Testing Dangerous Electrical "Life Hacks" from 1911

[@vintageyamahasquid]

For a little context on the bulb adapter: Electricity was first used solely for lighting in homes. Homes had light socket outlets installed on their ceilings but no wall outlets, because they didn't exist for residential use. There just wasn't anything that a normal home would have that required electricity besides lighting. When electrical appliances became available people only had one option to supply it with power; the light fixture. Over time these were supplemented with wall outlets but you'd be surprised by how long the light socket extension cords hung around.

[@iwb70]

Correct.

[@matthewellisor5835]

Ah, knob and tube. Those were the days.

[@rhysun]

The electricity would also be unmetered and your bill would be based on how many lightbulbs you had in your house.

[@cyril.figgis]

heh. hung around

[@ruben_balea]

And 100 years later electricity is still called 'electric light' and electricity bills 'light bills'

[@Chris_the_Muso]

Welder here. Yep, flux core wire is run electrode negative. This puts two thirds of the heat into the job (electrons flow into the job). If you run it the wrong way round you'll get a spark fountain that doesn't weld properly. Solid wire (with gas) is run electrode positive. Back in the day, they really did use light sockets as power outlets, usually with a y-fitting so that you still had a light. There were even switched fittings made. Also, in those days there *was* no earth. You know that saying that safety regulations are written in blood? ... Lots of houses burned down and people were electrocuted, then some bright sparky thought up the MEN system of earthing. As a kid I remember finding one of those y-fittings in the shed. Confused the heck out of of me, and only made sense decades later once I learned a bit of the history about the subject. The fitting were made out of bakelite of course. It disappeared after I asked about it, so the oldies were probably scared I was going to try to jam it into a light socket and threw it away. This would have the sixties in Sydney, long after such things were obsolete.

[@coolcoolercoolest212]

If earth didn't exist then where did everyone live?

[@TheScaryName]

Thank you for this! I was actually planning to get a mig welder with flux core wire (to eliminate the whole gas bottle expenditure), and would probably plugged it in the wrong way!

[@cncmoldsnstuff4423]

I was just going to post about this. You beat me to it.

[@davak72]

I bought one brand new 2 years ago... Pretty sure they are still made and sold here in the US

[@james_mckey]

I remember those. I think we had a couple in the garage.

[@MakersMuse]

"the potato taught us something" adding that to the list of sentences I didn't expect to hear lol! Love these old wacky life hacks

[@Cox_Communications]

This guy is an idiot, he was trying to find polarity on Alternating Current.

[@magnemoe1]

Much less something regarding electricity.

[@ceneblock]

The Irish have entered the chat..

[@GerinoMorn]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1006">16:46</a> ah, we call it "zlodziejka", "the thief-ling", a former necessity when going travelling, and the place purposefully didn't give you any outlets (so you don't ramp up the bill by using e.g. your own kettle). Everyone had one at home xD

[@livinghypocrite5289]

The kettle thing sounds like it draws power. I remember from times where there were still lightbulbs as shown here, that most lamps were only certified for having a 60 or 80W light bulb in it. So running a ketttle on such a lightsocket would terrify the shit out of me. I don't need a fire in the same room I'm sleeping.

[@DelticEngine]

@@livinghypocrite5289 Depending what era and country we are talking about, there were some very small water heating devices. In this context it is possible that something like a coffee percolator or similar may have been used as a kettle as they were actually very low powered and took some time to brew. There were also heating elements small enough to put in a cup to heat water. It is also possible there were some very low-powered tiny kettles around that took an age to boil but used little power so could reasonably be used from a lighting circuit. On a 230-240V European supply 1000W was around 4.5 amps and lighting circuits (that know of) were fused at 5 Amps so such a device and a light bulb was just about within the power rating for the circuit.

[@bartbjorri9502]

@@livinghypocrite5289 The power rating was for heat. A light bulb produced 98 % heat and only 2% light. So the maximum power was for heating the armature and not for the electric current. I remember seen those devises in the Netherlands in the sixties at an old house of old people. Even then it was already forbidden and very rare.

[@satibel]

@@DelticEngine yeah also 700W student kettles exist, so it's imaginable.

[@cnervip]

in spanish we call them "ladrón" or "thief" no ling ahah

[@tookitogo]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="330">5:30</a> Liquid medicines of yore were alcohol-based, and that’s the one thing you didn’t try! Alcohol has very different surface tension from water, and may well have flowed quite differently. I also think you used a much larger bottle than the authors intended. Medicine bottles were usually somewhere between 50-200ml, not the big vodka bottle you used!

[@fireaza]

And in a lot of cases, medicines of yore were literally just alcohol.

[@soundsoflife9549]

Yes-they often were tinctures or emulsions with sugar added sometimes.

[@dennisolsson3119]

I also don't think it was supposed to act as a siphon, but more like a blocking guide. If you pour the liquid out slowly it'll follow the wire. Slow enough would mean drip

[@tookitogo]

@@fireaza Yes. And if you were lucky, they hadn’t added anything toxic to it!

[@andrewtinker7537]

The one medicine of the time that you might have needed to pour as a steady drip would have been an anesthetic used in the 'open mask' method. Things like ACE mixture, which was equal parts alcohol, chloroform, and ether. Very different surface tension than water or oil and very different flow, as you said.

