receptacle is to the electrical panel, it could essentially trip the 100A main as I've see this scenario happen before with people forgetting to break the tabs allowing phases to cross without a load.
I agree and am 100% against these cables and the use of them for generator backfeeding. I take a lot of heat as many want to believe for generator use they are safe when in fact they are not: ruclips.net/video/9kjpS1vfGio/видео.html
Not just Canada but USA too. Learned it from personal experience and tripped the main fuse because i forgot to remove the little tabs on the outlet. He should of covered that in the video.
@@SilverCymbal they work great, stop lying to people
@@chucksu3413 There’s always gotta be that one guy that’s like “Well aCtUaLlY 🤓🤓”
@@looper964 Yeah they do a real good job of electrocuting the electrician restoring your power.
I’m sorry if this is a dumb question: Wouldn’t it be the same result if the outlets weren’t connected? There’s no (or very little) potential difference between the two hot wires, or between the neutral wires.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the two outlets weren't already connected internally, you'd still have gotten the same result as long as both outlets are on the same breaker. But if they were on separate breakers, electricity would've built up at the breaker box and it would've tripped both breakers, or you'd melt something.
Not necessarily the same breaker - but the same phase.
You are wrong. The phrase "electricity would've built up" is a bit non-sensical, but I'll try address what you're talking about. If you had hooked one end to 110 and the other to 220, that would've tripped breakers. As "Joe B" states, the most important thing is that the 2 AC waves be in phase, or nearly in phase. If they were out of phase, connecting them with this cable would either blow the breaker or quickly bring the two signals into phase, depending upon how far out of phase they were at the instant you connected them. Hope this helps.
@@iNowHateAtSigns electricity flows like water, if it doesn't have somewhere to go it can build up and cause overheating, melting, or fire. No the phrase is not nonsense.
@@johnwallace2638 Sorry to offend, John, but you are not correct. Your terminology is not correct, nor your understanding of electricity. The analogy of water to electricity is helpful in conceptualizing some basic principles like voltage, but electricity is not water and electricity doesn't "build up". CHARGE can accumulate across a DIELECTRIC, yes, but that's not what you're talking about. The buildup you mention in your recent comment is simply called VOLTAGE, which has little to do with what causes overheating, melting and fire. What causes overheating, et al, is dissipation of POWER in a RESISTIVE element such as a wire beyond it's rated CURRENT capacity.
I hope you'll google some of the terms above and learn rather than taking offense to my corrections.
@@iNowHateAtSigns Is the heating element on a stove nothing more than a giant resistor?
You can use an extension cord and bridge any two outlets in the house, as long as the live terminals are iof the same phase, nothing will happen. If the two outlets are fed from different phases, you'll end up tripping the main MCB.
Yes, you can, but why would you lol. Bypass failing wiring behind the walls???
I did this (the equivalent - forgetting to remove the tabs shorting the phases together on an outlet) some years ago. I didn't get anything dramatic,but saw all kinds of weird stuff. When I turned light off in one room, the ceiling fan in another went off and so on. What was happening was that the circuit breaker on one phase popped, then the shorted outlet fed power from one phase to the other. Was a real head scratcher until I figured out what was going on.
I can't believe how much I learned about wiring here, after maintaining my own homes for decades. Thanks to you all. Even your comment would sound like a sure bet that it wasn't possible, but you just have to think for a second..... and very cool, I must say!
Nope. Sorry. Wrong.
What happened was, you summoned ghosts over to your place.
Had this happen during hurricane Ian. I lost only one phase of power, half of my house was without power and any 240V appliances of course could not work.
So would going from one outlet to a completely different one have a different result?
