help with male vampire plugs

[ainsworth]

Does anyone sell male vampire plugs that have both spades the same size like on the light strings?

I want to drive two different elements separated by about 40' with the same LOR channels. I can use the male light string socket on one of the extension cords, but the female socket on the light strings has slots that are the same size, and the male vampire plugs I have one big spade and I can't plug them in.

any and all help much appreciated! The only option I have thought of so far is to hard wire the 2 extension cords together. I would much rather have plugs.

Thanks
Bruce

[captainron19]

I ran into the same problem.... making small 2 foot ext cords to attch my windows lights together (rather than having lights in between the windows)

After asking around I was told to take a good pair of snippers and snip off a small portion of the polarized end on the male vampire plug or run it through a grinder.

The important thing to remember is not to use that cord for anything else int he future that requires a polarized plug (one end of male is thicker)

Some people will say you can try to "squeeze" it into the non polarized female end but I just plan on shaving mine down.

[Dave Batzdorf]

IMO - file down the neutral (wider lug) to make them fit, but identify it so you don't use it instead of a polarized cord. I also make with a silver sharpie the neutral side just in case I do want to use it else where. Things are polarized for a reason - safety. In the hobby (obsession) we often bend the regs a bit to make it work. But remember - SAFETY DOES COME FIRST.

[Guest guest]

I cut mine down as well. As for those idiotic "polarized" plugs. I personally call them a waste of metal and time. ~AC~ current is alternating between the two poles and these idiotic polarized plugs are still fairly new to the market.

Never had such a thing when I was growing up, you just plugged in the appliance or the "grounded cord" in a grounded socket and that was that. I see absolutely no use or reason for ~AC~ to have a POLARIZED PLUG period. DC on the other hand having a + and -, that I could see being polarized or using a Full Wave Diode Bridge as a "wrong way" battery protector to keep from messing something up by putting batteries in the unit in reverse.

But, ~AC~?, well, no one can convince me as to why a LAMP or any other ~AC~ powered appliance requires a polarized plug. I don't keep track of that when I built my cords using standard Christmas light string plugs and I use these for other things and I have yet to see any issues with any of them or items being plugged into them.

It's just a stupid method for making plugging things in more of a dadburn nusiance than anything else. I've even found some extension cords in stores that are still not polarized. I just can't see the big deal or reason for the "polarization" of ~AC~ powered items.

[gizmomkr]

I agree - with the saftey part , and the filing down / grinding. . IF you want to buy it :

http://www.aachristmas.com/vpasp/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=90

You want the non-polarized male plug for SPT .


As for Orville :

I have several "touch dimming" plates on several lights. I noted that when wired in reverse, (hot neutral) they dont work. I also had similar problem with a motion light.

It is anoying, but polarity has its place. And a much bigger issue when we break into multi phase wiring.

[ErnieHorning]

Those polarized plugs do have a purpose with certain appliances but I can’t think of one single instance that it makes a Christmas display safer. Its 120 volts, don’t $%$^ touch it and don’t leave it exposed!

I’m sure it’s a liability issue since they have no idea how you’re going to use it. The wide side is supposed to be connected to neutral which has zero volts on it. The neutral side is connected to anything that has a metal case. If the polarity got flipped around, it would have 120 volts on it. If you were to touch that case and something else that was plugged in the right way, you’d get zapped. Maybe you’re standing barefoot on concrete, it’s conductive to ground and again, you’d get zapped.

In a Christmas display, I grind them down if I need to plug something into a non-polarized socket. I also have several adaptor plugs that are meant to adapt an old non-polarized wall outlet to a grounded 3-prong plug. I either snip or bend the tab that’s supposed to go to the wall plate screw.

The polarized plugs are a pain in the butt though I think they’re required to get UL approval. Makes sense sometimes and sometimes not.

[R Weiland]

Orville wrote:

~AC~ current is alternating between the two poles...