[@imark7777777]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="960">16:00</a> they're showing the US style Edison screw socket in our case the center is hot and the side is neutral with the bayonet fittings technically there is no distinction but the sidewall should be grounded in metal fittings From what I understand. You have to remember that in the US electricity pre-dated plugs and sockets so it was primarily used for lighting and what was used as a sock it was the light socket until proper sockets were introduced. And then even still there was two different tariffs on price one for lighting which was cheaper and one for appliances that was more expensive so you could theoretically pay for just lighting and then unscrew the bulb weird times. So at the time the book was made it probably was possible to get all these fittings that were interchangeable. After all a lot of the electrical industry adapted and converted practices and materials from the gas lamp industry. It's actually quite common in the US for a long time to be able to just go to the store and pick up a little screw in a bit with a plug on the other end to plug stuff in. And although it's getting a little harder and harder as it's starting to become less standard to stock in big box stores as Code has changed to require outlets every so many feet etc. and older houses are more and more getting retrofitted. But it was quite common to unscrew your porch light to plug-in power tools not necessarily heavy duty stuff but handheld drills before the invention of batteries. This is mostly because nobody thought to put outlets on the outside of their house so it was either that or run an extension cord inside which still wouldn't be very convenient. edit: wow I'm impressed that even over the pond and how many years later how to take a fit that almost is. edit edit I'm not sure what happened there with the end of that sentence. I think I was trying to say how many years later and I'm impressed that it still fits.

[@chaosopher23]

Power tools, 1911? That's when they were mostly cordless.

[@mariawhite7337]

My dad can go buy new power switches for the house to put new things in like his hot tub. But an electrician has to be the one to install it.

[@chaosopher23]

@@mariawhite7337 In most areas, a homeowner can install wiring & peripheral electrical devices without an electrician's help. Once the breaker panel has to be opened, however, the homeowner has to call in a licensed electrician to hook it up and have a look at the work.

[@HansZimmer-b1r]

Commonwealth countries all have these ridiculous light sockets.

[@LatitudeSky]

You can still buy the screw-in light socket power outlets. There are also adapters that keep a light bulb socket and add an outlet on the side. Walmart has them plus all the usual hardware stores. I use one in a closet that only has a light bulb socket. Yes I am mindful of wattage and amps. The bulb is 15 watts in a fixture designed for 100 watts so I have a lot of room to run other small things.

[@featheredskeptic1301]

People from 100 years ago were very new to electricity, and as such, they didn't have the convenience of everything being in a hardware store at an affordable price. Not to mention that safety wasn't much of a priority for them. Knowing how those old electrical installations were, I don't think anyone back then even cared about grounding. Plugging things in the light sockets was something very common.

[@samuelmellars7855]

I have old wiring in my house (I'm slowly replacing it) and can confirm, old wiring does not have ground. I currently (heh) have some electric appliances that give the tingles if you touch them, because no ground. I really need to rewire that part of the house!

[@featheredskeptic1301]

@@samuelmellars7855 There's a dodgy practice that can help you with this without needing to put actual ground wire, but it can be dangerous. You just jump the neutral to the grounding connection on the socket. In almost all cases it works fine, and it's very common in some parts of the world. But if the neutral gets disconnected for whatever reason, while the live does not, and there is any load plugged into the house, that can cause the "grounded" piece of appliance to go live at mains voltage. I personally wouldn't recommend it, albeit I've done it in places where it just wasn't possible to put proper ground. It does get rid of the tingles. I grew up in an apartment complex in eastern Europe. It was built in the 1970-s, yet all electrical sockets had only live and neutral going to them. There were still no ground wires anywhere. Some of the old original sockets didn't even have the grounding connections on the top and bottom (as it's typical for the european style sockets) Just 2 holes - for the live and neutral.

[@satibel]

@@samuelmellars7855 yeah the apartment we have isn't grounded and that gives my mic a big 50hz hum. it's still safe because of differential fuses, but it can cause issues.

[@PERTEKofficial]

They definitely didn’t care about grounding, it was less than an afterthought. I’ve worked on houses from 1910 to update the electrical and that old fashioned knob and tube wiring only had a hot and a neutral, no ground. Edit: heck, they didn’t care much about hot/neutral either, I’ve seen the neutral used as a hot and vice versa a few times, or a neutral that was live at 24-50 volts, etc. I even kept one of the tubes and a small piece of the wiring as a souvenir lol. I’ve got a 114 year old piece of history out of that job

[@M10000]

Back east, in the old days, lighting circuits had to be 240 volts so that the #14 wire could carry enough power to handle everything plugged into light sockets. I lived in a house with combination outlets. The top outlet was 240 and the bottom was 120.

[@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="900">15:00</a> I guess you havent seen Big Clive cooking sausages with two probes on mains power.

[@petecross9470]

Came here to say the same 😆😆😆🥧💥🔥

[@tin2001]

Surprised I had to scroll this far... He also did other foods around the same time as the original sausage video.

[@hyfy-tr2jy]

Back in the 1940s and 50s they sold hot dog cookers that were simply two probes plugged into line current. Put one probe in each end of the hot dog, plug it in and boom....cooked hot dog is seconds

[@anomamos9095]

The medicine dropper is often used as a water feeder in bird cages. It is not capillary action but surface tension and gravity.

[@synchronuse]

Capillary action IS surface tension acting on the liquid.

