OK
my first question is about a phone that I found in between classes yesterday on campus. It’s a Treo 650, I believe. the screen is broken and it was near a rock. It looked like someone threw it down in anger, realized it had broken the screen (its bad) and just decided to leave it… well, I iused to have a treo and I also fell into the stupid college student category when I rendered the phone inoperable. I kept the parts for the phone that I had… just in a rare situation, well, such as this!
So, there is a 1GB card in the slot of the broken one I found… Either someone very stupid left it there w/o taking the card out… or, it was honestly dropped and the person didn’t realize it. My plan: Post fliers, wait a week. If no one claims the phone then I claim it as mine. Considering it mine, all I would need to do is replace the screen. Not a problem! my old one is fine! The broken phone still powers up shown through lights in the keypad although the battery cover is missing, I have my old one too!
So, question one: Let’s say things fall into place and this happens to be a phone compatible with my service. Will I be able to switch it over to my name? I’m sure by this time the person has a new phone or would have called to claim the old one as the fliers are going to be seen. (PS, we have a lost and found in a tiny location no one knows of. I didn’t leave the phone itself there, but a picture of the phone, description, numbers, all the info as well as where it was found and my contact info) (Friend who worked there told me that the workers usually just take anything that people turn in so I figured this was the best route)
Do phone services typically have policies about matters such as lost phones?
Will red flags be waved at the sight of the phone’s attempt to transfer into my account?
Okay now briefly:
Is it dangerous to plug one powerstrip into another powerstrip? both surge protected
How about a power strip into a six way socket plugin (Not sure of the name, but you plug into two outlets to make six outlets directly on the wall) danger?
What if I did a six way splitter (as mentioned above) into a powerstrip which is directly in the wall? danger?
finally, there are adapters which make 3-prongged plugs into 2-prongged plugs with the ground removed and a little metal tab in it’s place. In the broad scheme of electricity and laws, are these safe to use? They seem as though it would be pretty dangerous to remove the ground or modify it as it’s there for a decoration. What about danger in using one of these on say a power strip or a splitter (mentioned above) Is there danger in using one of these prong modifiers since the tab isn’t touching metal or a screw?
There is technically nothing dangerous about plugging one power strip into another. However, the reason people usually do this is because they’ve filled up one power strip and need more outlets. If all of the devices that are plugged in are actually turned on, then all of the current from all of the devices on both power strips ends up going through the power strip that the other is plugged into. This can cause more current to go through the power strip than it was designed to carry, which tends to result in nasty things like a fire burning down your house.
You are supposed to screw the little metal tab (or the little wire, if you’ve got an older one) into the grounded screw on the 2 prong outlet, which reconnects your ground. If used properly, these are safe. In the 40 years that I’ve been alive, I’ve never seen anyone connect the ground to anything, not once, ever.
If you don’t use them the way they are designed to work, then yes, you can create unsafe conditions.
Not really, the current going through the first strip will be the total of all the devices plugged into any strips downline from that one. If that adds up to the overcurrent protection (what the OP called surge protection is probably a mini circuit breaker and/or surge protector) in the first strip then the mini breaker will just trip and you’ll not cause a fire.
If there is no overcurrent protection then you can cause an overload condition.
It is generally not wise to plug a strip into a strip there may be a mini breaker failure that could cause an overload condition or you’ll end up with nuisance tripping.
Actually, it’s pretty questionable if that little screw is effectively grounded.
The 2-prong outlets are generally in older houses, with old wiring. In working on such wiring, I’ve found that in nearly all of them the screw connects to the outlet straps, which are screwed down to the metal box. But it ends there; there is no ground wire from the box back to the ground bar in the main box. So there really isn’t any effective circuit back to an earth ground.
Thus if people did connect that tab into the cover plate screw (and I agree, nobody ever does), it still wouldn’t do much. A short would be spread into the outlet and the metal box, but without much effect. There’s still a good chance that a person standing there would provide a more effective path to ground for the electricity.