Update: This How-To was written for April Fools’ Day. It is not advised you attempt to make or even use this cable. The comments have made it very clear how dangerous to you and others using this cable can be. The image above is not of a full male-to-male cable, only the ground is connected, and the generator is not running.
We all know Ethernet has the crossover cable, cars have jumper cables, and RS232 has the null modem. Well, it is about time our wall sockets get their own crossover cable. This crossover cable is great for running power to a circuit disconnected from power. Maybe you are out of fuses, the breaker is broken or you just don’t want to go check the fuse box when there is a murderer about. This cable makes a great gift for even the most loathsome of acquaintances.
This an April Fools’ Day post. You should not do this!!!
Warning: These are Mains voltages and currents we are working with. If you do not know why you should not attempt this, you should not attempt this.
You will need:
- 1 Extension cord.
- 1 Male extension cord repair connector.
- Tools to strip the extension cord, and attach the connector: Knife, wire strippers, and screwdriver.
- Respect for mains voltages and currents.
If your extension cord has warning labels, read them.
Cut the extension cord to the desired length.
Strip about one inch (2.5cm) of the outer insulation from the part of the cord that has the male plug.
Strip about 3/8 inch (1cm) of each of the conductors. If there is a strip gauge, use it for a guide instead. Twist each of the stranded conductors to prevent fraying and possible shorts later.
Slide the shroud over the cord.
Screw the conductors into each of their respective terminals on the connector.
- The Green or bare conductor goes to the ground conductor terminal. It often has a green screw.
- The White conductor goes to the grounded conductor terminal. It often has a silver-colored screw.
- The Black conductor goes to the ungrounded conductor terminal. It often has a gold-colored screw.
Use a multimeter to check continuity and make sure there are no shorts.
Slide the shroud up to the connector and fasten the two parts together.
Secure the cable clamp.
There you have it, a finished Mains crossover cable.
There you have it, a Mains crossover cable. How might you use this crossover cable?
LOL; the nature of comments to this where %100 predictable, good job hackaday! A successful April fool prank.
While this deadman’s cable could be used safely, assuming no brain farts show up, but it has limited utility. When used in the U.S. it could only power half of the 100 V. circuits, even then only until the combined load tripped the breaker protecting the circuit the cord was plugged into.
Anyone who constructs this to use for their own home during a power outage has failed miserably at emergency preparedness, sorry. Harbor Freight sells a 200 A. Cutler Hammer DPDT break before make switch for around $200.
Been doing that for years now with a Miller Trailblazer 275. We use a 240 V Male/Male cable and make sure the main breaker in the panel is switched off. I think its funny how a lot of people are freaking out about this, it’s nothing new.
Yeah bad idea due even if it works. Anyone that learns such a concept may mess up ie leave the main breaker on. Someone else may see you do this and then try it. Someone else in your house, wife, kid whatever. Having a cord with reversed polarity may not be a normal problem but any idiot can plug it in anyway he wants after its been wired this way. The post above makes sense. And if needed in a pinch one could possibly unwire the circuit desired for use at the box and remove it from the box altogether and then more in a more safe way wire it up. But really Alans comment was the first in a long line of complaints about this as to why it is a bad idea.
“While the voltage might be 110V at your cable, by the time it gets upconverted by the pole transformer the voltage will be much higher, easily enough to kill a linesman”
This is no joke and just a stupid idea to get you into the Darwin Awards.
@Rollyn01
“I’ll play the dummy and you can explain to me why in the hell will a transformer up-vert a current from a house when most pole transformers, by law, are required to be grounded to the pole and the netural connected to feed back into the grid( which is how they can help to stablize any frequency drift that occurs).”
Transformers aren’t one-way devices. They don’t care which side is powered.
See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMT7sxUTU1s
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7JUiUOisvU
120 or 240 volts on the secondary will give you 11 or 12 or 16 or whatever thousand volts it’s designed for on the primary.
The rest of your statement makes little to no sense in context.
Look, this is Hackaday. It’s supposed to be overly complex hacks to accomplish mundane tasks we could pay for but choose not to. Or homebrew hacks of serious commercial products. You see the theme here.
This hack is clearly too simple. Note at no point do we hear about having to fabricate your own cable from tree roots and sap. It makes it pretty damn clear that this is not your everyday hack too. Makes it pretty damn clear that you’re not supposed to do this. Makes it pretty clear that this is a very simple way to get killed if you don’t know what you’re doing.
