Submitted by: dunno source via Submit a Kludge!
Favorite Comment: Fixer nasty_mist says, “Try stealing my golden pliers now, assholes.”
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You will notice if the wire that you’re cutting had power on.
Handy
As you can se my friend here there is no “ON” sign….
You can turn OFF the power or you can turn it NO, if you want to turn it ON just buy something else…. NOT THIS!
Actually it does say “on”! when you pull the disconnect out and turn it over, it will say off as well.
Speechless…
Why does that picture scare the hell out me?
I don’t know. Might be your common sense.
Or the need to live?
That must be about the most dangerous kludge I’ve ever seen.
“I dare you to grab it, you’ll get such a buzz!”
A shocking display of disreguard for proper electrical
practises, hey but what fun would that be! Some duck
tape on the handle should take care of that.
It’s electric, so you want electrical tape. A little bit of that and it’ll be totally safe!
just jump up in the air and grab the pliers before you land. It’s all about the ground.
While it is certainly not to code, and shows a flagrant disregard to proper workmanship, there is a very low chance anyone is getting shocked on that neutral, unless the rest of the system is wired the same……
We do not know what the electrical panel looks like. I have seen people use white on 220 v circuits before.
nice burglar trap:
1. Make sure that the handles are electrified.
2. When a (dumb) burglar sees this, he’ll act this way: He tries to remove the vise grip as he attempts to turn the Power off.So he’ll be electrocuted.
3. Grab you HiVo-proof protective gloves and remove the grip and the roasted corpse. Please make sure to dispose him in a environment-friendly, discreet way.
Or upgrade to 440 voltage & the dumb bastard will be cremated!
Or upgrade to 880 and he can have his ashes in orbit.
Or upgrade to the 9900 to scare the crap out of em!
It’s only on the ground wire, which would only be charged long enough to trip the breaker, but still, this is idiotic.
Or maybe not. I can’t quite tell which wires are clamped by the vise grips, but this is still scary and stupid.
It’s not a ground wire, ground is the green wire. BUT… it looks like a black (HOT) wire is being connected to a white (neutral) wire. That’s usually a no-no. Hey, I know how to find out… I’ll lick my finger and touch the vice-grip, and see if it stops my pacemaker…
Looks like white is connected to black to me. Which is either going to be very exciting or not, depending on whether there’s a proper circuit breaker on the line.
yeah but wait’ll you see how the circuit breaker is kludged…
House wring is a bit different than auto wiring. Black is hot in house wiring, and the green is ground. Looks like that’s on the black wire.
And service entrance wiring is different from branch wiring. The service entrance lines are typically all black with the neutral center tap line having a white / yellow stripe to mark it out from the -120 and +120 tap lines for typical home 240 1PH. Or at least that’s how my house is setup I found when I replaced the old fuse box with a circuit breaker load center about a year ago. So this is probably wired correctly insofar as the wires are correctly paired. As far as safe, while I may be fairly trusting of the ground and neutral legs, I still wouldn’t touch that visegrips till i hit the mains disconnect switch above there.
Hey, at least it appears to be attached to the neutral so it’s wont explode it if touches the box..
I’m an air conditioning tech, that is a 220 volt disconnect box. usually there are 3 wires going in the box and 3 wires going out of the box. Once in a while I will see the 4th wire(the white one) and trace it back to the electrical box, to only see it is a neutral in which is also on the same bar as a ground. So it is not good to wire the hot leg and neutral/ground together. At the same time, we do not know where the white wire is going. Is it going through the conduit that is going up or down or back into the wall? I have seen it all!
Clark Griswold could not be reached for comment.
So now we can finally come to grips with live electricity.
ha ha
The irony is duct-tape, the exact one thing that was created to fix this kind of situation, and grossly mis-used on every other kludge conceivable, is missing here.
Actually, duct tape is not appropriate for this kind of things. The one that is appropriate is the electrical tape.
The one true thing is a wire nut.
Gotta have My AIRconditioning.
Lemme guess, they didn’t include the puddle of water that’s below the box in this photo.
Who needs a puddle of water? Seeing as how it is brick and in conduit, it is probably outside and exposed to the elements (rain). One good thunderstorm should be enough to make this genius have to redo the whole box once it leaks seeing as how I don’t see them getting the cover closed properly if they leave it like that. AND… *if* I remember my 2nd year Ag correctly (its only been *mufflefrump* years), it is the copper wire that’s ground (the one that’s screwed to the back of the box), so that leaves the white and black wires live. But don’t take my word for it. It’s been a long time.
This is a standard 60 amp pull single phase 220v disconnect. The copper and green wires are grounds attached to terminal block under the black pull plug. The white and black are traveling through the same conduit. I am presuming that whaterver the load is the white and black are in series with a load not contiguous with the plugs load. I am getting all kinds of ?????????? about what the ‘BRONK***@#!!’, are they running here except maybe a trap for a Darwinnian wannabe.
I can’t help but notice the solution to the wiring with the big electricuting bolt of death “WARNING!” sign on it is to patch it up with giant metal pliers.
I surmise this is work by a future (soon) Darwin award contestant.
klutzo: Duct tape on electrical work? Not at my house.
Instant new hairdo! .. or Death!
Gripping words of ad-vise… Never try this at home. Results are shocking!
Damn, it’s hard to tell which wires are connected to which. If I remember correctly, which I probably don’t. Black and white are both power lines and green’s the ground. Since it’s AC instead of DC, both lines are ‘hot’, aren’t they? Also, it looks like that switch has a bunch of black wires coming out of it instead of typical colored wires. Wonder if that’s a hot tub switch. Putting this kludge next to a hot tub would be perfect!
