« Previous Highly Appropriate Quotation Marks | The Boss’ll Never Notice… Next »
Submitted by: dunno source via Submit a Kludge!
Favorite Comment: Fixer PKM says, “Exposed live wiring, check. Fuse replaced with not-fuse, check. Fragile wiring mess, check. Point electrical contact for extra fire hazard, check. Potential for Darwin award- high.
I wonder if that form on the desk is a safety assessment?”
 | Dr Hugh on Heat Sink? What Heat Sink… |
 | Lerris on TIFI WIN: No More Propping the… |
 | Lee on Screw You, Handicapped Pe… |
 | eddi on Screw You, Handicapped Pe… |
 | Rehcsif on Parenting Level: Watermel… |
 | myco on Heat Sink? What Heat Sink… |
 | raptor2213 on If You Thought Stepping on Leg… |
 | MuleniuM on Yield for Traffic Incoming Fro… |
| MuleniuM on Yield for Traffic Incoming Fro… |
 | Webfoot Logger on Yield for Traffic Incoming Fro… |
![\"Quantcast\"/](\"http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-483xl95pmUiaY.gif\")
Quick, cut the power!
With these scissors that we have conveniently provided for you!
With these scissors you cant cut the power. The power cuts you.
And Now i Leave. And let you die here in Russia Mr. Bond
Modern natural selection. Making the species stronger through lack of common sense
OH GOD NO. No no no no no. Even five-year-olds know better.
The handles are insulated… where’s the problem?
Quite rare scissors actually are certified to hold a 1000V.
Those scissors really doesn’t look like they could hold a 100V.
Plastic does have a resistance but there are better options too…
The scissors may withstand 100V but that is a 220V socket (UK & Eire)
Volt doesn’t matter. Amperage guys, amperage. Higher voltage, less amperage, same amount of power, also makes it easier to electrocute someone to death..
I think husabob was being facetious. It was funny while it lasted.
When it comes to insulation, it’s the voltage that matters – the higher the voltage, the higher the dielectric breakdown point of the insulating material needs to be. The plastic handle here would almost certainly be good enough to insulate against 230-240 VAC…
But I personally would just choose to wire a plug on properly and not use a pair of scissors instead of an actual fuse.
“amperage kills, blah, blah, blah” It’s true, it’s amperage that will stop your heart… but amperage has a linear relationship to VOLTAGE.
Amps = Volts/Ohms.
The average 12 volt car battery can deliver 900 amps…. and could kill you… if you jammed electrodes directly into your heart…
Actually UK voltage is 230 V @ 50 Hz.
And those scissors are replacing a fuse, which all UK sockets have. They’ll work just fine. Well they won’t work as a fuse really, but the electricity will most certainly pass through them. It’ll take a lot of amps to melt them…
Actually I’m not sure anymore whether those scissors are put in place of the fuse after all. Sure looked like it at first, but looking at it again, I don’t know what the devil’s going on there anymore.
Maybe the adapter had a fuse in it? Before the scissors I mean? No fuses visible in the socket itself really…
Replying to myself once again…
Yes! Now I remember! UK plugs have a fuse in them, not the sockets! Stupid me. So yes, those scissors are acting as a fuse.
It’s been a couple of years since I last visited UK…
the blades arent insulated from each other so this would be an instant spark show and power failure
You’re right the blades aren’t insulated from each other, but wrong in assuming it should cause a “spark show”. The scissors are bridging the fuse blades where normally a fuse capsule would be, allowing current to flow safely (too much current blows the fuse and cuts the supply). Without a fuse capsule, or in this case a pair of scissors, no power would flow at all. It’s not a short, which is what I think you’re assuming it is.
So, if it replaces the fuse it’s OK to be used…
Actually, Mom said, “Don’t run with scissors.” She probably figured I wasn’t dumb enough to try this.
You sure showed her.
I once saw my sister knocked across a room doing something similar.
no you didn’t. your muscles don’t propel you across the room when shocked, nor does electricity magically turn into kinetic motion. why does everyone *think* that this happens? start learning physics, people!
