@phendrick Never heard that; I will start using it. Was just thinking we are still in the pandemic thing that started the decade. And now with these things seeming to not end, perhaps the decade of the 2020s will become the “pandemecade”
@robmehrob I used this same power strip on my first cruise since 2018 and it worked great. Got Covid but that had nothing to do with the power strip. Definite recommend.
@robmehrob Cruise ships don’t allow power strips with surge protection as they are considered a potential fire hazard. I don’t understand what makes a protected power strip more of a fire hazard than a non-surge protected one, but that’s the rules on pretty much every line out there.
@robmehrob Some surge protectors are fire hazards; their thyristors get really hot and cause the plastic housing to catch fire under some overload conditions. Since fires aboard ships are deadly, and since the cruise lines literally cannot keep a database of which ones are not safe, they default to assuming that all of them are potentially unsafe. And since too many power strips have surge protection thyristors without so stating on the housing, they ban power strips in general. I have an inquiry in with Royal Caribbean about these specific ones; we’ll see what they have to say.
“3 outlets and 4 USB ports
And you get 2 of them, so that’s 12 outlets and 39 USB ports total!”
I dont know if i’m missing a joke, but that’s not how math works meh.
Edit: like legit im confused as to whether thats a joke or if its a 2 pack of 2, which would be 4 in total. which would in turn make sense for the 12 outlets but not the 39 USB ports
If its a 2 pack of 2 I’d buy it but i really doubt it is so i’ll pass
Extra edit: fuck it was a joke I just saw the “wait did we do the math wrong?”
@cengland0 That’s not a power strip, that’s on a wall. Apparently they really need to show you that these strips will, in fact, plug into a standard outlet.
@cengland0@GeckoD@kus Or legitimately, that you CAN plug it into another power strip/adapter that may have surge protection. Because the old rule was that you’re not supposed to plug one surge protection thing into another, but most of us do it all the time, so not sure that’s a real thing (unless you take it on cruise ships, apparently…) Also things downstream of a UPS I have similar rules.
@baqui63@Mpulse7@ponagathos Except that in this case they sold “no surge protection” as a feature. Kind of like in the old days, the “automatic transmission” was a big extra cost and most people didn’t pay for it, and now if you actually want a stick-shift, if you can find one at all, it will be only with the special sport performance option for $20K more.
@ohhwell cruise ship passengers … who can’t just fucking relax (see @ACustomer post a few lines up). You’re on a cruise with shitty buffets and $15 margaritas but you’re supposed to be enjoying yourself, not checking work email and watching TikTok! So you shouldn’t need 8 devices plugged in to the one outlet in your crappy inside stateroom. (do they even have those anymore?)
@ACustomer@pmarin lol, I believe it is perhaps you that could stand to relax. Cruise ship daily itineries and menus are on their apps now. USB fans and electronic book readers exist. Some folk have medical equipment that needs power.
Why are you so bent out of shape that people would want to spend their vacations that they paid their money for? Lol. Get a grip.
@ohhwell I think your are overreacting to my intentional overreaction which was prompted by new (profile hidden) user @ACustomer scolding people for language. So I intentionally yelled curse words because if you read a few posts up, that was a big topic with many sarcastic responses.
But yes, I was also commenting on how dependent we have become on various “devices” for distraction and entertainment, instead of, um, looking out the window or reading a printed book. I too am guilty of checking internet sites and work email while on vacation, but I long for the days before that was even a thing so nobody missed it.
EDIT and you are right about medical devices, I know several people that use CPAPs, and they can be life-preserving devices, though they did not exist in this form in those “good old days” and many people had worse health or died. So, yes, sometimes the new devices are good.
@ACustomer@pmarin well, that was something of a lost reference to me about AC customer…
Also, my underwater cameras all charge by USB now. I bought a USB chargeable travel iron but it was pretty much useless. Travel router SO I can get ship WIFI out on the balcony: USB powered.
And yeah, if I want to pop on discord and see what some friends are up to while waiting for a show or something, so be it.
9ne new trend that I really don’t like is people cranking Bluetooth speakers at the pool…
Oh and read a paper book? No thanks. I am getting old and I would rather increase the font than wear reading glasses, never mind having dozens of books in a small device, built in light and no need for bookmarks…
The document uses technical words in unusual ways. Here are translations:
A “surge protector” is a device with a circuit breaker. In this usage, it doesn’t matter if it provides protection against surges.
A “wye wired” circuit is a standard single phase 120v outlet with a single hot wire like we use here on land. This usage is not related to a common type of 3-phase power circuits as used on land.
