Extension leads - electrical safety

[Lieutenant Scott]

Yes sir, immediately sir!

[Lieutenant Scott]

Well I can't think of anything else I can do. The seller won't believe me and ebay are clueless. I see nobody has bought the offending adaptor yet, even though it's been on sale for months, so perhaps everyone buying that kind of thing knows what they're doing. All I got from the seller was "if your power supply is good it will handle it".

[ARWadsworth]

If it's an RCD supply then it's quite safe.

It probably should be a TT supply but there are easier ways to kill or injure yourself eg towing a caravan:-)

[jgharston]

Well, if they're plugging it into a /socket/ at the caravan end, then, yes, it's dangerous, as they're carrying a live /plug/ with live exposed prongs.

I presume you really mean plugging the other end into the caravan / plug/ rather than what I used to see in the '70s - an extension lead with a plug on each end and the caravan energised by plugging into one of its sockets.

JGH

[John Rumm]

Have you got a link so we can have a look at the item?

[thirty-six]

Wear a pair of lined wellies to keep your feet good and cosy. and your body elecrically isolated from the ground. Handle any live cable or equipment in your right hand, keep your left hand tucked behind your back and under your belt.

A mains shock through the right arm is quite invigorating.

It's your choice, but an electric shock is not the way to start a holiday.. If you do get zapped it is near impossible to let go and the only thing you may be able to do is shuffle away so think in which direction you need to fall to break the contact. When it happens, you may not be so clued up as what is going on and may fail to take appropriate action. Experience helps, but is not advisable to practice mains shocks, better to practise safe handling. Check your leads before you go.

[Lieutenant Scott]

she's changed her ebay ID since I looked a week ago.

[John Rumm]

Yup that does look a bit suspect - I can't see exactly where the wires are going on the 8 pin connector, but since it should only have 12V and ground connections (Pins 1 - 3 12V, the rest GND), the fact that the 5V is terminated at all on the 4 pin molex suggests the picture at least is wrong.

Interestingly if you search for completed listings with that title, there are none. So it may be they have never actually sold one!

[whisky-dave]

w what would happen to a computer or its power supply if you shorted 5V to =

12V?

ower plug (with a molex on the other end). =A0But they had it wired so the =

12V AND the 5V from the power supply's molex were joined together to feed 1= 2V to the graphics card. =A0Needless to say I didn't purchase this adapter,= but got one from elsewhere. =A0I told the seller they were going to have s= ome very unhappy customers, and when they didn't listen I told ebay there w= as a dangerous item for sale, but all they did was say they would monitor t= hat seller's activity.

roblem (although it may only be protected against shorting 12V to ground an= d not to another line), but if the 5V line got raised up towards 12V, a lot= of electronics in the computer could be damaged or catch fire?

Depends on the individual computer and the componets, I think one of the first things that would happen is that any electrolytic capacitors on the 5v rail would explode, I doubt they'd catch fire, this may well indeed blow the Power supply fuse, other componnets might blow too but I don;t see a serious fire risk, but serious damage to the computer would be likely, and I doubt it would be economically repairable repearable .

[Martin Brown]

know what would happen to a computer or its power supply if you shorted 5V to 12V?

If at least one component is properly designed (not guaranteed) then the first thing that should happen is that a crowbar protection circuit will pull the 5v rail down to 0V at very high current (and take the 12v with it). This could damage the PSU but should leave the motherboard unharmed

- at least in theory. Practice is not always so clear cut.

I would expect the PSU to blow a fuse or go into over current shutdown.

Regards, Martin Brown

[Lieutenant Scott]

I'm inclined to buy one and try it on some old junk parts just to see what happens, although I think the seller might remember me after the messages I sent :-)

[Lieutenant Scott]

Ebay support are typically dopey buggers with no technical knowledge, so completely unhelpful. They can't even write or understand plain English, or even answer the question asked, they just paste completely unrelated stock answers.

[John Rumm]

Its possible that the real thing does not resemble the picture anyway!

[grimly4]

Having had this happen to me some years ago, I can tell you the controller chips on the HDD exploded with some popping. Was caused by a faultily-wired Y-splitter taking power to two HDDs - luckily the second one wasn't connected and the victim HDD wasn't important. The PSU and the rest of the cards/components survived ok, which rather surprised me.

[grimly4]

Definitely.

[Lieutenant Scott]

When you pick it up and it tingles, it's time to repair it.

[Lieutenant Scott]

Anyone would think you're wiring up a nuclear power plant.