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On 1/4/2012 1:39 PM, Ben Eisenbraun wrote: > On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 09:24:47AM -0500, Bill Horne wrote: >> Anyone buying this device would do well to have paid-up life insurance: >> the company is selling a UPS, but they're also selling "cheater" cords >> that allow their UPS to power a "live" outlet with a double-male >> connection cord, and that's flat-out dangerous. > It's not a UPS. You have to supply your own UPS to power their capture > unit. And it doesn't appear to power the outlet until after the mains > power is cut. That's the "Patent-pending technology" part I suppose. > It may not be a UPS, but AFAICT it's also not UL or ETL listed. That's a $10,000 fine if an employee gets injured, and a "you betcha" lawsuit that will probably end a career, and an accident might even result in jail time. I'm sorry to be such a spoilsport, but this stuff is /not/ software, and it is /not/ for amateurs: you don't learn about power factors and Class Zero gloves by trial-and-error. Please consider these facts, which the manufacturer does not mention on their website: 1. Cutting wires that are carrying power is dangerous and error-prone, but this manufacturer implies that it can be done safely by amateurs. The /best/ result one can hope for is to "burn a hole" in the cutting tools, thus ruining them. At worst, flash burns and pieces of molten metal flying in unpredictable directions. Men have been blinded by such events. 2. Without a UL or ETL listing, there is no guarantee that the actual switching circuitry inside this device is designed to interrupt the current being carried. 3. Plugging a power source into a "hot" outlet, conductor, or power strip is an invitation to disaster. If there's a power strip in use, it may not have the "hot" leads on the "right" side of the outlets - after all, they're made for use on home computers by shops that cut every corner they can - and /that/ means that a failure of the "hotplug" device could place a "dead short" across the power source. Men have been killed by such events. 4. No matter what you do, no matter what precautions you take, no matter how wiling you are to learn about electricity, the BEST you can hope for is that nothing happens. That's a setup for failure, and electrical failures caused by using unapproved equipement in non-standard ways are a lawyer's wet dream. FWIW. YMMV. I'll send flowers to your funeral. Bill -- Bill Horne 339-364-8487
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