A “delta wired” circuit is a cruise ship style split phase 120v circuit. There is a 120v between “hot” and “neutral” just like on shore. Unlike on shore, it is split into two 60v halves. There is 60v between “hot” and ground, and another 60v between “neutral” and ground. This usage of “delta wired” is not related to the other common style of 3-phase power circuits used on land.
So the cruise ship “neutral” is actually 60v away from ground with more than enough power to start a fire.
@hamjudo Eeep! There are older electronic devices whose circuitry assumes that the ground lug and the “cold” lug of a standard household device are equivalent and safely connectable; if the cruise ship socket is really doing a 60/60 delta, that’s going to make more hazards than I want to think about. I hope their termination sockets have really fast breakers to cut both legs when such a device is plugged in.
@hamjudo That is interesting. I’d always wondered about why this was a thing, and have some electrical background so it bothered me that I didn’t know how it actually caused problems.
On that topic I had a house with “3-phase wild leg” which sounds kind-of kinky, but it was thing in the 60s when everything was all-electric and there was abundant hydro-power in the Northwest. (Before the Enron days where they figured out they could sell it to California for 2x the price and make us use Natural Gas plants instead of the power from 25 miles away). But anyway I digress… I never needed the 3-phase because it was not connected to anything when I moved in in 2000, but I think originally the electric central heating and AC used it.
EDIT just looked up on wikipedia and yes it is a thing (the wild-leg). I love some of the other names for it too: High-leg delta (also known as wild-leg, stinger leg, bastard leg, high-leg, orange-leg, red-leg, dog-leg delta) is a type of electrical service connection for three-phase electric power installations.
Not exactly the same as the cruise ship thing, but related.
@werehatrack A GFCI will trip if the current through the hot and neutral differ by more than 5mA. For example, if an electrical device has ground and neutral shorted it will trip the GFCI when it draws more than a watt.
If an electrical device works when plugged into a bathroom outlet on shore, it should be able to handle cruise ship wiring.
We use these in a vacation rental house to try and KEEP PEOPLE FROM MOVING THE FURNITURE AROUND TRYING TO PLUG STUFF IN. Whew…I need a vacation. In for 6.
Let’s see now. With tax + shipping at Meh, versus same at the 'Zon (minus free shipping and Prime CC rebate), I could save $2.07. Of course, one choice arrives in 2 or 3 weeks, versus the other in… TODAY.
Let me think…
Specs
2-Pack: One Beat Power Strip with 3 Outlets and 4 USB Ports
Model: TH-US03U
Condition: New
• Compact, lightweight, easy to carry, and portable
• Designed with an upgraded flat braided cord
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$30.99 on Amazon
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Standard: Monday, Aug 15 - Thursday, Aug 18.
Enhanced: Friday, Aug 12 - Monday, Aug 15.
And the beat goes on…
USB-A ports
Lol that’s cute
@thechinglish Make USA Great Again?
I think meh is just that at math skills…
New house could use some extra outlets!
/giphy idiotic-bodacious-house
/buy
@baqui63 It worked! Your order number is: striped-fluctuating-trapper
/image striped fluctuating trapper
@baqui63 @mediocrebot What @Koolhandjoe could do with that!
So no help against the coming Monkeypoxalipse?
@phendrick Never heard that; I will start using it. Was just thinking we are still in the pandemic thing that started the decade. And now with these things seeming to not end, perhaps the decade of the 2020s will become the “pandemecade”
/giphy childish-rusty-shade
So, the no surge protection is good for cruise ships?
@robmehrob I used this same power strip on my first cruise since 2018 and it worked great. Got Covid but that had nothing to do with the power strip. Definite recommend.
@robmehrob Cruise ships don’t allow power strips with surge protection as they are considered a potential fire hazard. I don’t understand what makes a protected power strip more of a fire hazard than a non-surge protected one, but that’s the rules on pretty much every line out there.
@robmehrob Yes, apparently surge protectors do not play well with whatever method they use to generate power.
@robmehrob This is actually pretty interesting: https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/TVNCOE/Documents/SafetyAlerts/SurgeProtectiveDevices.pdf
@robmehrob Some surge protectors are fire hazards; their thyristors get really hot and cause the plastic housing to catch fire under some overload conditions. Since fires aboard ships are deadly, and since the cruise lines literally cannot keep a database of which ones are not safe, they default to assuming that all of them are potentially unsafe. And since too many power strips have surge protection thyristors without so stating on the housing, they ban power strips in general. I have an inquiry in with Royal Caribbean about these specific ones; we’ll see what they have to say.
“3 outlets and 4 USB ports
And you get 2 of them, so that’s 12 outlets and 39 USB ports total!”
