I was wondering… why the F*** would someone use a cable with two male ends? I saw some pictures on the internet of shops telling that they don’t sell them, and I think it is pretty obvious of what could happen if someone were to connect them to two power outlets. Besides burning your house down… do they have any practical use at all?
Imagine you have a portable generator that you would like to connect to your house during a power failure, but you lack the appropriate (read: code-approved) transfer switch and plug to do so.
The typical (read: not code–approved) solution to this is a suicide cable. You take a cable with male plugs on both ends, plug one into your generator, and the other into your electric clothes dryer (or other 220 volt) receptacle. Turn off the main breaker in the panel, and - huzzah - you have power.
Of course, you also run the risk of powering your whole neighborhood through your panel, shocking yourself, or worse, the power company lineman who is attempting to restore power on a formerly dead line that you have so thoughtfully re-powered through your panel.
That’s the typical use I have seen, I don’t know if there are others.
^What he said^
I’ve also seen someone use one to energize a power strip, then to a device (in this case a TV). Why they didn’t just use a regular extension cord is beyond me, but it worked (I did go out and buy him an extension cord).
Ever spend hours hanging Christmas lights only to find it’s the female end near the outlet?
isn’t it cheaper to buy the appropriate cabling and switches rather than having to pay for a new home, or maybe a casket? And isn’t is faster to use an extension chord or just replace the Christmas lights rather than running to the hospital in flames?
I can totally see some people not wanting to bother to run to the store and just fix it any way they can to make do for now.
The power goes out. It’s the dead of winter and the sun just set. You bought a generator last week but haven’t had a chance to make the proper preparations to use it safely. You could try to do all of that work in the dark, if you even have all of the right parts and tools, but then you spot a couple of extension cords sitting in the corner…
I went to help a friend set up a model railway exhibition a couple of years ago. I am not an enthusiast but I do like playing with them.
A big row started up at one of the layouts and I went over to see what was going on. The organiser’s safety guy was having a big argument with the layout owner about the way he had wired the sections. The layout stretched over four boards (for easy transport) and each one had mains (240 volt) power. The guy had correctly put a 3 pin plug on the lead to the first table, but he had used a ‘suicide’ lead to connect each of the other sections. This meant that each section had a 3 pin socket at the edge, so he was connecting socket to socket.
The safety guy wouldn’t have it, and the exhibitor insisted he had always done it that way, and his father and grandfather before him. The organisers offered a free electrician to rewire it for him, but he packed up in a huff and left.
I had one 35 years ago; I had inherited a snowblower from the previous owner of the house and he must have rewired it and did it wrong: it had a female connector on the snowblower. Thus the power cord was male to male. I think that was unaltered, which is why I didn’t think it was odd.
I used it that way for a few years, wondering the point (I was young and foolish then, but I’d also keep the power from the house off until I had both ends plugged in). Finally, I realized that this couldn’t go on so I wired the snowblower correctly and got a standard extension.
I have a small (3000 W) generator, and I would never think about doing that. But I have considered putting a receptacle on the outside wall of the house. On both sides would be female receptacles. With a cord that has male plugs on both ends, I could connect the generator to the isolated receptacle and use extension cords inside of the house to power what needs to be powered. It’s either that, or shut the back door on a regular extension cord.
…Kinda funny, just last week, in attempted to diagnose a dead circuit within a property I work at, (electricians and owners have decided its a broken wire somewhere inaccessible) I thought, well, maybe if I work backwards and plug a homemade “suicide cable” (never heard that before!) into an outlet nearby and see if it bypasses the break.
Well, it worked, and since it came from a fuse protected outlet, I felt it OK about it. At least for a 30 second test…:eek:
This helped isolate the area the break has occurred in a bit more, although I felt a bit sketchy doing it, just seemed…wrong!!!
Going to run this by a professional next week though, as I could be doubling the 120Vs up somewhere, as we dont know if its the hot or neutral side of things that has failed.
Please please please do the bold part first…
Well, I think last time we looked the mechanical bits were something around $800 US, and the electrician was another $1000 on top of that, then you need the electric company to send out a tech to inspect it to make it ‘legal’ - many people don’t have that kind of money laying around.
[we had it done when we had the extra 200 amp service and the barn hooked in.]
Not sure what you mean by a suicide cord ;), but my county has decided for its mobile command center to have a vehicle that could arrive at a unpowered gas station, plug a male end into a outlet to allow them to pump fuel.
If it’s good enough for the government, it must be totally safe for us, after all we elect them.
I’d love to see some images of this, and read a description.
I actually have one that I use to power my office proper (lights and wall sockets) because the branch from the generator transfer panel goes to a useless socket (originally for a freezer) at the other end of the basement. If power is off for a while, I cut the office breaker and run an extension cord, with the suicide jumper, to power things. I need to rewire the xfer panel one of these storms…
OTOH, a “suicide cord” in my experience is a power cord that terminates in a pair of alligator clips, for doing things like testing transformers and other AC-powered components. Just as stupid but more useful as well. 
Male to male. Plug one end in to a live circuit, the other is both live and exposed.
I had a food vendor once with one for his food trailer. 50amp /208 male plug on one end to plug into the shore power and a 50amp blade plug on the other end for a receptacle on the trailer. We were behind on the set up for the festival. I watched him plug into his trailer then I plugged him in. Came back later and explained the dangers. The next year they showed up properly wired.
You can build your own “suicide cable” in 15 minutes. One cord that works well is those ATX power supply cords that computers use. They are very cheap and ubiquitous, and you can get more (in case you don’t have junked computers lying around) for $2 each.
You just cut the cable, solder the leads together, electrical tape or heat shrink the connections, and you are ready to go.
As long as you remember to turn off the master switch on the breaker panel, AND you find a solution to the problem of the cord coming out of the socket, it is reasonably safe.
The biggest problem is that the cord that plugs into an outlet in your house can flop out of the socket, and now you have an energized lead flopping around. That’s why they call it a suicide cord. Bonus points, the cord is usually coming into the house from a generator outside, and so there is often water around it.
I’ve heard of people using zip-ties or duct tape or other methods to make certain the cord end won’t come out.
If you do all this, you will be able to use the 120 V circuits on the correct half of the electrical system in your house. That means some of the lights will work, the fridge and tv might work, etc. Also, it means you can have the generator outside somewhere and you don’t need to dig up 100 feet of extension cords.
The code approved method does EXACTLY what you are doing, just safer. They give you a big, $300+ switch called a dual throw switch that makes it impossible to connect your generator and grid power at the same time. They also give you proper receptacles meant for generator input so you can use female-male cords to wire in your generator.
The problem, as mentioned, is cost. This can run you anywhere from $500 (bare minimum) to $2000.
A generator, on the other hand, is $300 for a pretty big one that can run everything but the A/C. They are as cheap as $100. And the cords to make your suicide cord are $4, plus $20 for a soldering iron and wire strippers, plus some heat shrink or electrical tape.
That’s a gigantic cost difference. I’ve never used a suicide cord, but I would wire it up somehow if I had to. What I probably would do is remove the wires from the outlet you’d plug the suicide cord in to (after turning the main breaker off!) and solder them right to a cord coming from the generator.
And, 120 Volt A/C won’t kill you if you touch it, usually. I’ve been shocked twice when I was a kid, and I’ve heard from electricians who have been shocked by 120 A/C dozens of times. It takes just the right conditions to be fatal.
nope. I can switch the main breakers off and tape them off. Barring an assassin bent on evil that isn’t going to spontaneously change. I can also wire a device (I don’t want operated) to only work with a suicide cable. Kids can’t run it unless they have the suicide cable which is conveniently locked away.