outdoor house wiring

RenegadeT

RenegadeT

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Why is one prong larger than the other on some household electrical cords? I was putting up Christmas lights, and was thinking about grinding the large prong down to match the smaller end, but figured there was a good reason not too. I ran an extension cord up to a gutter and plugged the first string into it. I have a second series of lights I was gonna plug into the "ass-end" of the first string that was plugged into the extension cord. The ass-end of the first light string had 2 smaller slots, it wouldnt accept the larger prong. wassup? thanks, clark griswald wannabe
 
so you do not overload a circuit.. they only want the small lights to be plugged together and so and so forth..

if you are running the old school lights you will easily overload a circuit the new LED lights it would take a bunch of lights on same circuit for it to overload..
 
as for Clark Griswold wannabe I am curious to see what you do.. I will post mine once I get it all done and set up.. but I did just finish welding a frame for my decorations :)
 
to add to that when you have a ground prong it can only go in one way so the prongs don't have to be a different size. Hopefully whom ever wired the outlet wired it correctly.
 
whats the difference between me grinding the prong smaller, as opposed to getting either a 2 or 3 to one adapter, or just a new extension cord with multiple outlets at the end? If I did grind the prongs smaller, I can make sure the one that used to be larger lines up with the larger slot in the extension cord. Although I dont see why polarity makes any difference on a string of lights, maybe because they are these fancy twinkly ones that dim out when they get hot, then come back on, get hot, repeat.

I probaly overstated the clark griswald thing, its never that hardcore, I ust dont want to burn the house down :eek:. Its all old school incadescent lights. The area in question is 2x 12-15 ft strings of icicle lights in series (this has the stackable connector plugged into my extension cord) with a 25 ft string of twinkling lights (C-bulbs I think) right above that. It would've been really nice to plug the twinkling lights into the ass end of the iclicle string thats in the extension cord, but no...
 
There would be no difference if you ground it down and plugged it up the right way. But what about next year when you've had ten beers and up on the house in the freezing cold and you don't pay attention to which way you plug them up. That's when the dummie proofing comes into play.
I honestly don't know what will happen if it's plugged in the wrong polarity. Question is do you want to chance it?
 
^^^ yeah, this! Pick up a copy of "Wiring Simplified", will make you confident that if you _are_ going to burn the house down, you'll know how to do it right... :)
 
If it's plugged in backwards the breaker may not pop if it shorts out since the hot will be on the neutral bar. They will work, they just may burn the house down if there's a problem.
 
I found an extension cord with 3 outlets that was long enough...it was cut though, and I had to splice it togehter with wire nuts :p I feel better about that than grinding the prong though.
 
Oh yeah, b/c nothing says safety like wire nut spliced wiring out in the open elements...:eek:
 
or, why is the ground lug longer than the neutral or hot?? (I know, but from the responses above, its likely most of yall don't....) :lol:
 
Hm never thought about that.
I'd guess it's so that as the plug is yanked out, the ground is the last thing making contact, or in reverse when plugging in you're grounded before the current can flow.

Or, it could be solely for the sake of an excessive phallus...
 
rattlecanpaint said:
If it's plugged in backwards the breaker may not pop if it shorts out since the hot will be on the neutral bar. They will work, they just may burn the house down if there's a problem.
Click to expand...

No, it's just a light bulb (or 100 small ones in this case). It doesn't care which side is hot and which side is neutral, but the UL does.

Grind it, use dykes, whatever... but if you burn the place down, it's on you. :flipoff2:

You can put roughly 3500 incandescent mini-bulbs on one 15A circuit, assuming 117V line current and 50W per 100-bulb strand.
 
shawn said:
You can put roughly 3500 incandescent mini-bulbs on one 15A circuit, assuming 117V line current and 50W per 100-bulb strand.
Click to expand...

damn that means I can put a crap ton more lights and be fine :)
 
shawn said:
No, it's just a light bulb (or 100 small ones in this case). It doesn't care which side is hot and which side is neutral, but the UL does.

Grind it, use dykes, whatever... but if you burn the place down, it's on you. :flipoff2:

You can put roughly 3500 incandescent mini-bulbs on one 15A circuit, assuming 117V line current and 50W per 100-bulb strand.
Click to expand...

You forgot voltage drop over distance and the inverse relatonship causign a current spike...I'm betting you never get over 3317 bulbs before that 15A would pop.

For anyone else I'm just fawking with Shawn..he's right.

rattlecanpaint said:
If it's plugged in backwards the breaker may not pop if it shorts out since the hot will be on the neutral bar. They will work, they just may burn the house down if there's a problem.
Click to expand...

Just no....not in a house. Not ever on a single phase circuit. But I am interestd in your neutral bar with a hot source theory...I mean that would be free power. YEAH!


The current flows in one prong through all the little bulbs and back on the other prong....durng its flow it heats up a lil piece of metal that glows when it gets hot. The metal really doesnt care if it vibrates up or down first.

Then again maybe your bulb filments are harmonically frequency balanced... and vibrating them backwards will cause an expulsion of might blinker fluid, if so you are fawked.
 
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