Nice lesson. Next time you are doing this video explain why the 2 plugs are connected with a tab on each side. Technically as a builder when you’d say have a bedroom or living room and there is a light switch but no light on the ceiling, breaking the tabs out gives you w seperate circuits. So I that living room you may choose to have the top plug hot all the time but the bottom plug would be switched. Plug a lamp in the bottom one now you have a switched lamp. It’s important to understand the use of those tabs. You should NEVER use a dimmer in this type of circuit. Unless you are the only oerson using it. For instance you decide to vacuum and plug a vacuum into the wall outlet but you forget which plug is switched. Then you plug the vacuum in the switched plug with the dimmer, light bulb dimmer are not designed to operate any electric motor. You can get heat issues as the dimmer switch is less voltage and you can permanently damage your vacuum. Anyway it’s a good thing to know . The switched plug should be marked or colored different. A factory won’t do that but a magic marker works well.
While explaining why it didn't go boom, you forgot to warn about split phase or three phase.
They could be wired inde9endantly, resulting in 240V 8r 208V between the two h8t terminals, then you probably don't want to try that experiment.
Wouldn't you need a different receptacle for that?
For it (The 2 hot terms) to work correctly, anyway.
@@lashaunbeazer9264 it is possible to have two 120V sockets powered from one 240V circuit.
Remove the hot bridge between them.
Ground and neural to both, and either hot to each.
I know I have seen a video mentioning they had a socket like this. I think they had two 120V sockets fed by 240V, but wanted to replace them with 4-pin 240V sockets to use a welding machine.
I'm not at all an expert on American wiring code, but I think it's interesting to observe how they are different from the system commonly used in Eorope, where we have 230V single phase and 400V three phase, while the American system is 120V single phase and either 240V split phase, or 208V three phase.
It isn't *always* the case that the top and bottom of the outlet are on the same circuit. Years ago, I got a letter from the condo assn - basically saying that if you needed to change an outlet in the dining room, to please have them come and do it.
So I was curious - I got out my voltmeter, and started to measure. If I measured across the two hot terminals, I got 208V - basically different circuits that were on different phases of a 3-phase feed. I don't know the how/why it got to be this way - apparently the whole building was wired that way since they sent the letter around to everyone in the building.
So if you were to naively replace the outlet (and forget to break off the tabs), you would get some fireworks. In any event, your experiment with the suicide cord on that specific outlet, you would fry something somewhere.
There's no load and they are both AC circuits. As long as you didn't crosswire/short the hots to the neutral, you would still get the same result. Remember that 208V is Alternating current and already cycling from +208 to -208 60 times per second when you were measuring it (or half that for each individual receptacle/socket/plug).
So even for two plugs that had separate circuits, as long as they were wired correctly, no fireworks would occur. The only way that would happen is if the separately wired plugs had one side that was wired in reverse, hot to the neutral side and vice versa. However we would have been able to see this on his plug testers if that was the case.
So when both poles from the service box end up in the same room, then unluckily in the same receptacle box, and get wired to the same receptacle that has it's tabs split, you can create a live 220 volt with this cord.
The day you comprehend this statement the universe will smile upon you.
So if the cord was long enough and you plugged into separate outlets it will short circuit or is the whole house one tree with multiple branches?
The comments are mostly about what will happen plugging in a suicide plug into a house outlet. The mention that it's illegal to back feed a generator onto a incoming line drop to your home. This is a DEADLY practice as a lineman for the Electric company who is up on a pole is working on a dead branch circuit to your neighborhood. He's checked the line & knows it is a dead feeder circuit because a tree has fallen & broken the line from the pole. For safety, He pulls the neighborhood fuse that has the line dead until he's completed his repairs & then he'll go to that fuse switch & re energize that feeder again. In the meantime, Joe has gotten out his generator & suicide plug, Filled it with gas & plugs it into his garage outlet to power up a few things in the home. That 120 or 240 volts he puts on the meter box goes back out to the pole transformer. A transformer does the job of taking approx. 13, 000 volts on the branch circuit (that wire on the top of the poles that goes into the top of a transformer hanging on it) when its operating properly, And steps it down to a relatively residential safe 240/120 volt house feed. BUT A transformer works either direction. That generator voltage goes out the breaker panel in the basement, through the electric meter, out to the pole transformer, WHERE It's stepped up to 13,000 volts AC & travels down that suddenly now live line to a block away where that lineman is restringing it through the insulator eyelet on a pole. Yes, Your right, That generator will not power that block of homes for more than a couple of seconds & pop a breaker or something else. BUT That won't save the poor lineman who knows he's working on a safely dead feeder line. He's now laying at the bottom of the pole. Just a little more info about how a grid works.
