This is one of the most dangerous things you could show. Someone will get killed with this. And never try to connect a running generator to the power lines as you show. At a minimum, you’ll burn up the generator, and possibly kill your self. The generator will be out of sync with the power line, and smoke and sparks will happen, and possibly other bad things. Bad idea to show people how to do this….And, yes, I am an electrical engineer……

Perry Vale

This isn’t that bad! Think about it. there is a power outage and you want to supply power to your entire kitchen. Turn off all of the circuit breakers, do this hack, and plug it into your kitchen outlet. BAM! everything on that circuit comes to life!

I agree with the other poster, delete this post. You could be sued if someone kills themselves. There is a hack limit, and when playing with mains power, you’ve crossed it.

Perry Vale

This is the kind of stuff that give linemen nightmares. Hope your liability is paid up…

There is a disclaimer, quit crying you babies.

I don’t think we needed this post. People that need an step-by-step explanation for this hack shouldn’t use such a thing in the first place.

I bet you guys saying “get rid of this” love having signs that say “Danger Low Head Space” in areas with low ceilings.

@Fred

A few years ago, I’d agree with you 100%.

However, since then, the reader base of this webpage (and subsequently, the articles) have gone rapidly downhill.

There are actually commercial versions of this, but they all have a cutoff switch which gets installed at your power box. They then can only plug into a plug which to get access to you need to open a breaker disconnecting you from your mains..

But as shown it is just a problem waiting to happen, and in many areas it is against the electric code and so illegal..

@bencoder even if this is supposed to be an april fools joke, it is not only a very bad one – it is a deadly one.

Even people who don’t need a HOWTO to build this cable shouldn’t do it because it is just to dangerous.

@all read the tags:
tagged: Aprilfools, Dontdothis, Donttrythisathome, power, suicide, suicide plug

Something not covered in the writeup is, this should not be used to support any major amperage/wattage because it bypasses the safeties (fuses) of the house by placing the fuses at extreme ends of the power conduit. Sure, there may be a fuse on the generator, but you’re using a heavy-gauge “crossover” cable to feed into “minor gauge” house wiring.

Most house wiring won’t be heavier than 14ga, and to be putting (potentially) all of the house’s circuitry through a single 14ga wire to its power source, is very unwise. Even if it doesn’t cause a fire now, the wire could get hot enough to melt through the shielding and cause a problem down the road.

I have one of these – only mine plugs into a 220V, 40A outlet. Electricity coming out of your outlets isn’t magic – suck it up, pansies!

This, my dear sirs, is known as a widowmaker. For good reason.

Use with extreme caution.

Yes, this is potentially dangerous, but you’d have to be a retard to not know how much this can hurt you.

What a bunch of panty waists. You girls are really going to cry when the next post explains how to remove tree stumps with ANFO.

“If you do not know why you should not attempt this, you should not attempt this.” I love this disclaimer. If you know why you shouldn’t do this hack, you won’t do it. If you don’t know why not to, the disclaimer says you shouldn’t!

Happy Apr. 1, everyone! Stay safe.

Jonathan.

First off, it’s tagged April Fools…they’re obviously joking.

Second, this does work and can be done safely if you’re not an idiot. All you have to do is use your breakers to isolate the circuit you are powering. I have a cable similar to this with 220 volt plugs instead that we use when the power goes out. You just have to turn off the main so you don’t backfeed the lines and kill a linesman.

I wonder how many of the people screaming bloody murder are also members of the Arduino crowd. ZOMG, it has more than 5 volts?! Kill it with fire!

Oh so serious. It’s like we have a collection of product liability lawyer wannabes on here.
@TOM – looks like you’re right. Quality of the readershipp has plummeted. Now it’s a bunch of namby-pamby serious sams pointing out the dangers of…God forbid…a HACK.

Yep, there’s always a few idiots who’ll try it, and there’s always a few product liability lawyers who’ll “try” it as well. But in the end, if you’re this stupid and missed the date on the calendar, well, maybe you should check in your subscription and go back to engadget.

This is illegal and for good reason. Not only could you destroy your generator, kill yourself and loved ones, burn down your house, but you could also kill a lineman working on the downed lines.