In AC black is hot white is neutral green is ground. Neutral and ground are essentially the same thing as ground and neutral are tied together at the panel. Ground is more of a local assurance that there is a path to ground. You will notice that on the lines coming into a (residential or single phase) building that there are only three wires (two hots, each 110v that combined make 220) and an unshielded wire that also acts as a support for the cable, that is the neutral. The disconnect only disconnects the hot wires, that’s why you don’t see any white or green wires coming out of it (it’s the same way a light switch works). Also, this looks like it’s probably a disconnect for an a/c unit, though I can’t be sure.
my guess is that this is a 220 volts both the black and red are live the green is ground and the white is neutral (which is really just another ground)
Depends on your wiring code- Here in Australia, depending on the age of the installation, either brown or red is your active (Hot), blue or black is your neutral, and the green/yellow is your earth. If we’re talking three-phase installations, in the meterbox, your three phases are red, white (or yellow, occasionally) and blue.
I’m really disappointed I didn’t get a photo of it, but for a while, there was a three-phase termination on a pole near my tech college into a low voltage glove. Bloody Energy Australia
Here in the U.S.; which by the construdtion and the type of box I believe it is, the black red and white could be hot and an electrician probably would assume so until cofirmed with a meter or depending upon the phase. If it is single phase any of those wires could be hot, and in this installation I think any wise guy should assume so. In this case If I were going to work on this I think I may be very tempted to shut the whole house off just to be safe, until I have thoroughly checked out is going on here.
there are 4 wires connected under the pull disconnect. 3 black and one red. most of the time you can buy an electrical wip that has 3 wires; red, black and green. red and black are hot(together 220 volt) and green is ground. coming out of the wall is usally the 2 black wires and a bare aluminum wire for the ground. I’m guessing since we can not see where this white wire is attached or coming from, I think it is staged. The pliers are covering the view up. I am sold on the idea that this is staged, but then again there is that 2nd conduit going upwards!
The only “well-done” thing is the fixer after the kludge!
Is the “off” written upside-down or what???
Pfff, nevermind…
You might have already answered your own thought, but the off is upside down because this is a disconnect. The entire piece that the sticker is on comes out of the unit to break the circuit. So that you don’t loose it you flip it upside-down and put it back in which does not connect the power. When that is done the OFF is right-side up and the ON is upside-down.
Also at a glance you can see if the power is off or not.
Well, there’s a way to splice wires they don’t teach you about in electrician’s school…
… for a reason!
Stupid drunken party games are getting out of hand.
if this is american there black wires are usually “hot” or the active wire, (i could be mistaken), and white being neutral, the neutral line would theoretically be at 0 or ground potential as the neutral wire is sometimes also connected to ground, however if its the active (HOT) wire, you could get quite a buzz off it ~60Hz at 110 volts
from the looks of it, the vice grip is connecting the main neutral line to the house neutral from the looks of things
i also noticed that it looks like a two phase or a 110 and 220 system, the line ones look like they have the same colour wires as they come off a transformer they dont acctually have a live and neutral side the neutral side needing to be grounded at the house so in a sense all those wires are live and if the neutral side one disconnects you could get quite a buzz
I am curious what the load is. If it is an A/C or maybe a pool pump.
It looks more like an accident scene than a kludge.
Holy shock therapy, Batman!
We have ways of making you talk…
Wow, with the high electric bills, death row is really trying to save money on electrocutions.
The purpose of this is obvious once you notice the black device is installed upside down. Looking at it correctly so you can see the word “OFF” right side up, you notice the other switch position is “NO”.
This makes perfect sense to me, after looking at the vice grips. This device should have two modes of operation. Off and No.
Re the speculation about the wire colours. The wire that looks black is a heavy ground wire wrapped in black electrical tape, like it’s supposed to be inside the panel. It’s wrench-clamped to the neutral, which is also OK (electrically). The wrench is grounded, just like the metal box of the panel.
Wouldn’t pass code, but won’t kill you. Hope this was helpful.
Even if the wire is neutral it can kill you. The current going through the connected wire has to be big enough and judging by the thickness it probably can be. By removing the pliers you could replace the circuit with a one that uses your body as a conductor for grounding.
Man can you touch this? No? Are you a chicken?
Poor wiring is my only vise (grip!)
most costly wire nut i have ever seen those look name brand to me
id pull it out with my teeth,weenies
Electrocution still is a common practice in the US.
The last pair of pliers you’ll ever (try to) steal.
That looks like a NEUTRAL CONNECTION . . . Hopefully that isn’t carrying a large load, as a fire could develop if that NEUTRAL gets dropped or disconnected, as all 120 volt equipment will be back-fed across the dropped NEUTRAL CONNECTION thus receiving 240 VOLTS ! ! !
Pffft! Up in smoke!
Who ever tries to take (or steal) those vise-grips will ultimately get a surprise of sparks & a painful shock! That will end up being the last pair of pliers that ends up stolen, that’s for sure ! ! !
L.M.A.O!!!
It is difficult to tell what is going on here, but assuming this is a single phase nominal 120/240 volt system, I’d guess the vise grips are connecting the grounded (in this case the nuetral) conductor. The oghter possibility is that this is a three phase system and the conductor with the white insullation is being used as a hot. This may or may not be a code violation depending on if it a grounded conductor or not. In any case this is a violation of the NEC Section 110.3 as well as many others. By the way there is a difference between grounded (needs to be identified with white or gray markings) and grounding (needs to be bare or have green markings) conductors. There is also a difference in what the purpose of these two types of conductors are intended to do.
I hope that is NOT the ‘LIVE’ wire!! Burn Burn. (I have experience)