Picture of a plug and a outlet captioned: "It's simple. Male. Female. Not both. Not a 3rd option. Any questions?" Below:"[laughs in Electrician]" Picture of various different plugs and outlets
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[–] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Can I ask, what's the (ill-advised) use case for this?

I don't know anything about electronics but I readily believe this is a dangerous cable

But what I don't get is what people want it for. I've never been in a situation that calls for this

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    They can be used to hook a generator to your house if your power goes out, but people will use them for things like if they strung up Christmas lights backwards so 2 female ends are next to each other.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    It allows you to move power from a live circuit to a dead one by connecting the outlets between them. The most common use I've seen is to easily hook a gas generator to a household circuit during a blackout.

    But yes, they're very dangerous and there are less-stupid ways to hook up a generator that won't make tripping over a power cable lethally dangerous or risk burning down the house by bypassing the circuit breaker and overloading the wiring in the walls.

    But this one is popular because it can be done very quickly and easily with minimal supplies.

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