But, it does have a legitimate purpose, just like someone’s homemade diamond-tipped hard drive table saw. And that’s probably also not a safe thing to build either.
So, suck it up. If you ever get into the situation where you’d need one of these, now you know how. And hey, I didn’t know. But now I do. But we don’t get hurricanes and I don’t have a generator, so now it’s just a useful piece of knowledge in case the world ever comes tumbling down around us.
I’ll invite you over for popcorn. I’ll have the last working microwave in the free world.
This cable actually works. I’ve been using it for years when the mains go out
I understand that this is an april fools joke however as a licenced electrician this project is extreemly dangerous and highly irrisponsible of you guys to publish. Without a doubt there WILL be people who WILL follow these instructions. A cable like this in the electrical industry is called a suicide lead for very good reason. The post realy should be deleted.
April fools day or not, this post should not exist. It’s one of those stupid things like kipkay’s “electricity from the phone line”, where the poster doesnt see all that is involved.
Someone somewhere WILL try it, AND f0ck it up.
@Phelps
Uhhh… I think you miss the point on why I wanted it. I wanted the pliers to show to my frioend what could happen to his tools if he keeps on recklessly cutting wires. His connection to his tools might snap him into properly working with electricity. He has already used one to attach two ends of some wires together( insane, prone to arcing, but it worked… till he closed the pliers).
As for making my own pliers… I’m all for the but alas, not enough carbon steel to make them( stainless doesn’t help with HV situations).
*friend
309!!!! WOOHOO!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXZQloJbErw
First, horriblely irresponsible post. April fools jokes should be harmless.
Second, i did learn a lot here. thanks for all the posts.
WTF? This is still here?
You guys are seriously allowing this item to remain up after it’s been pointed out by several people in SEVERAL COUNTRIES that it is very illegal?
Okay, HackADay folks. You’re on my shitlist. I’m never coming back and will continue to tell anyone I know who visits your site never to come back. Though it won’t be much since you already burned off most of your userbase with stupid LED swapping and ardruino “hacks”… This place is dead to me.
i live in so cal and have use this very rig for at least contless emergencies when power was down. In fact i feed both phases so my 220V systems are back feed as well.. hey when the wife is the only one on the block running her hair dryer during a power failure.. now that’s living
Very poor taste. For all of you who say you have done this or similar without a proper transfer switch you are not just playing with your safety, THIS CAN KILL AN INNOCENT PERSON. Your utility power should be disconnected and you should never be allowed to be connected to the utility grid again. There is a reason separately derived power system interconnections are required to be fool proof. I have been electrocuted by such a fool as you. Fortunately I was not grounded and there was some loading on the line. Transformers are bidirectional and all it takes is one careless moment to produce 7,600 volts or 13,200 volts on an isolated line.
Your utility power should be disconnected and you should never be allowed to be connected to the utility grid again.
So, you think that simply surviving a subzero blizzard should be sufficient to sentence someone to a lifetime of 18th century life.
I think I would find this cruel and inhumane. Even if they had killed you, then it would be manslaughter and result in time spend in the penitentiary… with electrical power.
Hey guys, this is a joke. Treat it like one.
There are tutorials out there instructing you how to install Windows, and we know it can kill people (www.securityfocus.com/news/6767).
Illegal? Porn is illegal in some countries. Bad taste? Maybe, but meat is bad taste for a lot of veg people (like me). Dangerous? Of course. As using a hard drive as a sander. But is very funny reading all people freaking out because of a joke.
I am a journeymen electrician. This is so illegal and dangerous its not funny. Do not ever try to do this….you will burn your house down if you dont kill yourself first.
I’m a certified ME (Master Electrician) and licensed to work in the state of Illinois. This article and the ‘hack’ it describes is illegal in all 50 states of the US. This article should not even be here. There are very serious legal consequences of liability if Hack A Day were to continue to leave this article up.
@’This should be removed’: No there are not.
This is completely fine (if you know how to use it safely.)
However, a lot of Arduino-loving retards might misuse it (because they’re complete fucking idiots) and the *poof* Darwin’s Law is applied in its intended manner.