[@gingivitis9148]

Why do you think I didn't work for turner?

[@anomamos9095]

@@gingivitis9148 the wire was too coarse and the ones I've seen have the wire in a tube to prevent evaporation and to aid the capillary action.

[@leemilica]

Why tf did it make the words capillary action a link to a hastag on youtube that doesn't exist?

[@synchronuse]

@@leemilica KZbin does that by itself

[@daviddavidson2357]

Pro-tip If you're breaking a light bulb, wrap it in a towel or a few layers of kitchen roll. That way you don't get glass everywhere.

[@toonedin]

Ethan Hunt - the protagonist played by Tom Cruise - does exactly that in the first Mission Impossible movie when he returns back to the safe house after his entire team gets wiped out in a botched mission. He wraps a hallway incandescent bulb in the jacket that he was wearing, then crunches that bulb and strews the glass shards outside the door of the safe house. Those shards will warn him by crunching underfoot of anyone snooping outside.

[@skun406]

Or a plastic bag

[@dcallan812]

My grandmother used to climb onto the kitchen table and plug her iron into the light fitting, I still have the adaptor and use it for Christmas lights in the porch. I have a light fitting but no outlet so its perfect. The posh ones even had a power switch built in. The electric table cloth always got my attention. It was a load of mains wires running across the dining table you pushed a fitting with a bulb into and hey presto a light in any position you want.

[@swanseamale47]

Back in the 1950s and 1960s it was fairly common to plug appliances into light fittings. Thinks like irons for example. You could even buy a 2 way adaptor so the light could be used as well.

[@Turnah81]

Yeah I have some kind of vague memories of something like this. But keep in mind, the main thing I was testing is whether you can, or should use an actual fitting that was previously a filament light globe💡⚡️🔌😁.

[@swanseamale47]

@Turnah81 yes that was new to me. Seen a few bodged wires over the years, but that was a new one. 😀

[@joecummings1260]

I just bought one at Walmart a couple months ago for like 3 bucks. The bathroom in my barn only had a ceiling light and I bought a little plug in led light to put over the medicine cabinet and needed a place to plug it in

[@Scott-s9u3n]

Back in the '70s as a teenager, we lived in a house with no outlets for a few months. You go to the hardware store, get a socket adapter. It had two outlets, a socket for the bulb, and a pull chain switch for the bulb. This place had high ceilings, so I had to get an extension cords as well. You left the wall switch on, and used the pull chain. The fridge was plugged into the light socket in the kitchen, and lights all through the house would dim briefly when the fridge came on, and the TV picture would shrink a little... Knob and tube wiring, I guess from the 1920s...

[@joecummings1260]

@@Scott-s9u3n When I was a teen in the 70's we had a small barn about 300 feet from the house, K&T wiring and it was our hangout, old fridge and TV in there. When the fridge started the tv picture would get about 1/2 size lol. Good old days

[@whatwaredotnet]

Here in the US you can still buy lamp socket to outlet adapters. I've used one before to put a night light in a closet so that I can go in at night without being blinded.

[@IMBlakeley]

I recall my grandma in 1960s London had a lead that plugged her kettle into the light socket, yeah that house got condemned and she was moved out.

[@Turnah81]

😥 So much cool stuff lost in time. But I am guessing must have been big safety issues.

[@darraghtalorgan1905]

With the potato, what you're seeing is essentially hydrolysis. The negatice produces hydrogen (bubbles) while the positive produces oxygen which breaks down the copper and makes that green gunk.

[@MuwaUWU]

Why the long face

[@WAVESprod]

As a lighting technician for film, since we‘re often limited with where we can plug our lights, we do sometimes have selfmade adapter to get our power from lighting outlets. But they‘re made way less wonky than this.

[@Iaintwoke]

You used to be able to buy proper ones. At least I have seen very old bayonet cap ones in the UK.

[@shaynegadsden]

The medicine one seems more as a guide for slowly pouring the fluid since when you do it has a habit of just running down the side of the bottle making a mess

[@Pulverrostmannen]

The thin wires inside the glass tube of the bulb is actually made to be a fuse built into the bulb in case the filament or something short out the bulb just the bulb fuse blow and you save your ceramic fuse in the house. it is actually quite genius

[@teslacoiler]

Exactly. Back in the days there were no fuses inside the lightbulb, but things have changed since.... BTW, i think that you should recover only the base of the bulb without any glass part and solder the wire straight to the base instead.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

@ indeed. But in a way I feel this is not as commonly necessary in modern times anyway. Back in the days when you only had a few roof bulbs it was harder to power other things easily than it should be today when everything is wall powered and more common

[@nzoomed]

I think it was a safety design so if the bulb gets smashed, that they burn out so that the prongs are not live if somebody touches them, they also will blow when the lamp burns out at the end of its life.

[@Raven74947]

Dude, those old medicines were heavy on the alcohol. For preservation and to dissolve any oily substances which may have been added to the mix.

[@Turnah81]

Nice. I'll try that. I''ll give metho a go and maybe isopropyl alcohol if there is enough in the shed.

[@soundsoflife9549]

@@Turnah81 Oh- Use thinner wire also!

