There is a reason for USB-C extensions not to be part of the standard. They can be bothersome in the best case and dangerous in the worst.
There is a reason for USB-C extensions not to be part of the standard. They can be bothersome in the best case and dangerous in the worst.
110/120 is the voltage. That’s irrelevant to the amperage, which is somewhat standardized as 15a on normal outlets and 20a on kitchen or garage outlets.
Extension cords do not have fuses/circuit breakers. That’s found in some power strips but it’s neither required nor necessary with proper use.
And I can literally only reach my car with a welder if I use an extension cord…
The risk of daisy-chaining power strips is it become very easy to overload it, so yes, a circuit breaker would be nice as fire protection. 17 phone chargers would be fine but heating appliances will overload it fast. With no internal breaker, it’s easy to cause a fire with really cheap strips but, if life was ideal, they’d all be made to handle 20a loads like the receptacle in the wall.
The risk of daisy-chaining extension cords is the extra resistance incurred at each connection. There’s a varying amount form the imperfect contacts and a varying amount from pulling the cords apart over the time of device use. If you keep burning plugs with your yard care equipment, it’s probably not normal. It’s usually from partially unplugged cords trying to carry 10-20a across half the planned plug contact. You can readily buy 10-16 awg cords in 110v markets. It’s up to you to determine the appropriate gauge. In an ideal world, they’d all be 10awg. But we don’t have that, we have a world where you can actively choose to save money and increase risk.
Some extension cords absolutely do have circuit breakers, I know this because we use them at work for some of our heavy duty equipment. I also know for a fact that fused link extension cords were their predecessor and you can buy both on Amazon still so I know they exist.
Further I was not saying don’t use an extension cord with a welder. I was saying the correct gauged wire for that extension cord may be necessary to carry the load.
The point of bringing up 110 vs 120 volts was to point out that more voltage = more push. More push through a smaller circuit than is recommended means more heat.
Amperage is the draw, and it’s important because most devices are rated by draw rather than voltage, so what I said does make sense in that context. I wasn’t trying to say they were the same thing. The reason they’re rated in amperage is because the amperage is what kills you, and because thats what the safety devices are rated in. That’s how much of a draw they can withdtande before they break the circuit.
I was also pretty exhausted when I responded so my explanation barely makes sense even to me, but I do see where I was going with that. Have you ever seen one of those old brown extension cords with three outlets? They’re usually 2 prong (don’t have a third prong for ground). They also don’t have any of the fail-safes that new extension cords do have.
While I was not specifically talking about daisy-chaining power strips, I wanted to make it clear that even using multiple extension cords in a daisy-chain manner adds significant resistance to the circuit and with enough push and a big enough amperage appliance it absolutely is a fire hazard.
I’m not sure where you got that I said you shouldn’t use an extension cord with a welder. I was saying you don’t need an extension cord worthy of powering a welder safely in order to power a lamp. But a smaller lower rated extension cord that works for a small indoor appliance is not up to the task and would be dangerous to use with a welder without the proper protections.
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Yes, that is a risk. Don’t forget about voltage drop, though! A short extension is generally quite a thin conductor, and the thinner the cable, the more resistance you get in the cable itself.
The funny thing is the breaker only costs $0.01 to include, but could prevent a house fire. Crazy we don’t demand it in all of our cords
British cables are fused in the plug, and it’s a pain in the ass. I don’t see the problem with a breaker that just drops the whole circuit if something goes whoopsie.