Their lights usually have a plug on one end and a socket on the other. Ppl put them around the exterior of their hoses, then realise they did it the wrong way, and the socket end is near the outlet they wanted to plug them in.
Or they mounted two strands of lights, and where they meet up it’s either 2 plugs or two sockets accidentally.
Strand of exterior lights, one end male plug one female. Idiots start to mount the lights with the female end near their outlet. Get done, become confused, go to store for male to male cord to plug into female end.
The female end is for chaining multiple strands, not for supplying power (directly) from the power socket.
The power can go through the female end just fine, that’s not the problem. The problem is people plug this “suicide cable” into the wall first, thus creating a 120v taser of sorts. Like someone else in this thread said, the only problem from cables like that is people tend to try to backfeed energy into the system with a generator or solar panels. Boom.
So is the problem solved by not plugging it into a powered wall plug? Just like… flick the switch off, like you would a light switch before changing a bulb?
Plugging the cord in the same outlet isn’t dangerous itself, but the prongs will be live on the end that’s not plugged in, I’d suggest not touching them. Where it IS dangerous is when people try to use them with a generator to back feed their panel. Don’t do that.
i guess if someone’s putting up their lights backwards, then it makes sense that that person also thinks it’s less work to drive to the hardware store and buy a non-existent extension cord than it is to just redo the lights
It’s not that it won’t work - polarity doesn’t quite work like that in AC systems - it’s that as soon as you plug in one end, the other end has a pair of exposed metal contacts with mains voltage between them. One mistake, touching the contacts or having them come into something metal (like the ladder you are using to hang the Christmas lights) and someone dies
in AC, which is what home electricity uses, the polarity is constantly switching, from + , then - , then + , and so on, 50 or 60 times a second depending on where you live. This means that, unlike batteries, it’s symmetrical, and you can just splice the cables and attach two male plugs together and they will work regardless, even if you somehow attach the neutral to live and live to neutral, in fact in many countries you can actually buy just the plug without the cable and then you can assemble it yourself in whatever way you please.
of course tho, this should be done only if you have a decent understanding of electricity, and it should not be attempted by someone who lacks those competences, hence why hardware stores “gatekeep” male to male plugs. If you really need one and are sure you understand how they work, you can probably make one yourself.
Oh I call the cables I use to wire up my controllers “suicide cords” because it’s just the hot, neutral, and ground hanging out one end, waiting to touch me…