I used to work for a roofing contractor who had an old hay elevator converted to be used as a shingle elevator. It had a large electric motor with a female pigtail and we used a heavy cord with 2 male ends on it. I offered to rewire it but there was some BS reason why they wanted it that way.
Some of the boys I worked with were kinda rough. One of their favorite tricks was to shock each other with the live end. I made it known early on that I would respond with my roofing hatchet, so I never got the treatment but I did see a few lively fist fights as a result of the prank.
I was pretty happy when it was retired after breaking in half going down the road due to rust.
Use case: move a server from one room to another without turning it off. Plug that long cable into the multiple plug where the server is, after making SURE the phase and neutral are the same. Unplug original power, move server. Plug back after testing phase and neutral. Unplug magic cable…
My neighbor has a generator, but it’s not hardwired to his house. When there was a power outage, I think he used something like this to connect his generator to the circuits he wanted to power up. His cords were homemade, though.
Just a wild guess, but a house whose main panel has been disconnected and locked out should be safely de-energized. But back feeding the house circuits with a cable like this can energize a circuits that are supposed to be safely disconnected.
I’ve used this kind of extension cord. REALLY.
It was 1991. I was in high school electric shop class, and these handmade, hand soldered extension cords were used to connect displays together for shop fairs. Our teacher kept the cords locked away, and only put them in after the cases were put deployed and fully put together for an event.
If everyone using one of these knows what they are doing, then maybe it’s not dangerous. But that’s a very big if to stake a lineman’s life on.
Generator transfer switches are specifically designed to only select mains or generator, never both. So when part of a system they are theoretically foolproof.
We have a person door that got boarded up from our garage to the back porch. Right outside the door is a small shed that just contains an emergency generator. One of the previous owners put outlets on both sides of the boarded up door, and when the power goes out you 1) turn off the power at the meter so you don’t supply power back down the line, 2) plug an extension cord into, say, the freezer and plug it into the inside plug and then 3) you need a double male to go from the outside plug to the generator. I can only assume that whoever did that didn’t see any other option. I keep meaning to take the outside plugs off and just wire a long extension cord into the backside of the inside outlet that then gets plugged in to the generator, but we’ve used it like once in 10 years, so there is no big rush to do so.
Don’t do it that way. Replace the outlet that accepts power with a power inlet, and put a double-throw switch on the hot side so that it can’t backfeed the house.
MIKE warily enters a dingy dive bar, full of rough characters. He looks at the picture in his hand, then the camera follows his point of view to focus a suspicious-looking man in a booth. MIKE approaches.
MIKE
They say you know your way around a live wire.
RENEGADE ELECTRICIAN
Who says that?
MIKE
They also said you didn’t ask stupid questions.
RENEGADE ELECTRICIAN
Let me guess. You want a two-headed plug.
MIKE is taken aback. He steps backward, only to bump into BURLY GOONS who have appeared behind him. They grab him by the shoulders.
RENEGADE ELECTRICIAN
Leaving so soon, my friend? But we were just getting to know one another. And it seems we share certain… exotic tastes.
I started my career as an HVAC mechanic in 1980. If you ever saw the movie Brazil, you can figure Harry Tuttle is a legend in the industry, At least to the old mechanics…
At a pro-audio trade show I once saw, with my own eyes, a booth selling adapters to convert a standard 3-cord grounded extension cord in to an audio cable. What could go wrong?
Yeah, I’ve seen Edison to 1/4 phone and Edison to Speakon connectors. Pretty sure the speakers aren’t going to be happy with that accidental 120v 60 Hz tone. Gonna have to pry the speaker cone out of the opposite side wall…
SJO AC cable can make a fairly decent, cheap speaker cable. But you really need to swap out the AC connectors.