Haven’t the minor zaps people have gotten warned them not to go near mains power unless they know what they’re doing? I mean come on, get a life.
ALSO IT’S AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE.
No one does a hack straight after, and come on your’e an idiot if you try this ONLY following this page.
IF YOU DO NOT ALREADY KNOW THE BELOW INFO, DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
info is without warranty and you do this at your own risk. If you die, its not my fault.
—————————————-
This does work in a way but you have to connect Ground ground neutral neutral hot hot and MAKE SURE BREAKER IS TURNED OFF. Comes in handy during a power outtage and you want to bring to life a circuit especially if a good portion of your house lighting is on the circuit… I do (something like)this during long black outs. If you poo poo this info, try applying some logic why it would actually work.
This is not funny, it’s deadly. End of story.
Granted…this is not a good idea to carry out any form of experiment when it comes to electrical mains. The potential for disaster is huge on all levels. But I must ask… What kind of failsafes are used/not used in the States & the UK when it comes to hooking up generators to households. At least in Africa, we have systems in place that allow us to hook up generators to our household wiring and if perchance we happen to stuff up, the system trips out and we remain in darkness until such time as we get it right. NO BACKFEED DOWN THE GRID, NO DAMAGE TO GENERATOR AND NO DAMAGE TO HOUSEHOLD WIRING.
And what lineman in his right mind works on a supply line without a) ensuring that that section of the grid is neutral, b) ensuring that the line has the standard specific required monitoring devices in place and c) ensuring that all lines being worked on ARE GROUNDED BEFORE commencement of repairs and grounding removed as the last item on the checklist before calling for re-energising.
AND TO ALL THOSE HAVING A SHIT-FIT ABOUT THIS POST… IF YOU CAN’T READ THE DISCLAIMER GO BACK TO SCHOOL OR GET A PAIR OF SPECTACLES
C’mon, we should find this funny!
We are all (wannabe) hackers here, and there’s noone else around on this blog. this is exactly our kind of joking.
As long as it doesn’t get linked to engadget,the world is safe.
Thıs actually works.
I have made the cable months ago and we use it at my wife’s shop when the power goes out. This is the easiest way to connect a generator all your equipment including the lights.
One thing you need to make sure is to flip off the main circuit breaker, so that you do not “try” to supply power to the entire building and keep it local. If there are more appliances than your generator can support, flip off sub breakers to cut them off as well. More importantly, this keeps it safe when the power comes back. You just disconnect the generator first, then flip the breaker(s) back on.
OK, not the most fool proof system, but how many of the things posted here are?
when i was a little kid my dad would tie the generator into a wall switch so you could run the lights. I bet this wold work similarly if you isolated the circuit at the breaker
balls
Hack a day did the right thing and showed us information. If you dont want to see it use the great firewall of china as your proxy. They will protect you from everything nasty
@KnobMuffin
Right on, man.
@Jeff_B
In most of the New England states, the transformer is grounded to the pole in case of bad weather knocking down lines. As for the regulation of frequency, if for some reason the neutral line comes in out of phase, the the sub-station can correct this.
And another thing, whoever said the the lines are bi-directional is sadly mistaken. All AC conduct electricity is the same direction, they just do it using a longitudinal waveform. The highest and lowest concentration of electrons in the wire, if graphed on a o-scope, would show a wake like everyone is used to seeing. Thing is, that energy is still flowing in one direction, otherwise those linemen would have to worry about feedback from grid itself.
Picture this. Dad being the ever handyman has seen this post and the posts from people who have made, encourage and use these leads. He thinks I never thought of that. I’ll make one. So he does. The first power outage he says to the wife and kids i can fix this. He whips out the trusty generator and his home made “suicide lead” and powers up the house. The family is happy again. At some stage one of the kids trips over the lead yanking it from its socket. Oooppss I’ll just plug it back in thinks the kid. As the kid picks it up they make contact with the male pins still alive because the generator is still running. ZAP! Not all generators out there have saftey devices.
NOW do you idiots see why us qualified electricians are a tad ticked off at this post. If you want back up power have it installed correctly by someone who knows how to do it correctly.
Unfortunately this gives people the wrong idea.
Now that we have had our fun for April 1st I would suggest it be taken down. If you needed to build this you know how to do it.
