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📹 Electrical Vehicle Chargers Explained | Ask This Old House
In this video, This Old House master electrician Heath Eastman teaches host Kevin O’Connor everything he (or anyone else) …
📹 What Happens When You Plug a SUICIDE CORD in a LIVE OUTLET? Do Not Try This Ever
I was asked this question at least 500 times & now you can see what happens when you take a backfeeding suicide cord …
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 article 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.
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.
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!
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 😂
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.
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!!!
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!
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.
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.
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 article for demonstration of the normal situation. I’m writing this for others.
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.
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…
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).
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.
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.
It was nice to see a article 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.
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.
Nice lesson. Next time you are doing this article 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.
Interesting article. 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 article is good in explaining what happens, identify safety concerns and make us think.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Before I even watch the article, 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 had a very long cord like this, with two “male” ends. One end we plugged into the wall outlet in the garage, the other plugged into the end of a lawn mower. Apart from the fact that the outlet on the mower itself was kinda jank, needing wrapped around the handle and held in place, lest it fall out, it worked fairly well. How we acquired such a thing, I’ve no clue.
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 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.
One dangerous thing that you left out was that if the outlet had been wired with two separate circuits from the two opposing sides of the breaker box that would’ve created a short between the two 110 supplies coming into the house and that probably would’ve exploded Which is why you made this article in the first place. Cause back feeding carry’s this risk.
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 😉
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.
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.
Hi, I follow your website 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.
You never really know for sure, without testing, how the hot and neutral are wired in a suicide cord, they could cross over especially if made by an amateur. For that reason alone, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone try to duplicate this demonstration unless they had complete knowledge of what they were doing.
While you did a great job explaining why it didn’t blow up. It’s important to note that not all receptacles are on the same circuit. Some might have it wired where the top is on one circuit, and the bottom is on another. This is common for a “switched on/off” outlet. Point being: Despite the warnings you put in your article, it would seem that it could be a common result doing this. And likely that’s the case. My only point is: It would have been helpful to point out what COULD happen, if the metal bridge was intentionally disconnected for a scenario, in which case – yes, there would be an issue. That’s all. Cheers.
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 perusal… …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.
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.
Nice article! I almost jumped when it looked like you were about to touch the other end of the cord while the bottom was plugged in – a la Electroboom. Anyway, could you try it without that copper bridge between the upper and lower socket? Wouldn’t that be the situation if the outlet was switched? Great article as always!