“never plug extension cords into extension cords” is probably the most common piece of electrical related advice I’ve ever heard. But if you have, say, 2 x 2m long extension cords, and you plug one into the other, why is that considered a lot more unsafe than just using a single 4 or 5 meter cord?
Does it just boil down to that extra connection creating another opportunity for the prongs to slip out and cause a spark or short circuit? Or is there something else happening there?
For that matter - why aren’t super long extension cords (50 or more meters) considered unsafe? Does that also just come down to a matter of only having 2 connections versus 4 or more on a daisy chained cord?
Followup stupid question: is whatever causes piggybacked extension cords to be considered unsafe actually that dangerous, or is it the sort of thing that gets parroted around and misconstrued/blown out of proportion? On a scale from “smoking 20 packs of cigarettes a day” to “stubbing your toe on a really heavy piece of furniture”, how dangerous would you subjectively rate daisy chaining extension cords, assuming it was only 1 hop (2 extension cords, no more), and was kept under 5 or 10 metres?
I’m sure there’s probably somebody bashing their head against a wall at these questions, but I’m not trying to be ignorant, I’m just curious. Thank you for tolerating my stupid questions
Others have pretty much mentioned it. Too thin of conductors for the total length required which can overload the cable and heat it up. If you’re just charging your phone it’s unlikely to cause a problem but the more amps you pull the riskier it gets.
Here’s a helpful chart…
Edit: Even at harbor freight (cheap hardware store) a 50ft 12 gauge extension cord is about $40 and weighs 7 pounds.
lol “gauge”
americans will use anything except the metric system
I’ve always found gauge to be especially odd, because the number gets smaller as you go bigger, so at one point you can’t go any further even though you can go fatter.
Oh, you can get bigger! Just keep adding 0s. It’s fine.
Oh ffs I should’ve known.
Yup, I work with 4/0 (0000) cable pretty regularly, for things like generators or powering large systems. We have a few trunks full of cable, and it takes a crew of 2 or 3 to actually lay it because it’s so heavy. Usually one person pushing the trunk along, one focuses on uncoiling it from the trunk, and one focuses on actually laying the cable. We use five conductors at a time (one neutral, three 120v hots leads, and a ground,) so it’s a big bundle. Each cable weighs a little over a pound per foot, and there are five bundled together. So a 150’ coil can easily weigh 750-800 pounds.
16 AWG – 1.3 mm^2
14 AWG – 2 mm^2
12 AWG – 3.3 mm^2
10 AWG – 5.2 mm^2
For us from the civilised part of the world ;-)
However, as in Europe we have 230 V system, approximately half the cross section, as stated in the table above, is sufficient.
Edit: This is how the above text should be displayed:
Both are measurements of cross-sectional AREA and are defined in terms of square millimeters (mm^2), not mm.
That’s exactly what I wrote.
mm^2should be rendered to square millimeters (mm^2 ) by the browser / app.In my understanding, ‘cross section’ always referrs to an area. The other property would be the diameter which is measured in units of length.
Sorry, that’s not what I see.
Interesting, what do you see then?
Fwiw, it looks fine using Voyager
That’s really odd.
What is the metric unit for cables?
for cross-sectional area? mm2.
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Is it just me or is anyone else perturbed that the cable sizes in this infographic are all the same gauge?
Do you just mean the art showing them as the same size? Because that’s common in a lot of infovraphics to not be to scale if they are clearly labeled
They’re not. They are clearly marked as different gauges, except the left most two which have different plug types… one is two prong, the other is three prong.
$40USD would be $58CAD.
A 50-ft 12-gauge extension cord costs $112+ CAD anywhere in Canada. A 100-ft is $200+ CAD. Like… fffffuuuuuck.
Space heater is “medium duty” while a router is “heavy duty”?
This is also known as a router
Oohkay.
It’s for putting holes in things. Creating routes? I dunno.
Exactly, can be used to round off corners and all manor of nifty woodworking. Keep hands away from the spinny bit.
router as in ‘tool for finer details in woodworking.’ most router motors can spin at 10000rpm at their lowest and anything with a motor, by definition, uses more power than something without a motor
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It doesn’t make sense. Temperature difference does not depends on length.
Adding length creates more resistance which creates more heat. Thinner conductors can’t handle it as well.
And more surface area for heat dissipation. https://lemm.ee/comment/17115060
They cancel out.
TIL. Maybe I was conflating daisy-chaining power strips with extension cords and came up with that as a reason it was bad with the cords.