[@BD-xz6te]

The potato thing is interesting. In electroplating or rust removal DC is used, because the polarity matters. The results are visible rather quickly. If you use a washing soda bath to remove rust you connect the positive wire to some sacrificial piece of metal. It will corrode rather quickly and will come out pitted and looking like it spent decades underwater. If you connect the wires backward you'll see the electrolyte bath fizzing around the wrong part.

[@Turnah81]

Cheers 👍. I like learning new stuff in the comments😀.

[@BD-xz6te]

@@Turnah81 I'm glad you got something out of it. I meant to add that the green in the potato experiment is from the copper quickly corroding. If you used wire made of a different material it wouldn't be green. When you use AC power it's rapidly changing polarity back and forth. You won't get much other than a light show and burnt potato.

[@GothGuy885]

as a teenager, I tried my hand at electroplating. just as an experiment, using my dad's battery charger. didn't have access to any Acids stronger then vinegar. it worked, but the plating would just wipe right off. had I been able to use a stronger acid, it might have been a success....

[@terrybull3798]

@@Turnah81 You may also be interested to know that when you say at 15:30 about the active and neutral: In AC the Brown and Blue wires in your potato "alternate" in polarity. They take turns being positive and negative, so both should turn the spud green, and fizz. The curious thing in your experiment is that the brown seems to arc more. This could be down to uniformity of the potato or the insertion holes.

[@terrybull3798]

I see you have already covered this AC part :) I also thought maybe the green will be removed as fast as it's deposited, so it won't tend to build up on AC, analogous to electroplating vs. rust removal.

[@splitprissm9339]

"Modern" lightbulbs actually do have a fuse like structure in the stem, so they don't trip your breaker or possibly even violently disassemble if an arc gets struck and propagated to the metal supports when the filament eventually breaks....

[@phylum8975]

This is an interesting topic to tackle. Good to see you posting more regularly and congrats on the sponsorship!

[@donbunson5031]

I have seen the light bulb adapter hack before at a customers house. They used their hallway light right next to the attic to extend an attic lighting system down whenever they needed to go in the attic. It only ran a few bulbs and was 60 years old probably.

[@Turnah81]

Yeah cool, I really feel like I have encountered it somewhere once but can't place it. Like...maybe a pendent light extension or something maybe?🤔

[@jamesshelton308]

The light bulb thing is probably based on early home electrical systems where it was fairly common for devices to have a lightbulb screw. You simply removed the bulb from a wall sconce and then screwed in the toaster or whatever you were using.

[@itskarl79]

@@Turnah81 antique electrical wiring was wrapped in strands of some material that would allow for capilliary action as you mentioned.

[@lezbriddon]

I made up the same in 2011, still works lol

[@Iaintwoke]

Years ago they actually made adapters you could plug into a light socket. You could actually buy them.

[@DrivingBritain]

Light socket adapter extension cords were popular all the way up to the 1970 to power things like photo projectors in dark rooms and stuff like that. UK houses usually only had a single wall plug in the kitchen, a double socket in the living room, a double in the main bedroom, and single wall sockets in any other smaller bedrooms.. The light bayonet adapters meant being able to run mains power stuff anywhere there was a light socket - really useful and pretty common, and, in fact, I'm pretty sure you can still buy them!

[@AdityaMehendale]

Instead of twisted wires, use a dish-towel or piece of tissue. Works like a charm!

[@ImRandomDude]

so this is why yesterday youtube recommended to me that "old life hacks" from last year. they knew you were preparing this vid :D

[@h-leath6339]

My grandparents had an outlet like that (medium screw rater than bayonet) in their upstairs bath. It had a lovely brass faceplate with a safety door over the outlet. These were widely used in the early 20th Century. Because paperclips weren't part of every households nursery baby kit people needed a way for toddlers to electrocute themselves and these outlets did nicely.

[@vbcsalinasapologetics1242]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1199">19:59</a> The original style bulbs that this was intended for had a hot center and neutral where the threads are. Those would be screw-in "Edison" bulbs, and not the bayonet mounts as shown.

[@laurdy]

In some places lighting was charged at a lower rate than power i.e. one meter for lights and another for sockets, Italy even went so far as using different voltages for lighting and power 150v / 220v. Also in 1910 a lot of mains supplies only provided DC (Direct current).

[@SandrA-hr5zk]

I can easily find light socket adapters here in the US, and it was something my grandfather used as well. But you'll pretty much only find them around christmas time to plug in string lights to a porch light.

[@ronaldjacobs8169]

That little warning at the beginning is amazing !!!

[@spiderchopproductions8172]

Genuinely unnerved by the extent to which Turnah gives off strong Playschool presenter vibes while missing with mains voltage.

[@djwmunro]

Try a pickle. It’s illuminating 😂

[@VdubSPAZ]

I'm sure you've gotten lots of comments from welders but what is depends on what your welding and what your welding with that will change the flow or the current of your welder like flux core welding you change the polarity versus gas and the same thing with aluminum versus steel because you need to change the polarity for the aluminum as well

[@Stratoliner]

Turnah! You're back! And here I was afraid dingos had done got a hold of ya!

[@Turnah81]

Haha cheers mate. Luckily not many near where I live. Mostly snakes but Pelicans are the ones to watch out for...they swallow whole and leave no evidence💀😆

[@MGamez977]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="67">1:07</a> ah yes “medicine”

[@davelowe1977]

We had christmas decorations with a bayonet fitting so you could only plug them into a lighting circuit which had a relatively small fuse at the distribution board.