I’m all for free speech, and it’s the Author/Editor/Parent Company’s right to post this; but this is something that I would highly suggest removing from the site.

If this is an April Fools Joke; very bad taste.

If this is a serious post; you must be absolutely mad.

Any half serious EE will / is telling you this is a seriously bad idea to post this. Anyone who is capable of making one of these already knows how to make one (and how to use it safely), and anyone who doesn’t definitely shouldn’t make one.

This ‘hack’ will and does regularly kill linesmen, and very much has to potential to kill noobs who try it.

It is criminal for you to be advocating such a half arsed bodge on this site.

I usually like reading hackaday. Won’t be coming back if this is the absolute level around here now.

BTW, I agree–if this is an April Fool’s joke it’s in REALLY poor taste… sort of like waking up your wife to tell her the baby is dead…

I’ve actually made and _used_ one of these! I was moving out of my apartment, and the utility company shut off my power prematurely. I just whipped one of these together out of an old extension cord, and “borrowed” power from a hallway outlet for a short while. Just make sure that you don’t try to draw too many amps. IE, unplug your fridge if you have more than one other light on.

I think even a child could tell you that this is pretty dangerous, you don’t really need a “how to” to connect two mains plugs onto a bit of flex.

Saying this though I did something similar a few winters back when I was without power for a week after a JCB chomped through the main feeder for the estate I live in. I managed it safely and didn’t manage to injure myself.

If you are stupid enough to kill/injure yourself maybe you are just proving to the rest of civilisation that your DNA isn’t required anymore….

its April 1st………..

another excellent extension cord mod is to cut off the female end, wrap one wire around the doorknob and the other wire to strategically placed metal. for barefoot situations, a floormat. other situations, something metal the hand will touch while the knob is turning. but if you put that second contact in the wrong spot, you gonna have some bodies to deal with.

you dont say shit about turning the mains breaker off before you use it.

some d!ckhead is gonna get killed, nice april fools joke.

To those saying it’s “illegal”: You realize much of what’s posted here, hacking technology.. is also illegal.. right?

I mean.. right?

I guess no one looked at the calendar today.

1. It’s not illegal everywhere. We don’t all live where you live.

2. The post specifically says not to do it. There’s no liability. Any jerk could google this and murder his family. Since when is information a bad thing?

they have had something like this for years…although it’s usualy connected to a mains disconect box.

This is not clever, a hack or funny.

It could be dangerous though and I guess the herd might need culling, so have at it.

But again, its not just the moron who gets culled.
It often is the Linesman who gets sent out to fix Joe Morons power who gets it.

This happens with alarming regularity when some bright spark comes up with this idea himself, and doesn’t isolate the breakers.

That is not amusing. That is not a joke.

Wow this is great… This site posts tesla coils and people with diy’s to rail guns with big boxes full of caps. They all can kill you, same goes for this. you commenter’s are golden and yea thats sarcasm.

Yes this does work but please take into consideration that everyone isnt as stupid as you and dont need to be warned or bitched at to have this taken down. quit being low-voltage pussies.

I always have an extra 15 amp breaker on the one side of my panel I want to power and use that to backfeed power into the panel after shutting off the main.

This post IS DANGEROUS and at least should tell people to shut off the main.

In my opinion it should be done at the power box (AND ONLY WHEN THE MAIN IS SHUT OFF) and not feeding who knows how many amps into a wall socket that rated for 15 amps (yeah I know some are more but in homes its usually 15)

Wow Crappy design. at least throw in a inline box with a single breaker of fuse in there to make it somewhat safe.

Hack-a-day Showing Noob’s how to kill themselves in new ways.

Honestly, whoever wrote this up was a complete idiot.

Hah that is funny. My dad did this once by accident after he cut our extension cable with a hedge trimmer. I zapped my hand with 120 Vac, didn’t hurt much but I could see how it might be dangerous (just heed the warning at the top of the article!)

Funny joke, but poor taste. I love the fact that it encourages reading the safety labels before totally disregarding them.

I have this set up at my house, but the right way. Critical circuits set up in a second fuse box with the AC Jack for the generator installed on the outside of the house near the covered porch, so the generator can vent properly.