Orville; I am not sure what you mean by saying it alternates between the two poles? Are you refering to the two prongs on the plug? If you are, 120VAC does not work that way! It DOES NOT ALTERNATE BETWEEN THE TWO PRONGS. Its called AC because the voltage waveform alternates through zero.

One prong of the plug is refered to as HOT and the other is refered to as NUETRAL, and for good reason. Only the HOT supplies the voltage, the nuetral is the return which completes the circuit. In your breaker panel the nuetral and the ground are bonded together. The reason you want a polarized plug on say a lamp is so the metal base of the bulb is not tied to the hot, reduces the chance of getting a shock from accidentally touching the base of the bulb and some other grounded object. The lamp switch is single pole and is expecting to open and close the hot leg. Also if you use GFCIs you need to get this right or they won't work.

[-klb-]

The stupid part of polarized plugs, is calling them polarized. This leads to people thinking polarity, when the real separation is hot vs neutral.

On a device with a power switch, that switch should always be in the hot leg, to minimize what is energized when the appliance is off. For example, most people are comfortable changing light bulbs with the power switch off. If neutral was switched, any contact with either side of the socket while the fixture was off would result in exposure to 120V.

For C7 & C9 strings, if you have polarization correct, and you are changing bulbs with the string on, you are unlikely to accidentally come into contact with 120V, as the hot lead is supposed to be the center contact. As soon as you start unscrewing the bulb, that breaks contact. By the time the contact for the screw thread breaks contact, you may already be able to touch it, but because it is a neutral, it won't bite. Get the polarization incorrect, and that same case can bite..

For LOR controllers, especially if using LED, having hot and neutral correct is rather important. They are designed to be switching the hot leads. Getting the inlet backwards results in switched neutrals, and all of your off lamps and cord ends turn out to be hot, with opportunities for shocks while setting up cords. And for the LED strings, especially when wet, there may be enough capacitive coupling to ground through the strings to light them up, just having hot applied to either lead... So you can see the bulbs lit when off, if the polarity to the controller is backwards.

[ainsworth]

Thanks to everyone. I looked at the link gizomkr provided (thank you so much!), but at the cost I will just splice my extension cords. I tried grinding down one of the plugs and the plastic melted. I could go slower and make sure it doesn't get hot, but that would take forever because I have so many to do. I tried sheers but I couldn't get close enough to the end to get it to plug all the way in.

I really appreciate everyone responding.

Thanks again

[gizmomkr]

Oh yeah - your welcome. we forgot all about you. Everyone was having so much fun talking about how AC power works, and what the right word is, sine waves....

Im reminded of a bumper sticker we had when I worked at an engineering plant:

"There comes a time in every project when you must shoot the engineer and get on with the project "

I'm going outside to hook up more controllers.

[Terry Hurrle]

I posted in another area last night about a controller not working. It is kicking the gfci. I will go out to day and disconnect all the lights and elements that go to it. I was thinking maybe the polarity on one of the the cords I made ( or more than one) may be wrong. Would this cause the gfci to trip? I am hoping it is something that simple.
Thanks
Terry

[-klb-]

One thought back to the original post. This is a great reason to keep old light strings. Peel the lights out, insulate the ends where the lights were disconnected, and you have a nice light gauge non polarized extension cord, with built in fuses...

[Guest guest]

R Weiland wrote:

Orville wrote:

~AC~ current is alternating between the two poles...

Orville; I am not sure what you mean by saying it alternates between the two poles? Are you refering to the two prongs on the plug? If you are, 120VAC does not work that way! It DOES NOT ALTERNATE BETWEEN THE TWO PRONGS. Its called AC because the voltage waveform alternates through zero.