[@Morganstein-Railroad]

Regarding the light socket power plug - When I lived in London as a Kid, My Gran had a proprietory made one of these which she used to power her Iron to use it in the kitchen. Never had a problem with it apparently. You can still buy these properly manufactured plugs for the light socket to this day, though it's largely unnecessary in modern times when you have so many power outlets in new build houses.

[@fluffycritter]

Outlet to light socket adapters are fairly common in the US and are often used for things like outdoor remodeling where there's a patio light and no power outlet, but our light sockets have polarity and we're also only on 110V. They're also super not recommended for long-term use but I used to live in an apartment building where an outlet adapter like that was used to power the security camera in the lobby.

[@joseywales6168]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="30">0:30</a> Loki torture device using capillary action (Maybe more twists or a longer tail would have helped, there might not have been enough surface for them to stick to and pull eachother up the wire) <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1157">19:17</a> Love the instant oxidation because of the broken vacuum. The W wire was probably the current limiter in the circuit, and removing that made the next weakest link break...

[@LokiScarletWasHere]

Medicine dropper - Capillary siphon Likely the dripping end needs to be lower than the submerged end, which is why it worked better at full length. Potato - electrolysis. Positive side gets anodized, which for copper just means it rusts faster Bulb adapter - You're using a different bulb type. The picture showed an edison screw, which doesn't have polarity problems. Basically the polarity of a barrel jack.

[@mmorgz6622]

the light adapter, you can buy the bits to make one from bunnings. i made one to plug a bug zapper in on the verandah where we didnt have a power point. i just made note of the active and neutral orientation and marked it on both the adapter and light socket so i wouldnt forget which way it went 😅. now its in my shed using a light socket to run a LED ufo light. not something you really NEED but has been useful to have.

[@gregf4170]

I’m amazed these are still commonly available considering how strict Australia is with electrical products.

[@mmorgz6622]

Well I don't know if they are actually available. I made mine from bitS and pieces for repairing cords that I bought. I can't say I have seen a pre-made adaptor anywhere though

[@JoelKirchartz]

RE: Bulb Adapters ... you used to be able to buy pre-made ones (and can still find some in the USA), they screw into the standard receptical and have an ungrounded plug, but they're illegal in most parts of Europe

[@mjouwbuis]

In The Netherlands we used to have adapters so you could fit two plugs and a lightbulb in a standard light bulb fitting. Indeed illegal now and has been illegal for years.

[@entropy-cat]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1290">21:30</a> "110 years and the anatomy of these plugs hasn't changed too much." Yet I haven't seen this type of lightbulb socket in my life in the US.

[@Turnah81]

Oh yeah the extension lead plug housing hasn't changed much i meant. But yeah these "B22" bayonet sockets are most the most common here. But we also have Edison screw. Some houses end up with a mix of the two (not sure why?) which is annoying when you have a spare that doesn't fit.

[@kimjensen2743]

@@Turnah81 and the Edison is widely used in Europe.

[@somedude9316]

@@Turnah81 reminds me of 1188 brakelight bulbs. push and turn, two contact pads at the end.

[@chubbyadler3276]

For the last tip where they used a light socket as a plug, there were no plugs in 1910, so the only way to connect consumer devices to power was through a light socket. That's just how they did things then. As you can imagine, this meant that often you could either see what you were doing but not be able to use your power tool, or you could use your power tool and not be able to see what you were doing with it. Also, grounds didn't become commonplace until much later, probably close to when your parents were kids.

[@jassenjj]

In my country when electricity was introduced in the houses, it was only used for lighting. In the 30s up to late 50s in homes and schools devices used to be plugged in the light bulb sockets, because there were no power outlets.

[@Muffin_Masher]

I laughed when I saw the black wire on the earth clamp :D and the potato wasn't having any of it :P Most welding is positive Earth, due to how electrons flow FROM what we call negative. Conventional flow is just an acceptance that we were wrong for so long that it was easier to just explain it that way and for the most part doesn't matter.

[@JasonMcCord-qk3yb]

Exactly. As a welder, I of course, know this, and often “reverse” polarity for TIG welding when working with stainless steel or very thin aluminum. Nice catch!

[@Martynjs]

I remember the light socket extensions still being used in the 1960s - especially for clothes irons.

[@710Chri]

I just discovered your channel yesterday and there’s already new content

[@PERTEKofficial]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="830">13:50</a> that actually kinda makes sense when you think about it, a common misconception with DC is that the electrons flow from positive to negative. That sounds like it would make sense intuitively It actually flows the other way around, from negative to positive. What it’s indicating is that negative is where the electrons are subtracted from the power source, and positive is where they’re added back in

[@markkinsler4333]

Nope. Vacuum tubes use negative current, and since all practical electronics during World War II used vacuum tubes, electronics trainees in the military were taught that all current consisted of a flow of negative electrons. This worked well, and we won the war. But electronics came mostly from college physics departments, and to get the calculus-based equations to work, current direction had to be expressed as a flow of positive particles. So if you were college educated, current was positive. But if you were a former military grunt or trade-school graduate your current flow was negative. Thus current polarity became a class barrier. I taught trade-school electronics while I was getting my doctorate in electrical engineering and was acutely aware of the current polarity test for the nobility. I don't have any idea how the conflict was resolved, if it ever was.