It is very rare that I will ever dump on somebody else’s hack… I laud those who go forth and build, tinker, and experiment. If anything, I have mocked those who whine “that’s not a hack,” or “I could/did do it better.” I have poked fun at those who bitch about projects with arduinos and blinky LEDs. And, I have *never* advocated the removal of a post, as I am against the notion of censorship.

Having said all that, this “hack” is so stupid and so dangerous that it *really* needs to be removed from this site. There is no fundamental difference between this post, and one that “instructs” a person to load a revolver and shoot it into the air. The author might “know what he’s doing,” but either way, sooner or later, either the operator, or worse, some innocent and unassociated party, will end up dead.

The author may be a nice guy but this doesn’t change the fact that he is an ignorant fool. A FAR better article would have described how to install a transfer switch at the fuse box… something comparatively cheap and easy to do.

I’ve said enough.

This may not be as far fetched as it looks, This was published in Popular Mechanics some years ago.

The biggest problem other than the MAIN MUST BE SHUT OFF is that most outlets in an older home are WORN OUT this causes a poor connection and HEAT. Heat causes burned wires and FIRE.
After the ice storm in Northern NY a number of years ago, my partner and myself spent almost a year repairing burned walls and outlets from these being used.
For a little over 50 bucks you can buy a plate that forces you to turn off the main while turning on your breaker for your generator.
It is called a generator interlock kit.

http://www.squared.com/us/applications/residential.nsf/LookupFiles/RetaiLinkDec2002small.pdf/$file/RetaiLinkDec2002small.pdf

Have it done right. Call someone with some knowledge of the subject.

Phelps what is the lineman checks for power and finds none, while he’s working on the cables you come along and start up your generator forgetting to switch off the breakers.

Or lets say the lineman comes along and fins power on the grid that isn’t coming from the powerstation, how does he find where it is coming from??

See, when I read the title I was expecting a cable that swapped hot and neutral. Now that could make things fun…

Most generators I know have one of these cables built in. Certainly in the middle east you get power from generators using something like this.

So all he’s done was cut an extension cable open.

NOT A HACK in anything but the most literal sense of the word!

The title of this post made me laugh. Then I got really annoyed reading all the no humor net nannies getting their panties in a wad over this. PS The disclaimer was funny too.

I know a lot of people sell power from solar cells and wind generators back to the grid. I wonder what safeguards they use to switch off when necessary.

Wow. For a bunch of hackers and people who enjoy experimenting, I am surprised by the amount of cry babying. This is a valid hack and has its place. Of course there are better ways. Of course it’s dangerous. If plugged into a house line that has not been disconnected from the circuit being powered up this way you will know it immediately as the genset power will go to ground. The chance of hurting a lineman is beyond the scope of this (lineman will have his tiny “Multi Tester” with him, wont he)?
I am stunned by the lack of ingenuity some of you “hacker, experimenters” possess. Please be careful taking your bubble bath kids, you might drop that toaster…..

it has some good uses, like using a generator when the power’s out, but the description’s disclaimer is not NEARLY long enough or detailed enough. someone could get really hurt trying to use this to do the wrong thing.

I was waiting for that one, too. My grandfather is a master electrician, and I’ve seen him have to grab 110 twice to tell if it is hot. “I think that might be live…” second grab “yup, that’s live.” (And then he keeps going)

And he’s seen guys wiring up 3-phase 480 bare handed and hot. (They knew he was a lightweight and warned him not to touch it, though.)

@Pete:

They use a special type of box that manages power both ways. When their [solar/water/wind/whatever] power generation system is producing more than the house needs, it allows power to flow to the grid, and the power company’s meter runs backward (or another meter runs, depending on the system). When the house is using more power, or it’s cloudy or for whatever reason the house power system isn’t producing enough, that box allows power to flow from the grid into the house.

We did something like this back in 2004 in FL when the hurricanes bailed through. We turned off the main breaker and backfed our generator into the circuit panel to power some of our electric items (fridge, lights, fans). Couldn’t power AC though, pulled too much power. This works as long as you cut the main power coming in.