One prong of the plug is refered to as HOT and the other is refered to as NUETRAL, and for good reason. Only the HOT supplies the voltage, the nuetral is the return which completes the circuit. In your breaker panel the nuetral and the ground are bonded together. The reason you want a polarized plug on say a lamp is so the metal base of the bulb is not tied to the hot, reduces the chance of getting a shock from accidentally touching the base of the bulb and some other grounded object. The lamp switch is single pole and is expecting to open and close the hot leg. Also if you use GFCIs you need to get this right or they won't work.

No I wasn't referring to the two prongs on the plug or the outlet.

When I installed GFCI's, actually replaced the old NON-GFCI outlets outside, I wired them EXACTLY as the wires were taken off the outlet, should work right? Well, the GFCI has a nifty little light that lit and said it was wired incorrectly! WTH? How could that be, I removed one wire at a time, put it on the same outlet screw on the GFCI it came off of, but it didn't work (I also diagramed it so I'd be sure it was wired EXACTLY like the old outlet), come to find out this entire freaking house we live in is wired topsy-turvy, some outlets are correctly wired, others are REVERSED! I'm surprised that anything could work around here. It's NOT my house but my late mother in laws and after Christmas we plan on being out of here. Back to the GFCI, when I swapped the two wires, then it worked fine. I still have not checked all the outlets in this house due to some are blocked with furniture or other things, and since I don't own the place and we'll be moving out of here, I'm not fixing any more of them! They can stay as is and someone else can have the headache of finding which outlets are reversed. I've already repaired enough of them as it is, for all I know the wiring coming off the breaker box is possibly reversed in some locations, I just don't know. Just know my late M-i-L replaced the breaker box about 3-4 years before her passing away in 2009. So whomever she hired must have been a real idiot because I've never seen any place I've ever lived be this screwed up in the electrical service.

BTW: My late father was an electrician, as was my late granddad and many other relatives, so I AM familiar with electricity, more so than some.

BTW2: I have a touch lamp, if it's plugged in either way(it also does not have a polarized plug), have never gotten zapped from it. The only zap it's ever given me is in the winter months when it's cold and static charges build up. Other than that, I've never had any issues with "touch plates or touch lamps" either. I'd think if the polarization was something that was definitely required, I'd get more of hard zap than just a slight static tingle from these metal touch on/dimmer items, and believe me I know the difference, I've been zapped by 120v in the past and (excuse the pun) but it's a very charging experience!

[Guest guest]

EDITED and DELETED - DOUBLE POSTING....UGH!

[Guest guest]

-klb- wrote:

One thought back to the original post. This is a great reason to keep old light strings. Peel the lights out, insulate the ends where the lights were disconnected, and you have a nice light gauge non polarized extension cord, with built in fuses...

That's what I did with ALL my old NON working incandescent strings, scavaged the male (fused) plug and the female ends and used zip cord or lamp cord in between to make my cords. Never had any GFCI trips or breaker trips, have had one or two of the fuses blow, which actually, in my opinion works a whole lot better than non-fused extension cords! Haven't blown any controllers, light strings or props using the "fused" cords. And I usually add one of these "fused" cords, a very short 1"-3" in front of the non-fused extension cords, but not always.

[JBullard]

Terry Hurrle wrote:

I posted in another area last night about a controller not working. It is kicking the gfci. I will go out to day and disconnect all the lights and elements that go to it. I was thinking maybe the polarity on one of the the cords I made ( or more than one) may be wrong. Would this cause the gfci to trip? I am hoping it is something that simple.
Thanks
Terry

It very well could cause the GFCI to trip. In my opinion using polarized plugs and GFCIs is vvery important, although some may disagree.

[PaulXmas]

Terry Hurrle wrote:

I posted in another area last night about a controller not working. It is kicking the gfci. I will go out to day and disconnect all the lights and elements that go to it. I was thinking maybe the polarity on one of the the cords I made ( or more than one) may be wrong. Would this cause the gfci to trip? I am hoping it is something that simple.
Thanks
Terry

I when through over 1250 feet of SPT 2 this year and used a multi meter on each one just to be sure and because I would forget what side the rib should be on.