Ever had an electric shock DUG???? I Have and can assure you it does make your muscles contract and CAN throw you across the room
Dunno what you are talking about Dug, I watched our sparky at work crack three vertebrae when he got shot backwards into a ladder while he was fixing a 415v forklift charging station he forgot to disconnect from the mains.
This was one and a half years ago, and I’ve been extemely cautious of any electrical equipment since. He’s fine now thank goodness.
A DC shock will cause muscles to contract. A low-current (household levels) AC shock will cause your muscles to contract and release in time with the frequency of the current. A short circuit across a piece of metal or a battery can cause an explosion, the concussive shock of which will send you flying. I’ve been subjected to the first two so many times I’m practically addicted, and the last one once – which was enough to last me a lifetime thanks very much.
Being as you’re the only one who replied politely and got it right, sorry I made a mistake on my original post, I missed out a bit. You’re absolutely right though, what I should’ve said is that it’s not the electricity that knocks you flying, but your own body. You certainly won’t be thrown as far as some might think though, since its your own muscles doing the work. As I said though, electricity doesn’t somehow go kinetic, so it throwing yourself 20 feet (like some people always claim!) across the room is fairly unlikely.
And yeah, from those that asked, yes I’ve been shocked loads. 240v (around 150W) from an XBox and 50v through my mouth from a phone line. (Yesh, I was stripping cables the stupid way).
I must laugh at some of the replies though, I know I made a mistake but some people really don’t have a clue about electricity.
@ DUG WOW! You’ve managed to measure power (around 150W) while being electroshocked. You’re real hero. Better to learn physics yourself, the PSU power consumption has nothing common to the current actualy flowing through your body during “electrocution”.
Maybe he was licking the power supply?
“why does everyone *think* that this happens? start learning physics, people!”
And you have the audacity to complain about people not replying to you being polite?
WRONG! I’ve been slammed across the room. Granted, it was 220,000 volts from a defective radar unit. Thank Goddess there was no amperage.
@ DUG “no you didn’t. your muscles don’t propel you across the room when shocked, nor does electricity magically turn into kinetic motion. why does everyone *think* that this happens? start learning physics, people”
yes you can actually mate, i work on the electric board and have seen it numerous times, its not the fact that your muscles contract its the fact that so much power is hitting you at once.
Hi, dug! I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Mr Cathode Ray Tube.
I was doing work on an ion motor (large series of voltage steppers) once when a 3″ ion spike jumped to my pinky, ring finger, middle finger and ended at my pointer before passing through my arm and was thrown on my back. My arm and fingers were twitching for about 2 hours.
@DUG “no you didn’t. your muscles don’t propel you across the room when shocked, nor does electricity magically turn into kinetic motion. why does everyone *think* that this happens? start learning physics, people”
I once saw an electrician get shocked by accidentally touching wires in a high-voltage cabinet, and he was blasted across the street, into a parked car.
Unfortunately he died instantly, but I asure you, his muscles had nothing to do with that flight! Those muscles burned up long before he hit the car.
Very shocking, in more than one way.
I can tell you have no actually experience as an electrician.
That just looked stupid until I realised the scissors are being used as a fuse… That moves it on to a whole new world of brain hurt…
Exposed live wiring, check. Fuse replaced with not-fuse, check. Fragile wiring mess, check. Point electrical contact for extra fire hazard, check. Potential for Darwin award- high.
I wonder if that form on the desk is a safety assessment?
It should already earn an honorable mention.
I think I’d leave that neighborhood. This cannot be an unique situation.
Think it’s a “secret shopper” QA checklist, but the room is in Europe somewhere (?)
The power point looks like one from the UK to me.
It’s a UK hotel room, and the form is a customer satisfaction survey.
Spot on. And the reason for the kludge seems to be to allow a common continental plug to connect with the live and neutral contacts inside the plug casing (those plugs frequently don’t have the earth connected, but if it does then that’s +1 to the danger level).
So someone forgot to pack an adapter on a trip to the UK and, rather than ask reception or go out and buy one, they thought they could kill themselves and burn the hotel down.
And photograph it to show off to their mates.
Stunning!
Why can’t the eletrical outlet and the fork be friends?