[@PERTEKofficial]

@markkinsler4333 this is one of my favorite things about the internet, there’s always more to learn that you were never even aware of. Thank you for sharing Edit: I’d have to assume this conflict never really did get resolved, lol

[@pyro1047]

For future reference, wrap the glass in a cloth or rag first (Such as squares cut from old or cheap T-Shirts, or if people still commonly had them, a handkerchief). This will contain the fragments and slivers of glass exploding everywhere when bluntly smashed like in the video, and you can then simply shake it out in a bin. In addition, glass shatters easier when the force is applied to a finer/smaller point/area. So hitting with the edge of the blunt "Hammer-er" end, or better yet, the corner of the claw nail puller. Random Fun Fact: This is somewhst related to why in some places you can be arrested for having a sparkplug on you... the aluminum oxide ceramic insulator on them can be smashed off and is harder than most tempered glass (Also known as safety glass) or Annealed glass (Regular/standard) windows. In addition, the fragments from shattered ceramic and porcelain are VERY sharp, fine, and pointy. The inclusion of aluminum oxide makes them maintain their sharpness MUCH better i.e. don't dull as quickly; and that hard, pointy sharpness is enough that just yeeting a chunk or even bits (though need to be thrown harder) at the annealed glass breaks them, while the tempered glass typical of car windows shatters them completely, and entirely. This works due to the materiel being harder, and when fragmented creating extremely sharp edges and very fine points (This is also one of the reasons ceramic is used in armor plates, and NERA Tank Armor). Tempered glass while stronger than standard glass also has an Achilles heel: It's *Tempered* (I Know) i.e. it's strength comes from the fact that it's under tension between the middle and outside layers. So once you DO break it juuuuuust enough, it releases ALL that stress and spiderwebs exponentially to the point the WHOLE panes cracked and you can just run a MagLite, bat, Baton, or even wiffle bat around the edges and clear the entire panel/pane of 100 bits of glass pretending to still be a window. And Ceramic and Porcelain shards by being harder than the glass, and very sharp; do just that itty-bitty bit needed to damage it just *Enough*. Even works on Industrial Tempered Glass. Because of this if you live close to an automotive parts store, walk to it for a Sparkplug, and just stick the box in your pocket to hold while walking back; if stopped and discovered by LEO's (Law Enforcement Officers, i.e. Police officers, Sheriffs, Deputies, "Cops", etc), depending on State and Local Laws, that's enough to be arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit Grand Theft Auto or Robbery... It's treated basically the same as carrying around a set of lockpicks, even if you've never intended to use them maliciously; having the "Tools" to do so is all theu need to accuse AND charge you of possibly at some point *Attenpting* it... Luckily not everywhere is New York City or LA.

[@StuffJason437]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1386">23:06</a> / <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1398">23:18</a> : The max amount is usually 100 - 200w and it all depends on the ratings of the light socket.

[@vbcsalinasapologetics1242]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="956">15:56</a> It doesn't work as described with your 240 VAC because the direction of the current flow is constantly reversing. The slight green is from when current flow in neutral to hot. With direct current, the flow is causing a bit of electroplating, and the green comes from the copper, which is plating the metals in the potato. And oxidizing at the same time.

[@not-underscore]

oh god this is like styropyro's "testing weird recipes from an old book" but for electric stuff i love it

[@BG101UK]

Worth noting that some years ago, I bought a travel adapter, which came with an Edison base fitted with a 2-pin outlet for use with it, or a standard US style plug. I have similar (but vintage) bayonet adapters with a lamp-holder and a 2-pin outlet in a "Y" configuration. I've actually used one for Christmas lights which I hung from the picture rails. Via a BC-to-ES too, since most of my fittings are E27 and I was using the ceiling pendant fitting as the power source.

[@1974UTuber]

When I was a kid growing up, i had some of the old Bakelite plug sockets still and we used them throughout the 70's and 80's. My grandfathers old valve radio had one such light socket connection on the end of it and he used to pull the bulb out of the wall lamp to use the wireless

[@kliether33]

Pro tip: Shatter the bulb inside of a paper or plastic bag to contain the shards and prevent ear injuries :D

[@Alex-px9oy]

More of a steelworker hack but to break metal banding use two crescent wrenches next to each other on the band in opposing directions and pull upwards simultaneously

[@ptonpc]

When electricity was new in homes, many devices were powered from the light socket in the room.

[@tookitogo]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="950">15:50</a> The potato absolutely, positively, conclusively _cannot_ and *_does not_* tell you which mains AC wire is line and which is neutral. Whatever effects you saw were due to other factors, like how deep each wire was inserted, how much existing tarnish was on the wire surface, etc. Mains AC changes polarity 50 or 60 times per second, so electrically, the potato *cannot* tell the two wires apart. In fact, AC is used for conductivity measurements precisely because it reduces electrolytic corrosion (the effect leveraged by the potato polarity tester).

[@Turnah81]

Yeah for sure. I was doing the experiment assuming to demonstrate they would be indistinguishable, But wasn't the result I got. I believe it is due to how Aust single phase Neutral wiring is done. But yeah, overall I wont be using a potato for electrical stuff, Chips only.

