h a l f b a k e r yMake mine a double.
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My sister was complaining that after laying floor all day the
house is full of mosquitos. Why? Because she had to run an
extension cord outside for the circular saw and it wouldn't let
the door shut all the way. If you were to make an extension
cord like a ribbon cable (many small conductors
parallel to
each other) it would fit under the door just fine, and would
also tape down to floors and fit under things far better and I
expect with a great reduction in tripping accidents. If you had
66 conductors (each a 24 guage stranded wire or so) one third
each could go to the ground and the two live wires and should
provide plenty of current handling. It wouldn't even have to
be that long to fit under the door, just have a plug on one
end, a 2 foot run or so, and then an outlet on the other.
I'm Voltmeter, and I approved this idea.
flat extension cords
http://www.cableorg...ower_extensions.jpg [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 02 2004]
versatrak
http://www.chinney-.../cae_eng/office.htm A system of flat extension cords for temporary or permanent installation. [ato_de, Nov 02 2004]
DeCorp
http://www.decorp.com DeCord, DeWire etc.... flat cabling [phlogiston, Nov 03 2004]
[link]
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With such thin insulation, aren't you afraid of chafing the outer coating and shorting out the wiring? Seems very fragile to me to withstand many threshold crossings. |
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[jurist], perhaps it would be ok if it was clearly marked as non-heavy duty, and not for outdoor use. |
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could you not just build a pass through socket to each side of the jamb for such occasions ? |
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Isn't that like "kinda pregnant"? Just kidding... |
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[2 fries] The extension cord in your link looks like a fairly standard extension cord with an anti-trip strip and a power outlet permanetly attached. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a door that can close with that running across the threshold. It does look like it uses the type of cord that has the three conductors parallel and flat, which is flatter than your standard heavy duty outdoor extesion cord, but I think those are not generally rated for outdoor use. |
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The resistance of wires changes with the thickness, so depending on how thin you wanted to go you might have trouble with heat generation.
There are extension cords that have the three wires running in parallel, and they fit under most of my doors, but made of only the three conductors not your 66. |
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Per [brodie]'s anno - if I am not mistaken, this is the kind of stuff that you throw round the ceilings of houses for lighting and socket rings - my sparky mates simply call it twine, probably for TWINandEarth. The main problem is that it is not very flexible and is indeed difficult to route easily due to being a solid copper core as opposed to a stranded core. p.s. I Hope she put an RCD on the socket oulet at the wall! ;-) |
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"I'm Voltmeter, and I approved this idea." |
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see, another good reason for having letterboxes. you feed the cable through the slot. |
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I'm po and I aint sure about it. :) |
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btw I think voltmeter has discovered a time machine. his/her account was modified earlier than it was created. |
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Isn't chocolate poisonous to dogs? |
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I think it mightbe poisonous to me in large quantities as well (he he, I said tities, he) |
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Awesome . . . but you might want to check with some of the Half-Bakery's omnipresent EEs. [+] BTW, do you live in a "swing" state? :-D |
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//EEs// Excorpereal Excursionists?. |
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it would be hard to insulate it properly. |
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Partially baked by DeCorp (linky) for low voltage & data cabling, and it looks like they'll have electrical cabling approved late this year. Sad about their choice of brand names however, DeWire, DePlug, DeCable, DeCord etc.... But then again, you can't have everything. Where would you put it? |
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[Jurist] et al: I believe that even if you kept the
insulation as thick as on a standard extension cord the
super-small conductors would allow it to slip under doors,
so no loss in insulation. |
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[Brodie] the heat generated in a wire is a function of
current, when 22 wires are carry a given current in
parallel, the current is devided between them. I haven't
the EE to know how to calculate that but I think it would
carry decent amounts without going Chernobyl. |
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[Contracts] I do not live in a swing state, I live in
California. So good or bad, depending on how you feel
about Republicans, breast implants, or robbing water from
far, far away. |
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[po] I'm not sure how my account was modified before
creation, I have no time machine and my car doesn't reach
relativistic speed often. Actually, seeing as how I live in
California my car rarely reaches 5 mph between 4 and
6pm. |
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Too bad we can't annotate politician's ads: |
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"I'm So and So, and I approved this message" |
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"Oh yeah? I'm Voltmeter and I don't approve YOU" |
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maybe funnier in my head than in print, but I'll toss it out
there and see what you people think. |
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It might be possible to engineer a super-thin, heavy duty insulation layer that includes a puncture detector and electronics to cut the circuit extremely fast when that gets tripped. Harder would be to make it so flexible that you could fold it to make turns. Then you'd have to certify it. Sounds like a hefty investment. |
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You can get ethernet cable in ribbon format over here, think high power would be out of the question though.. |
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Let's face it the solution here is simple. Have a
transformer at the plug end which steps the voltage up
to.... 12,000V or so, then you can have teeny tiny thin
wire. At the other end you can have another
transformer, the advantage being that the transformer
could have alternative taps for 120V, 240V, 12V, 5V
whatever. The insulation would need to be very good
though, and possibly way thicker. Potentially thicker than
the original insulation/wire combo. Wait, actually, if we
use the transformers the other way around, and step the
voltage DOWN, to say,12V, then you could have MUCH
thinner insulation. Wait, you would need much thicker
wire, possibly thicker than the original wire/insulation
combo. Boy, this problem's tricky. |
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//maybe funnier in my head than in print, but I'll toss it out
there and see what you people think// |
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I believe that 10 years of stony silence indicates what people
think. |
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