For all you fans of musical theater, I give you…’Electri-homa!’:
Oh, the fork and the outlet should be friends
Oh, the fork and the outlet should be friends
The fork will shock your hand with ease
And have you hollering, “Mercy, please!”
But that’s no reason why they cain’t be friends…
*Everybody clap and sing along!*
Kludger folks should stick together, jury-rigger folks should all be pals…
[What? No one?]
I call it the “Darwin Switch”.
The primary power source is provided by the rotational energy of Darwin rolling over in his grave.
Awesome.
This looks like a UK outlet. So those scissors are live with 230-240 Volts.
36 volts can kill ya if they’re applied directly to your heart for long enough, and a million volts can be perfectly safe if it’s static. What that socket CAN do though is deliver 5000Watts of burny deathness.
So your saying 22 plus amps huh? I was taught that 1/4 amp can kill you, but as you have more experience, I bow to it (as your smoking body flies over me…)
Anything much above 30mA across the heart can kill a human (which is why generally, RCDs tend to be set with a threshold of 30mA – you may wonder why it isn’t lower, but you’ll always get some current loss somewhere, so it’s a balancing act of what’s safe versus the annoyance of resetting the breaker because some vapour came out of the bread in the toaster).
Other countries’ safety standards may vary, but here in the UK 55V is the level above which we’re recommended to work on stuff with only one hand.
Normally, 5 Ampers and 220 Volts are rather safe if you don’t have any heart disease and if you’re touching the wire with a hand (not trying to play a doctor with a defibrillator).
“your comment is awaiting moderation” indeed! I cannot see what combination of lrtters would be unsavory.
Trying again. That seems to be a British outlet. So there would be about 230 Volts or so on those scissors. Not exactly safety first.
Ah that worked! But could someone on that side of the old pond tell us if the switch is in the ‘on’ or ‘off’ position?
that’s the on position
Pretty sure both sockets are switched on in this picture…
Not a resident in a country that uses these diabolic three prong sockets, but I’d hazard guessing the switches are off, since the bottom half is depressed.
If it’s like Australia, pressed down is the on position.
you are assuming that whoever installed the switch knew what they were doing.
It worked the first time.
Shock, paper, scissors! SHOCKKKKKK!
It’s switched on.
It’s a particularly bad fix as it appears to be figuring out how to fit a ’round pin’ 2 pin european socket into a British socket.
The answer most of us have is to use the scissors just briefly in the earth pin to push the socket open, then push the euro plug in, then remove the scissors…. The attempt in the picture is far more likely to be worth of a darwin…
“use the scissors just briefly in the earth pin to push the socket open”
Indeed, I was doing just this the other week…
Lack of sleep is blurring my eyes a little here, but to me it looks even a little more daft – can anyone with better eyesight confirm whether or not that whoever did this has connected the two-pin plug to the earth and neutral pins of the three-pin plug?
the industrial fix it would to be using a chewing gum wrapper!
the tinfoil passes the current and will burn if the current exceeds… not safe by a long chalk but far far safer than this half baked idea!
I can indeed. That switch is ON
I was hoping the power was off at the mains, but if they’re really intending to use it as a fuse…
The home inspector gently lay his checklist on the counter so that he could perform the continuity test. The continuity test passed; however, the insulation on the scissors failed, as did the poor inspector’s pacemaker.
Shear stupidity.
Well, you didn’t have to be snippy about it.
Definitely has hair raising possibilities.
CUT THE POWER!!!
GET TO DA CHOPPAH!
Spent a few years in Iraq, those are exactly the same kind of plugs/outlets/switches we used over there. I know they are used elsewhere, but combine that with the scissors though and I think I know where that picture was taken.
Never seen anything quite like that, but I have seen paperclips and the like inserted into the fuse area to make stuff work. When you gotta get a job done, you gotta get it done
Paper – Scisors -Stone Dead
I’m sure an adapter wouldn’t cost THAT much. I can’t see how this mess would even function.
Personally, I keep my scissors in a drawer next to the forks. I can see how easy to mix them up it would be, if one morning you were in a real hurry…
I’d have thought that it would’ve been easier and possibly quicker to cut the euro plug off and attach a UK plug to the cable? It’s not exactly hard to do…
Home fuses AND Darwin trigger from the new, cutting edge technology.