[@hankwangn]

​@@Turnah81Unless your potato was sitting on a grounded plate (which I doubt), that would not make any difference. Ground is an arbitrary reference potential, like "sea level" for altitude. The electrochemistry around the electrodes only sees the direction of the current (or rather, voltage gradient), not absolute potential. It baffles me why the difference was there with AC. Your UPS could have a DC offset on the voltage.

[@zaprodk]

@@Turnah81 Doesn't make any sense. The potato is electrically floating. If you didn't have the polarized AU plugs, turning the plug would prove this. There can be a bit of tarnish on the two conductors, giving the test a random bias.

[@soundsoflife9549]

@@Turnah81 What is the difference in oscillation between the live and neutral in our 240V AC? This could be making a difference- I don;t know. It might be fun to try and set up other circuits with fruit & veggies: see if you can make an AC/DC converter!

[@mjouwbuis]

@@zaprodk ground is connected to neutral in most wiring systems. If the potato sits on a somewhat conductive surface, the current in the live wire is larger than the current in the neutral wire.

[@ChrisBigBad]

I've seen TV shows in which they used the light-socket in their cells to brew coffee by just pushing lines voltage through two can-lids straight into the water. It seems plausible. You can buy them in outdoor or travel-stores because lots of dorms in FarFarAway will give you light, but for whatever reason no wall sockets. They are pass-trough and spring 2 sockets along the short extension stem.

[@munirlaham]

Nice to see you again

[@Montgomerygolfgator]

Edison screw bulbs are polarized, the tip is live and the screw is neutral. They still sell legitimate UL listed adapters here in the US. I've only seen them used in detached sheds though...

[@borntraveller007]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="530">08:50</a> try and make something to hold the solar panel in place, that small amount of shading at the top reduces output, even some bird 5h1t or a leaf will have the same effect. Do your own tests, there were YT vids showing this. New solar panels might be different? Tech changes all the time, so stand to be corrected if I'm wrong on this 🤷‍♂👍

[@mfbfreak]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1363">22:43</a> the wire inside of the glass pinch is actually meant as a fuse. When a halogen or incandescent lamp burns out, it can draw an arc through the gas filling of the lamp, and cause a hard short circuit. The fuse wire in the lamp prevents this from tripping the house fuse.

[@strehlow]

The active (hot) and neutral are electrically identical from the load's point of view. It is AC that swings back and forth in polarity. That your potato had two uses showing one lead sputtering and the other not was probably chance the first time, and the second based on how the wire surface was damaged by the first time. Why it matters is safety. For Edison base lamps (typical in US), the socket is supposed to go to the neutral (grounded leg) so whether or not the switch is on, it will always be zero volts, so if your fingers touch the lamp base, you won't get a shock. And the switch always goes on the hot side. If you switch the neutral, the device will turn off, but will still have hot components.

[@ranchosdelnorte]

Flux welding and gas welding use different polarities. Welding machines that do both usually have a way to change the polarity, sometimes it's simply swapping places where the two wires hook into, other times they have 2 jumper blades that you configure either horizontally or vertically to get the desired polarity.

[@sambaker3233]

Kiwi here, back when electricity was first coming into use in homes, it was mostly used for lighting. Power sockets didn't exist. Portable appliances like electric kettles and irons slowly became more popular, the only way to plug them in was to use light sockets. In NZ and Australia it was the bayonet socket.

[@R_C420]

The socket-plug adapter was pretty common. Even replacement plugs that have pull out threads existed. Pretty common for wiring up Christmas lights, but even more common back when electricity was just used for light and heat. Convenience came later

[@josh22920killer]

Glad to see you upload! Love your content ❤

[@delboy198]

in the UK the christmas lights used to come with a bayonet fitting for a lamp connector

[@RubenKelevra]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="961">16:01</a> In the beginning, there weren’t any outlets; there were just lamp sockets. So yes, stores would happily sell you something like this because everyone used it. :) Before that, there were even wilder setups, like lamps with two metal prongs on the bottom. The tablecloth would have wires running through it, and you’d simply place the lamp onto the tablecloth to connect it to power. Unsurprisingly, this caused a lot of house fires, which is why it’s no longer allowed. ;)

[@anotherviewofthings]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="240">4:00</a> Maybe the book author meant that the wire is an ordinary insulated wire, not a bare metal wire. That would make perfect sense (and surely work too), as insulation of wires at that time was made out of cloth and that would surely trigger the capillary effect.

[@d.marbus1493]

I grew up in a home with only one socket in the home. Built pre 2nd war or just after. You could buy an adpter to fit in any lamp socket to rum an iron and the adverts where common in the papers at the time.

[@calebcain4729]

First, a minor point.... If you're trying to break glass with a hammer, put it in a bag, so that you don't have to pick up pieces... Now on to the main point: The light-socket hack is clearly for American standards (Or other places that used the same.) For instance, our lightbulbs have a single contact point at the tip and a metal sleeve that screws into the socket. These are the live and neutral, so there's no way to get them mixed up when plugging in. (You'd have to wire to the right one initially, but after that you'd be set.) The other thing that tells me it's American standard is that we only have a live and neutral wire, where you have 2 live wires and a ground. So wiring to a bulb in the USA would work better because you don't lose one of your power wires in the process. We just run everything on 110. (as you probably know, but I mention it here in case any readers don't.) Ever since I was a child I've seen the lightbulb-to-plug adapters in hardware stores. Always 2--prong with no ground plug. (But if you gotta do what you gotta do you buy a grounding adapter, and MIGHT actually attach a ground wire to the tab for safety.) The Aus standard is definitely superior in a lot of ways, so I wouldn't feel bad about it if I were you, but for this hack to work to its full potential you really need American electrical parts.