I dont know if i’m missing a joke, but that’s not how math works meh.
Edit: like legit im confused as to whether thats a joke or if its a 2 pack of 2, which would be 4 in total. which would in turn make sense for the 12 outlets but not the 39 USB ports
If its a 2 pack of 2 I’d buy it but i really doubt it is so i’ll pass
Extra edit: fuck it was a joke I just saw the “wait did we do the math wrong?”
fml.
@Vitanima I was confused too!
The “12 outlets” is being changed so it’ll no longer look like you may be getting 4.
The fourth image does not match the rest of the images. It only shows two USB ports.
@cengland0 That one is doing the old “Plug one power strip into another power strip” trick. What could go wrong?
@cengland0 That’s not a power strip, that’s on a wall. Apparently they really need to show you that these strips will, in fact, plug into a standard outlet.
@cengland0 @GeckoD maybe someone said make sure customers know we also sell those things that go on the wall?
@cengland0 @GeckoD @kus Or legitimately, that you CAN plug it into another power strip/adapter that may have surge protection. Because the old rule was that you’re not supposed to plug one surge protection thing into another, but most of us do it all the time, so not sure that’s a real thing (unless you take it on cruise ships, apparently…) Also things downstream of a UPS I have similar rules.
Only $5 difference between Amazon’s 12% off coupon price, so pass.
@Mpulse7 so, presuming you want/need these, I don’t understand, unless you’re just whining… You’d rather not get them and risk paying more?
@baqui63 Whining? Meh discounts are usually more substantial. Just an observation and a heads up to anyone thinking this a great deal.
@baqui63 @Mpulse7 Yes, surge protection and maybe a USB 3.0 port might make it a good deal at this price.
@baqui63 @Mpulse7 @ponagathos Except that in this case they sold “no surge protection” as a feature. Kind of like in the old days, the “automatic transmission” was a big extra cost and most people didn’t pay for it, and now if you actually want a stick-shift, if you can find one at all, it will be only with the special sport performance option for $20K more.
@pmarin This shirt just caught my eye on Woot:
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/get-your-shift-together
Paid full freight for a pair of these last month, so I’m a little bit bitter. I do like them and would recommend them as well-made.
@accumulator buy these and use them to return to the other store?
NO SURGE PROTECTION? I had my hopes up, to stop him from coming around again.
@hchavers I think you’re looking for Serge protection. Buy a gun.
@hchavers @Trinityscrew
No need for a gun, just put out a doormat that clashes with the decor on the rest of the house.
@hchavers @Trinityscrew @werehatrack
/image 48 hours Serge espresso
@hchavers @pmarin @Trinityscrew @werehatrack Except that is Beverly Hills cop and not 48 Hours.
/giphy facepalm
Way to go potty mouth. You are the best example of a small mind attempting to be “cute”; but knows only four letter words.
@ACustomer Wow! What the fuck was that?
@ACustomer @kc5rbq No fucking idea.
@ACustomer This forum needs a downvote button…excuse me, a fucking downvote button.
@ACustomer I’m going to skip fuck and say anal leakage. Just to be different.
@ACustomer Is the ‘fuck’ meter broken?
@ACustomer @rpstrong Don’t know if the fuck meter is broken or not but @carl669 would likely know as he is the overseer of the fucks.
@ACustomer @carl669 @Kidsandliz @rpstrong
@carl669 @Kidsandliz @rpstrong
Seems pretty typical of this username’s eloquence.
So… underpowered. You’d be better off buying a usb hub and plugging it into one of the included outlets.
This is mostly useful for cruise ship passengers.
@ohhwell cruise ship passengers … who can’t just fucking relax (see @ACustomer post a few lines up). You’re on a cruise with shitty buffets and $15 margaritas but you’re supposed to be enjoying yourself, not checking work email and watching TikTok! So you shouldn’t need 8 devices plugged in to the one outlet in your crappy inside stateroom. (do they even have those anymore?)
@ACustomer @pmarin lol, I believe it is perhaps you that could stand to relax. Cruise ship daily itineries and menus are on their apps now. USB fans and electronic book readers exist. Some folk have medical equipment that needs power.
Why are you so bent out of shape that people would want to spend their vacations that they paid their money for? Lol. Get a grip.
@ohhwell I think your are overreacting to my intentional overreaction which was prompted by new (profile hidden) user @ACustomer scolding people for language. So I intentionally yelled curse words because if you read a few posts up, that was a big topic with many sarcastic responses.