The piece of paper is actually legible! It’s a feedback questionnaire for customers at a hotel or guest house. The last item is “Sutherlands Restaurant”, which means that the restaurant is attached to the hotel. Could this be the Argyll Hotel in Glasgow, Scotland? Another strong hint is their website, which states “We have a list of local Glasgow Funeral Directors who regularly use our catering services.” To drum up new business perhaps?!?
To be fair it’s probably just a hotel guest who was so desperate for a cup of tea after the fuse blew that they took things into their own hands.
Which, as Arthur Dent proved, is a monumentally bad idea.
Suicidal people are usually pretty desperate. Just add some liquid here, and… well, every hotel has a story or two to tell.
I now have an uncontrollable urge to run *away from* scissors.
Remember: If it’s too wiry, scissors can always make it short.
Relax everyone, where is electricity and scissors there must be a glass of water as well – JUST IN CASE OF FIRE.
The kludger obviously couldn’t resist his current desire for power. Not too sharp of him refusing to face the music and see that this solution is potentialy to dangerous.
Bad conduct!
This looks like a shaver adapter. The problem with these is that it only has a 1 amp fuse, therefore you have to do something to it to stop the fuse from blowing. I usually wrap the fuse in tin foil, but this way is good too.
Even if this one is not fake (I mean, the socket is powered) and the safety fails, the bill is going to uncover this unholy deed.
Okay so here is the situation going by all the information we have.
- It is a hotel room somewhere in the UK, possibly Scotland going by the information on the customer feedback survey on the table under the socket.
- The guest(s) are obviously from mainland Europe going by the 2-pin plug being used.
- A European 2-pin plug is being inserted into a 2-pin to 3-pin UK adapter or a UK shaver adapter.
- The equipment being connected to the socket is most likely a travel kettle, travel iron, hairdryer, hair straighteners or something else that requires a lot of current.
- It is highly likely that the 2-pin to 3-pin adapter contained a low amperage fuse such as 1A fuses used in shaver adapters.
- The guest(s) probably unaware of the low amperage fuse tried to use their high current equipment which blew the fuse.
- Not wanting to give up they used a pair of scissors to bridge the blown fuse to get their equipment to work.
As someone has already said, the safer solution would be to expose the live and neutral contacts of the plug socket whilst it is switched off by inserting something into the earth pin. the two pins of the European socket can then be safely inserted without causing anywhere enar as much of a safety risk.
How does this even work? The blades are touching.
That’s how.
So that’s what happened to my scissors that I lost last year.
So the BOFH is making house calls now?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/
Maybe the kludger in question is trying to get superpowers by giving himself a massive electric shock after swallowing some plutonium.
Oh, crap. Who let my husband do electrical work again?
I think that this is the replacement for the stae administered “Lethal Injection.” It is designed to save the taxpayers the cost of a licensed M.D. and sterile equipment!
In Europe there are two types of mains plug. (maybe more? I’ve only seen two myself)
One simply has two pins and no earth connection. The pins tend to be quite thin. With these sockets you can use something to wedge the earth* of a UK socket and connect the plug to the L and N.
The second is the style shown in the image. It will also have an Earth connector. On this style of plug the pins may be thicker. In this case the pins are too large to be rammed into a UK socket** (without breaking the plastic of the socket) even if something is wedged into the earth.
The second type of plug is generally used for appliances which draw more current and/or need an earth. (heater, kettle, power tools)
The euro sockets come in two types as well, the two pin ones are flush to the surface with thin holes… so that the plugs requiring more current (or an earth connection) won’t fit. (unless you ram them in and break the plastic of the socket***)
The sockets with an earth connection are like a hole sunk into the socket that the round barrel of the plug fits into. The thinner pinned plugs also fit into this type of socket.
Looking at the image it might just be my imagination, but it looks like there is a blade of plastic separating the two ends of the ‘fuse’ connection. It would be my guess that the fuse is not normally in this compartment, and would be pushed into a recessed slot on the other side of the adapter. This is probably a little irrelevant, but if they had something to use as a fuse that was fuse shaped**** they would not need to have the cover off the adapter… unless…..