Understand your point clearly and don’t recommend it unless a transfer switch is in place. However, there is a “safe” way of being stupid if one doesn’t mind potential for a fire, easy to turn off the Main so back feed doesn’t occur when the lineman completes the connection.
Exactly my thoughts...if you need to backfeed then shut off the main and seperate whats being backfed from rest of the grid...it also keeps what lil power your generating where it needs to be instead of feeding the entire system which is dangerous and leeches your power away from the necessities your trying to power in the first place.@andrewbeaupre1867
Hopefully others read this and understand what is said here. A transfer switch (installed accurately) is the best choice.
In a pinch with little options, and last ditch effort (HIGHLY DONT RECOMMEND TRYING) please turn off the Main, and only using smaller breakers to transfer loads as you mentioned.
It can be done “safely “ but it does not immune a person or household of potential fires or electrical wiring damage.
As an electrician, that was the result I was expecting it could have shorted out had it been 2 circuits pulled to that receptacle one on A phase and 1 on B phase (or C phase if you're in a commercial building)
Correct
Or the same phase just further down the wave(effectively out of phase like your other suggested scenarios).
dose he even know
@Flying C Land line 1 and line 2, red and black, whatever pronouns helps you sleep at night.
I have to admit the thumbnail brought me here. I been in the electrical industry for more than 30 years. I knew that nothing was going to happen. But the topic "suicide cord" got me intrigued.
I love how straight to the point and informative this video is.
Yes! There was no, "but first, before we test it out, let's do something to add 8 minutes or run time for mid roll adds! 😃"
1:20 My immediate, intuitive guess (after getting past the whole "exposed terminals connected to mains power" bit) was exactly what happened. Live connects to live, neutral to neutral, ground to ground. You're shorting each pin to itself, so nothing happens. Let's keep watching...
...even if the two outlets were disconnected (e.g. to connect one to a light switch), you'd still be connecting neutral to neutral, ground to ground, and live to live; in most cases, such applications are on the same breaker. Worst case scenario, the "suicide cord" would act as a switch, turning on anything on the same circuit as the switched outlet. Even if they were on different breakers, *maybe* you'd trip a GFCI.
if you connected two outlets that were on different hot legs they'd be out of phase and you'd get 208 or 240 across the cable and something would probably trip or burn up
in theory you could still cause a short to ground if at least one end of your cable lacked the features that enforce polarity (ie no third prong or unequally sized prongs)
@Flying C Land Wrong. Almost all US homes are two phase, with phase to neutral voltage being 120V and phase to phase being 240V. Most commercial buildings are three phase, with 208V phase to phase.
@Flying C Land So how many phases are there? If it's the same phase, the voltage between them is zero. It's not. There are two phases, and they're 180 degrees out of phase. Yes, the two phases are created by splitting up one phase, but it's still two phases.
@Flying C Land You do not add the voltages together, you subtract.
So, I have a fun one for ya! I've seen outlets with the center bond taken out, and each outlet is fed off from a different phase.
Essentially giving you 220 at that outlet if you chose to feed from that.
So what would happen in that case where the outlet is being fed from different phases?
You'd get a dead short.
It would give a nasty spark and the breakers would pop. That is why I cringed when I was this, someone is going to run into that after watching this.
Bang
1:30 literally taking two female's covers off without consent.
