Should I Be Able To Do This?

Can't beleive I have just read through all these posts!

Some people have too much time on there hands (yes! Including me!)

Only succeeded in fairly recent years by BS1363A which added the shrouds to the live and neutral pins making it even safer.

One of our scientist came into the workshop the other day with a mains adapter they bought of eBay to plug a continental plug into a standard square 3 pin socket. When the went to unplug the equipment the top half of the adapter came away with the plug on the end of the lead leaving two brass prongs nicely connected into the wall socket.

Of course the unthinking instinctive reaction is to reach up and pull that out too. Ouch.

They wanted us to mend it. !!

Straight in the bin.

;0)

Martin

You can't fix stupid, but on the bright side high levels of stupid seem to be self regulating :D

- Nick

Edited By Nick Hulme on 08/12/2016 09:24:32

Very true Nick, and it's astonishing I've got this far. At school me and my mates seriously upset an electrician with this arrangement.

<EDIT Sorry - I really don't want a picture that curious teenagers may decide to emulate>

This foolishness is all the more dangerous for the immature intelligence behind it. Aged 14 we used Ohms law to calculate the value of resistance that would cause a 1/3W resistor connected across the mains to explode after about 10 seconds. Then we used tools to make it happen. At 14 years old I firmly believed myself to be immortal, now I'm not quite so sure.

This experiment was done unsupervised in the school's brand-new Technology Room. We were caught when the electrician in charge called to check that all was well. He noticed a few things wrong with our installation, how many errors of judgement can you see?

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 08/12/2016 10:56:23

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 08/12/2016 13:06:44

Dave,

As a long standing IET Member I can offer the following - I think you should have used some insulated sleeving around the wires to and from the resistor - PTFE might have stood up to the heat better than PVC

(I hope Tony Hicks who wrote the letter to MEW last month **LINK** isn't looking at this otherwise you'll be for it )

Jon

Personally I think that the BS spec should be augmented to include a type approval sort of current rating test on all of them. If the pins start pulling out there would be need for other tests and probably a physical look at the actual design. Sort of thing TUV do. The manufacturers have been slowly but surely skimping on the materials in them for some time now. The ones supplied on equipment are often far better quality than the super cheap ones that DIY stores especially sell. I suspect many of them should really have a 5amp fuse in them in case some one tries to draw more. One weak point is often the fuse clips - too thin and not springy enough so prone to overheating.

I have a lidl extension lead where plugs can't be inserted as shown earlier. 2 rows with the earth running down the centre. Bit of a problem if certain plug top power supplies are plugged in as they mask one of the sockets in the other row. So I ask myself why do some manufacturer choose to make the supplies that way where as most don't. Probably because hear rises and it keeps it away from the plug.

Still I suppose few run 3kw electric fires these days and if they do they probably include a decent plug which might leave the socket as a problem. Skimping in those too.

John

-

Edited By Ajohnw on 08/12/2016 11:13:37

I wish I could find a plug top with the cable outlet at the opposite end.

Martin

Oh and use and electrolytic capacitor, you get a bigger bang.

Martin

I too, often wish I could find a plug with the cable outlet at the other end

Roy

Many thanks for the suggestions guys. I've added PTFE insulation and an electrolytic capacitor to the circuit. I also upgraded the fuse to cope with the extra load added by the capacitor.

<EDIT c'mon Dave, I really can't let photos of this sort of thing stand - I only need one idiot to copy them; it's a bit beyond suggesting people fix their own electric motors>

The capacitor made a huge difference! Thanks Martin.

I was very unlucky - only 17% of house fires are caused by electrical faults...

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 08/12/2016 12:03:45

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 08/12/2016 13:11:29

Dave,

You used the wrong coloured insulation!

...and FYI green is no longer the colour of earth wire.

You say you were unlucky but I'd reassure you with a silver lining - Those obsolete green croc-clip leads will no longer be a problem.

Jon

When they stop gazing though telescopes or laundering the IT equipment someone is soon going to suggest we could be taken seriously and that our ideas will be actually carried out! Much more naughty than taking a photo of a lathe with the guards removed.

chiz

Martin

When I was about 12 I wanted to use my soldering iron some distance from a socket and did not have a plug, lead and socket. No problem, just put plugs on both ends of a length of old flex and connect the iron to the mains by the bodge and a three way adaptor. Even then I realised that was one of the more dangerous things I could do.

JA

How about the bank of 3 coloured disco spots driven by 3 switched neutrals down a lump of 3 core mains cable the length of the scout hut with the power being supplied by the live from a mains socket next to the spots.

Worked for us.

chiz

Too true.

When I was 13 or 14 my first instinct on seeing those pictures would have been to copy them, no doubt at all.

I would probably have survived, but probably isn't good enough.

Neil

As an apprentice in the works maintenance dept it was common practice to solder connections on three phase using a soldering iron connected across one phase that wasn't being worked on and neutral using crocodile clips

Roy

It does happen.

Over 40 years ago I found the ex's father had supplied her with a double ended extension lead which she was using with a hair dryer.

More recently, my wife needed to re-educate her 90 year old father on the same matter.  He argued that he knew what he was doing as he worked as a radio operator/fixer during WWII. Luckily, she won!

Edited By not done it yet on 08/12/2016 13:29:20

<EDIT c'mon Dave, I really can't let photos of this sort of thing stand - I only need one idiot to copy them; it's a bit beyond suggesting people fix their own electric motors>

GUILTY!

Sorry...

- I enjoyed it while it lasted anyway.