Assuming that the Euro -> UK adapter is a shaver or similar low current one (suggested by the lack of a fuse [presumably blown at this point]) it is also quite possible that the holes for L and N would have been too small for the fat pins of the higher current plug. Thus giving anther good reason***** to have the cover off.
Anyhow.. got a bit carried away there.
don’t trust me. information gathered through observation. don’t blow yourself up or otherwise kill yourself sticking non plug objects in to mains sockets. if you do, I’m not responsible, I don’t care, I was never here, I didn’t hear anything, and I certainly didn’t say anything at all whatsoever.
* This is probably a dumb idea.
** Tested with an IEC mains cable (plug with earth and fat pins)
*** This is probably a dumb idea, socket has no earth and who knows what current it can handle.
**** IMHO the only fuse shaped (or otherwise shaped) objects that should be used as a fuse are in fact fuses.
***** good reason = really really dumb and bad reason.
well, I guess mothers shoudl say not to run with scissors, but also not to stick them in live power sockets too
That’s what happens when safety goes crazy. Just consider all these “safety” measures: on/off switch, fuse in each socket, fuse in each plug, and most of all that stupid annoying locking mechanism that locks the plug when nothing of the exact shape and size of the 3rd prong is stuck in the Earth… And those are just all the features added *on top of* what “normal” plugs would have, crammed into one single connection.
I wonder how the world outside this particular island could survive the electrical mayhem for so long! Maybe because they don’t need scissors for the socket to work.
Now kiddies, let’s see what happens when someone touches the scissors while the switch is in the ‘ON’ position. Who wants to go first?
And I thought it was running with the damn things that was dangerous…
Given the detail on the paper sheet below, it looks like a hotel, so maybe a European Traveller has come over with their europlug and instead of asking reception, they’ve come up with this insane solution.
and if you touch your lips to the water tap you can tast the electricity
APRIL FOOLS DAY: “Honey can you get me the scissors?”
Ahh Australia, we have, sun, beaches, the worlds best beef, 240V, only one style of power sockets, no fuses in plugs (who needs them anyway?) and almost all power outlet circuits are on a 20A Circuit Breaker. No sissors required (unless you are trying to hold up the circuit breaker leaver cos you are drawing too much amps, saw this once with a stick at a house i went to!)
We Might not be as old a country as UK, US or Europe, but our small age meens that we get the good stuff from the begining. Hoo Rah! and no electricity doesn’t go backwards to the northern hemisphere.
Actually, Voltage distributed in the U.K. , Ireland & Most of the Middle East, along with Australia & New Zealand utilizes a WYE connected 3-phase system of 240/415 VOLTS A.C. ~50Hz. The nominal voltage of this system is 240 volts to Earth/Ground & 415 volts across any of the 3 Phases.
That is a BS-1363 13 ampere receptacle “switch socket” I’ve extensive experience with those devices when I was deployed in Iraq for the 2 years that I was there . . . Those things STINK BADLY when they start to burn due to the urea plastic that they are made from . . .
That shock would hurt but would not be fatal (as I can tell you from painful experience involving an aged record player and a shaver flex). What amazes me about this one, however, is that the person in question here has obviously made all that gargantuan kludging effort to get a continental plug into a british isles socket when there’s a perfectly easy kludge around that every new arrival here learns within 24 hours after getting off the plane because they have to charge their mobiles.
a) Locate socket
b) Turn socket off at the little mains switch
c) Find yourself something thin and pointy, e.g. a small-ish knife
d) Insert thin and pointy object into earth contact
e) Wiggle around until you manage to move the safety catch
f) Insert continental plug into live contacts
g) Turn socket back on
Should you not be the lucky owner of switch sockets, make sure you use a non-metallic object instead of the suggested knife. Wooden skewers work a treat.
See? Much easier and, most importantly, safer than what that guy has done.
In another part of this house someone is cutting paper with an electrical plug..
In another part of the house someone is cutting paper with an electrical plug..
“These are no kid’s electric scissors!”