😂😂😂 that's gold, the surprised look on their faces says it all
Now I can't unsee it for lifetime
I was actually a little scared the moment you plugged it in. LOL
It made sense after you explained it.
When guessing what will happen, this is exactly what I'm expecting since the outlet is on the same leg circuit and as a result, nothing happens. What will happen if you plug the suicide cord to other leg? I think the circuit breaker will just trip since it shorts between both legs. By the way, this is how you can get two 120v outlets from each leg into single 240v. I've done this when I needed a 240v application, such as my 240v induction burner and my EV charger. Legs are also known as phase and every home have 240v split phase, one 120v on each leg.
Breaker won't trip since nothing is going to ground.
@@CeeJayThe13th hot 1 and hot 2 shorting will not trip simply because nothing is going to the ground? I don't believe that.
If you plug the suicide cord into the other leg you will cause a direct 240V short circuit. Very dangerous.
@@some_name9306 That's exactly what I've been saying. It will cause short circuit and the breaker will trip.
@@AdamIverson Not if they are the same phase.
It was exactly as I expected. 30 years as a power utility engineer I was not impressed but looks like a lot of people were.
I hope it doesn't take all of your 30 years to figure this out. I feel sorry for anyone that hired you
I dont have as much experience as you, but im surprised a lot of people dont know how a power outlet works
@@looper964 he didn't say it took all of his 30 years, wiseass.
Holy shit you are so cool & smart!!!
I am pretty sure 90% knew nothing would happen and i don't have any significant electrical knowledge
So what you mean is it's like using one outlet divided by two? Question the amount of voltage is split or the same for every outlet
Once when I was a teen, I was helping my parents remodel our house. I had a power tester, and I decided to see if the tester would work on two opposite ends of a screw on the side of an outlet. The screw had a current passing through it. The moment I put both ends to the screw, bam! I saw a big electrical explosion between my hands, and the circuit immediately flipped. It scared the living daylights out of me, but fortunately I wasn't injured. The tester had burned marks in it and it never worked again.
Poor thing, if you had used my hands instead that wouldn't have happened!
@@sayori3939
Good one.
I knew what was going to happen, BUT, and here's the thing, if the cable is cross-wired or the two outlets are indeed different circuits and had their live/neutral reversed, you will trip your breakers. Anyway, I'm assuming cross-wiring is not something to expect on these cables and you also checked the correct wiring of both outlets beforehand with the tester, so I expected nothing to happen, and I was right ;)
It's unlikely they'd be cross-wired, but they can be split-wired. Neutral can be connected to both neutral sides, but opposite live wires can be connected to the live sides of the outlets. That way you'd trip the breaker with that cord.
@@LeoTheHuman what do you mean by 'opposite live wires'?
It's great to see a video about basics. Beginners are often left behind. We all have to start somewhere.
...This almost gave me PSTD. There's a reason. I posted it on here somewhere recent.
Well, if this is for beginners, he should have mentioned that the receptacles could have different phases (common used in the US cus of their low 120 V) or neutral and live could be switched (common in many countries all over the world where that's just not specified). He also should have explained the basics, not only one single incomplete fact.
You seem to know your stuff. I live in a townhouse in my master bedroom's bathroom I had the switch for the fan go out to the point it worked but when you turn the light switch off you could not flip it in the upright position back on without pushing it in and flipping it upward. Literally around a week later the same thing happened to my dining room light where I had to push the switch in and up to turn it on. Do you know of this, is it a built-in safety feature?
Backfeeding through a wall outlet limits the maximum generator output to the size of the panel breaker on that circuit. A better way to do it is to have a dedicated input breaker but no matter what, you MUST turn your main breaker OFF!
The most common scenario is that the 20 amp breaker on the circuit you're backfeeding trips instantly as your puny Predator attempts to power everyone else's house that's on the same transformer. You'll never get anywhere that level of power in a store-bought generator.
I thought this video was going to be shocking but it turned out to be very grounded.
That is awesome