[@7thDayAdventures]

Next time you need to break glass, try something harder than glass instead of a soft mild steel hammer. You could break off the ceramic from a spark plug and throw it at a car window to shatter it much easier than using the hammer to break the window, for example. A cuticle scraper or high carbon steel knife would work much better.

[@cp00078]

Enjoying the video, then I saw he used Ryobi tools and my heart sank. Poor kids these days with their crappy tools

[@markkinsler4333]

If you look at pre-1930 catalogs they show electrical appliances with power plugs identical to the base of a screw-in light bulb. My mother had extension cords for our vacuum cleaner that were so equipped. Old-time 'convenience' wall receptacles contained two female Edison screw-in sockets, each with its own screw-on safety cap. Also remember that your average homeowner from 1924 to perhaps 1970 was pretty competent and could install and repair lighting and plumbing as well as auto repair and light-to-moderate carpentry. There were manuals for everything and magazines devoted to home and auto repair. They used to teach this material in every high school. Then came a change fueled by de-industrialization, and school shops were turned into computer labs (the profession of the future!) and all the tools were sold off. Hence the average bicycle rider is instructed to have his bike "tuned up" periodically, something that any 11-year-old kid of the 1950's could have done in an afternoon.

[@charleswieand4445]

We had hot dog cooker in 1960s that cooked with 110. Had a brand new one in box but over years box got damaged.

[@grumpyhale821]

The wire as siphon thing in the first clip works but you have to have the fluid almost over spilling.

[@wskinnyodden]

You need the materials of the period, for the dripping bottle it will work because the old timey electrical wires had a cloth cover on the outside.

[@zaprodk]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1362">22:42</a> many bulb bases actually have a simple fuse to avoid the bulb to blow the mains fuses when eventually the bulb goes end-of-life and goes POP.

[@Turnah81]

It makes sense and did appear that way. I guess It also means if i twist the bulb stems together and solder the contacts in series with something on 12volt I have a makeshift fuse...of unknown amps 😅

[@zaprodk]

@@Turnah81 Yep. But I wouldn't recommend that. Could be "sparkly" under the right circumstances :D

[@TCHorwood-xq7mw]

I don't often subscribe on the first video but you're an exception. Looking forward to more videos.

[@clairmorrill8660]

In the USA we don't use bayonet sockets for our light bulbs, the tip is the neutral and the outer screw in shell is the hot

[@philipheels822]

In the suburbs of Melbourne during1950's Mom used a double adapter bayonet style fitting in the Kitchen Light socket to power her electric iron. These were used in older homes where not as many wall sockets were provided.

[@NathanNostaw]

Mig polarity depends on gas or gasless welding setup.

[@Maxid1]

I worked for the phone company for years (decades) and I indeed carried a banana in my tool belt (Nope, not code for anything) it worked the same way but tasted better. But honestly, only on halloween. I wore nose mustache glasses as well. But those I wore all the time... I worked in San Francisco and even the crazy people were wary of me when I wore them.

[@joshm3342]

The medicine dropper may have failed because of the relative thickness of the wire in relation to the surface tension of the liquid. Try thicker medicine and/or thinner wire, and it may actually work.

[@Turnah81]

Yeah I might have to revisit this one I'm thinking softer metals too like copper maybe.

[@perkins1439]

The white bubbles indicate faster on the ground

[@pauldrice1996]

Also I'm pretty sure in the 20's grounding was not a thing. You also had fuses instead of breakers and certainly had no GFCI or arcfault.

[@JWarren-iu4qe]

Enjoyable. Thanks

[@ExploringNew1]

Yous potato turning green is a positive sign, literally

[@TriforceOfCourage97]

welding works by "grounding out" a voltage. so of course the trigger is the negative.

[@Trindal]

The bulb adapters are still around. I just came across one at the hardware store (Lowe’s).

[@zaprodk]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1188">19:48</a> the polarity of AC doesn't matter in any way, except for very special cases with old equipment that relies on the fact to be safe for the user. Today any appliance running on mains power will effectively be floating and have the same potential from hot or neutral to ground.

[@marchurnik]

in Germany the lamp holder socket or cable has the nice name Stromdieb (electricity thief). The payment for electricity was calculated by number of bulbs in rented flats and not measured in the 1910th. No wall sockets for electric mashinery in private homes. Even until the 50th you will find pictures of adapters with cable or socket between lamp bulb. I remember a picture of a housewife with an electric iron at the kitchen table under a single bulb and a electric thief.

[@warpey5632]

I think the reason the potato can show polarity is because the current breaks down the water in the potato into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis. Hydrogen gas forms at the negative terminal where it bubbles out and oxygen at the positive terminal reacts with the copper wire to form green copper oxide.

[@blackoak4978]

That lightbulb hack might be a decent fuse 😄😄😄

[@StephenMcGregor1986]

awesome, reminds me of Styro Pyro checking out that old 1933 chemistry book

[@jeremyboyce7921]

I think Craig would make a great and entertaining contestant on the next season of Taskmaster Australia.