Every year people get killed in the US. (Yes probably they deserved the Darwin Award.) Plugging something like this in or with the fumes or worse yet might kill a linesman restoring power. A switchover from AC to backup generator is expensive for a reason. To protect the potential victims.
Brilliant! More of this sort of thing!
Fewer paranoid, passive-aggressive whiners would be nice though.
All these ‘authoritive’ ‘don’t do this!’ comments make me laugh.
I use this setup every winter. All you gotta do is limit your usage to the rating of the outlet wiring, usually 15A. Someone’s more likely to die from the CO poisoning than from the electricity!
Well i have to say, this TOTALLY WORKS.
I’ve used something like this in the past. We had those totally old fuses and the one in my room went apart. I didn’t have one for replacement, so we’ve build such cable with my neighbor and i successfully used his outlet to power my room until i’ve got myself a replacement fuse.
I have to note, that i live in Germany and our outlets are not made in a way that you can only plug something in, when it has the correct “direction”. Our Outlets and plugs are symmetric.
See here: http://www.h-scharf.de/lehrdienste/BFS/Material/bauteiluebungen/steckdose.jpg
@Ian
Would that kid alert his dad to the fact that the plug came out? Or maybe his father is smart enough to know the plug came out from the fact that the lights are out? Or maybe, just maybe, the father was a responsible adult and told his kids to stay away from the cord?
I don’t know, but it sound like you and many others think everyone in the world has no common sense and/or are idiots. To counter, before you learned to be an eletrician, how good was your knowledge of electricity? Or did you just used common sense?
We didn’t start it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QyYaPWasos
Honestly the old myth of “backfeeding” power is just that. A myth. If you had a generator connected to the circuit and didn’t separate it from the grid, it would overload the generator because it wouldn’t be feeding your circuits, but it would be trying to feed power to EVERY single house on the grid without power. And unless the lineman was working on a pole directly outside your house, it would do no harm to the lineman. Even then, there are protocols and safety mechanisms in place to eliminate backfeeding.
thx you hackday. i no read good english but pictures of april project good. our power go off all time in my country. i hav genrator from brother. i build this tonight for my family.
bad news hackday. i built this april project last night for my home. I do not read english good but pictures good for april project. as always power failed at night and then i have fire. baby crib burned on one side. baby ok, not burned bad. wife still crying.
how about my patented IQ booster: apply 9v battery to tongue 5 times a day if no results after one week try a car battery
but seriously do you really think that stoopid people read hackaday??? tell you what lets put an os filter on the site and block windows users then we can have intelligent conversations and actually joke about HV doorknobs and such
you really dont need the spare end. you can cut two extension cables in half and just twist the wires together and use some electrical tape around them. that way you have two male ends. much eaiser then using an extra end and muilti-meter and all that crap.
:)))))
and yes i am an engineer!
This has been said many times already, but this is in bad taste. It’s fine to say, “if you’re that dumb, you deserve to die”, but some reckless dumbass skim read this, not note the disclaimer and build one.
The linesman will be working on the lines, check the voltage is 0, etc, then start working… Dumbass turns on his generator, and pow.
There are a lot of posts on here that are potentially dangerous, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The difference is that most of them require a little bit of understanding to complete, and usually they’re only dangerous to the person doing the hack. Any jackass can do this, and chances are the person writing it didn’t even think about disconnecting the circuit breaker, or they would have mentioned it.
Fortunately, I would expect that typically there will be enough load collectively in neighboring houses, and inrush current on the pole pig’s secondary that turning it on with the breaker live would probably pop your breakers anyways.
Regardless, it’s a stupid thing to post, even on April 1st.
slodichk-
“baby ok, not burned bad.”
I’m thinking a little Bernaise sauce will hide that. You just need to remember to flip your baby next time.
Lmfao
What happens when someone finally gets the internet after trying this and says…
“MY HOUSE BURNT DOWN I’M SUING YOU!”
What are you gonna say
“APRIL FOOLS”?
Anyway the fun things about 1st april jokes is that there’s always someone believing them.
Otherwise I would not be fun.
I would try adding an Arduino, a smoke sensor and maybe a Blue LED to sense when the poor noob is getting fried and burnt.
Much fun out of it.
I have done this…. but with a 220 plug. on 220 you can back feed the whole house as long as your main breaker is off. You can do it with 110 but keep in mind that 110 won’t have enough to power the whole house.