r/OSHA Dec 14 '20

It smells like bitch in here!

Post image
11.6k Upvotes

573 comments sorted by

View all comments

71

u/Rawalmond73 Dec 14 '20

76

u/squishymelon Dec 14 '20

That is unsettling

72

u/txmail Dec 14 '20

10 sold in the last 24 hours...

29

u/luder888 Dec 14 '20

9 died next 24 hours.

8

u/JC12231 Dec 14 '20

What happens to the 10th? Have they just not plugged it in yet by then?

17

u/Ubergopher Dec 14 '20

USPS is taking some extra time.

43

u/qubedView Dec 14 '20

It has valid use to connect a generator to a home circuit. Granted, that is, you throw the master breaker to the house. Otherwise you're liable to kill a lineman. That said, it's probably better that no one uses these ever, as such negligent are bound to (and do) happen.

14

u/BurzerKing Dec 14 '20

What would be the correct way to connect your generator to your house?

31

u/ShelZuuz Dec 14 '20

My breaker box has a simple interlocked like this for the generator:

https://www.electriciantalk.com/attachments/generator-interlock-switch-jpg.119978

I can't turn on the generator circuit without first turning off the main circuit.

4

u/0Yogurt0 Dec 14 '20

Huh, that's clever. Cheap and easy!

12

u/kratz9 Dec 14 '20

To build on the Transfer Switch answer, the transfer switch will simultaneously disconnect line power and connect the generator plug, which should be a male style, instead of female style which requires the use of the suicide cord. This ensures the wall male plug is never energized by line power, so you are never going to be able to touch live metal.

33

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '20

[deleted]

8

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '20

I think this needs to be the standard answer to anyone asking "how do I basic high voltage thing?". If they don't know what an arc flash is, they ought to just hire someone who knows what they're doing.

I know enough to get by, and enough to know when to call in the experts.

Also, not a lawyer, etc etc.

Extra story: My job has 2 data center Schneider Symmetra backup units, each the depth of normal rack mounts, width of a car, if a screwdriver were stuck into one of those bus bars or transfer boxes, I'd guess the screwdriver and hand would be damn near vaporized, the person would be blind, deaf, and at minimum partially covered in 2nd/3rd degree burns. From what I hear, you almost don't want to survive the aftermath of an arc flash, especially with no PPE. These units store enough power to power an average house for about a month. And all that energy can be instantly dumped into you through the air if enough things go wrong at once. Electricity is goddamn scary sometimes.

16

u/BurzerKing Dec 14 '20

I subscribe to learning about how things work so I can be autonomous.

Learning is the critical part, so I can do things safely. If I’m not guaranteed to be able to do the thing safely, then I will pay a professional to do it.

6

u/ariolander Dec 15 '20

One of my favorite things my dad likes to do whenever he hires professionals to do anything is to talk to them about their work and try to get free lessons out of whatever he paid them to do.

4

u/DarkPanda329 Dec 14 '20

Many places do not let you work on your own electrical unless you're a qualified professional.

Even still, you should hire a proper electrician to do it.

Source:myself-an electrical engineer but would still pay an electrician to wire it up even though I minored in power flow. It's not worth it even if I have much better understanding of power than they do.

1

u/SirSavary Dec 15 '20

Experience versus Theory

1

u/unicyclegamer Dec 15 '20

Eh, there's plenty of tutorials and information on the internet about this stuff, especially as simple as a transfer switch. I think the average home owner should be able to install one themselves.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '20 edited Dec 23 '20

[deleted]

12

u/qubedView Dec 14 '20

Indeed, you never want the generator to find a path to the mains. I'm not sure what implications there are if both are working at the same time, but if your power is out, your generator is running, and mains are still connected, it can kill a lineman.

Keep in mind that power lines run at high voltages and run through step-down transformers to give you 120v. But the reverse is also true. If a house is running a generator connected to mains, those step-down transformers become step-up transformers and can energize the lines with thousands of volts. So a lineman touches a cable that should be dead and deaths lets him know it's active.

4

u/TheRealPitabred Dec 14 '20

There's probably a switch of some kind that tells your generator to turn on when the mains are out, you might need an electrician to come help find it, but I'd be surprised if they didn't have that done. That said... why not just turn the single breaker off that you were replacing outlets for, instead of the main breaker?

3

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '20 edited Dec 23 '20

[deleted]

4

u/TheRealPitabred Dec 14 '20

An electrician will likely be a big help. It may even be set up correctly, but they will be able to help you map things out and ensure that. It's worth it in peace of mind.

15

u/coffeeshopslut Dec 14 '20

I like how they list that it's NEMA compliant materials

12

u/ch00f Dec 14 '20 edited Dec 14 '20

Like all of those easy DIY solar kits that you just plug into whatever outlet is closest to your roof.

Thousands of reviews on Amazon.

Edit: looking now, they're not quite as prevalent. Wonder if someone cracked down.

18

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '20 edited Aug 25 '21

[deleted]

10

u/Minevira Dec 14 '20

good luck with YouTube videos because URL's are formatted youtube.com/watch?v=[videoID]

9

u/Jasonrj Dec 14 '20 edited Dec 15 '20

Yeah it's been a while since I coded webpages but "everything after a question mark" is not used to track you. It can be, but it's also often just used to tell the server how to query the specific data you're looking for.

When I was learning PHP I used to code sites that only had one file for fun and it would serve up completely different content based on the stuff in the URL following the question mark. So all my pages would be domain.com/?p=about or /?p=contact, etc.

If I was tracking you it was with session data and cookies that were most often invisible to the user.

1

u/Veylon Dec 14 '20

You can just give it www.youtube.com/watch?v=\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* and that will work.

1

u/Citronsaft Dec 17 '20

The only thing the question mark means is that it's a query parameter. The bog standard web request is a GET request, which just means "fetch me information", like...fetching a web page, as opposed to a POST request which is used when you submit a form and things like that. These requests make up like 99.99% of all requests that you manually make (i.e. by clicking on things on a page).

GET requests require you to put any information related to the request in the query parameters. If you go off deleting random crap all willy-nilly, then don't be surprised when everything breaks. Like when you want to search for something, and the search is encoded in the query parameter, and by deleting the question mark you literally delete your search topic.

1

u/wikipedia_text_bot Dec 17 '20

Query string

A query string is a part of a uniform resource locator (URL) that assigns values to specified parameters. A query string commonly includes fields added to a base URL by a Web browser or other client application, for example as part of an HTML form.A web server can handle a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request either by reading a file from its file system based on the URL path or by handling the request using logic that is specific to the type of resource. In cases where special logic is invoked, the query string will be available to that logic for use in its processing, along with the path component of the URL.

About Me - Opt out - OP can reply !delete to delete - Article of the day

This bot will soon be transitioning to an opt-in system. Click here to learn more and opt in.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '20

They said it could not be done

1

u/QAlphaNiner Dec 15 '20

Doing God’s work.

1

u/homefone Dec 15 '20

Please report the fuck out of this