But yes, I was also commenting on how dependent we have become on various “devices” for distraction and entertainment, instead of, um, looking out the window or reading a printed book. I too am guilty of checking internet sites and work email while on vacation, but I long for the days before that was even a thing so nobody missed it.
EDIT and you are right about medical devices, I know several people that use CPAPs, and they can be life-preserving devices, though they did not exist in this form in those “good old days” and many people had worse health or died. So, yes, sometimes the new devices are good.
@ACustomer @pmarin well, that was something of a lost reference to me about AC customer…
Also, my underwater cameras all charge by USB now. I bought a USB chargeable travel iron but it was pretty much useless. Travel router SO I can get ship WIFI out on the balcony: USB powered.
And yeah, if I want to pop on discord and see what some friends are up to while waiting for a show or something, so be it.
9ne new trend that I really don’t like is people cranking Bluetooth speakers at the pool…
Oh and read a paper book? No thanks. I am getting old and I would rather increase the font than wear reading glasses, never mind having dozens of books in a small device, built in light and no need for bookmarks…
I found a Coast Guard explanation of how “surge protectors” were involved in two fires on cruise ships.
https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/TVNCOE/Documents/SafetyAlerts/SurgeProtectiveDevices.pdf
The document uses technical words in unusual ways. Here are translations:
A “surge protector” is a device with a circuit breaker. In this usage, it doesn’t matter if it provides protection against surges.
A “wye wired” circuit is a standard single phase 120v outlet with a single hot wire like we use here on land. This usage is not related to a common type of 3-phase power circuits as used on land.
A “delta wired” circuit is a cruise ship style split phase 120v circuit. There is a 120v between “hot” and “neutral” just like on shore. Unlike on shore, it is split into two 60v halves. There is 60v between “hot” and ground, and another 60v between “neutral” and ground. This usage of “delta wired” is not related to the other common style of 3-phase power circuits used on land.
So the cruise ship “neutral” is actually 60v away from ground with more than enough power to start a fire.
@hamjudo I’m not interested enough to read the whole thing, but thanks for doing the research.
@hamjudo Got it - interesting, thanks for the explanation.
@hamjudo Eeep! There are older electronic devices whose circuitry assumes that the ground lug and the “cold” lug of a standard household device are equivalent and safely connectable; if the cruise ship socket is really doing a 60/60 delta, that’s going to make more hazards than I want to think about. I hope their termination sockets have really fast breakers to cut both legs when such a device is plugged in.
@hamjudo That is interesting. I’d always wondered about why this was a thing, and have some electrical background so it bothered me that I didn’t know how it actually caused problems.
On that topic I had a house with “3-phase wild leg” which sounds kind-of kinky, but it was thing in the 60s when everything was all-electric and there was abundant hydro-power in the Northwest. (Before the Enron days where they figured out they could sell it to California for 2x the price and make us use Natural Gas plants instead of the power from 25 miles away). But anyway I digress… I never needed the 3-phase because it was not connected to anything when I moved in in 2000, but I think originally the electric central heating and AC used it.
EDIT just looked up on wikipedia and yes it is a thing (the wild-leg). I love some of the other names for it too:
High-leg delta (also known as wild-leg, stinger leg, bastard leg, high-leg, orange-leg, red-leg, dog-leg delta) is a type of electrical service connection for three-phase electric power installations.
Not exactly the same as the cruise ship thing, but related.
@werehatrack A GFCI will trip if the current through the hot and neutral differ by more than 5mA. For example, if an electrical device has ground and neutral shorted it will trip the GFCI when it draws more than a watt.
If an electrical device works when plugged into a bathroom outlet on shore, it should be able to handle cruise ship wiring.
We use these in a vacation rental house to try and KEEP PEOPLE FROM MOVING THE FURNITURE AROUND TRYING TO PLUG STUFF IN. Whew…I need a vacation. In for 6.
@rustyh3 Lets hope they stay in your rental house.
New name for Meh: Cords & Chargers & Plugs & Things
@srbuwsnyc Or perhaps:
Cords & Chargers & Plugs - Oh Meh!
@macromeh
I have one of these that has three USB-A and one USB-C port. If these were that I’d be all over it. They’re great.
I don’t want the power strips, but I really liked the werewolf story.
Let’s see now. With tax + shipping at Meh, versus same at the 'Zon (minus free shipping and Prime CC rebate), I could save $2.07. Of course, one choice arrives in 2 or 3 weeks, versus the other in… TODAY.
Let me think…
Forget the power strips–I want the electric dog whistle of madness. For a friend.
@fogey2017 I think there are some TV channels for that…
/giphy jovial-exuberant-blackberry
Damn - it’s paused.
Now I know I want one.