• Bob (unregistered)

    I don't know, this story just left me cold.

  • Registered (unregistered)

    My frist thought was "a 10 KW refrigerator?" Remember that the UPS was supposed to have way more capacity than theoretically needed. That extra power should have been enough to handle motor startup current. But perhaps it was stymied by the inductive nature of the startup load.

  • Early Bird (unregistered) in reply to Registered

    I would guess that it has to do with the high load AND the extension cord. I've heard stories of people with electric vehicles but no garage. So they grab a long extension cord and run it out to the car. I don't remember the reasons why, but I remember reading that it doesn't work well.

  • Ross Presser (unregistered)

    This isn't CodeSOD.

  • Pabz (unregistered)

    Someone may already have posted this because there are several comments held for moderation above, but shouldn't this have been posted in Feature Articles rather than CodeSOD?

  • Gargravarr (unregistered)

    I discovered when I tried to run my fridge and freezer off a spare 1000VA UPS - the continuous draw may be only ~300W for a domestic unit and comfortably within the unit's capabilities, but the startup current of the compressor (without a 'soft start' unit) can be twice that or more. And the planetary alignment when both fridge and freezer start together would overload the UPS. Thankfully I noticed before anything spoiled.

  • Gargravarr (unregistered) in reply to Early Bird

    Any electrical cable has a resistance. Adding resistance causes the voltage to drop. Longer cables mean more resistance. So it's easily possible for a long enough extension cable to cause a 10 or 20V drop by the time the car is plugged in, and the charger cannot deal with that. Additionally, the amps that a car charger would pull even on a slow charge would probably melt a household extension cable - resistance also causes a heating effect when load is applied.

  • Deeseearr (unregistered) in reply to Early Bird

    Extension cords, particularly the cheap, thin, indoor ones, aren't very efficient and if you try to run anything more demanding than a lamp through them they will lose a lot of power as heat. It gets even worse if the cord is "conveniently" tucked under a carpet or has the excess coiled up tightly in a corner. The problem isn't usually a loss of power on the far end, but rather the unexpected fire in between.

  • Sauron (unregistered)

    What The Fridge!

  • LZ79LRU (unregistered) in reply to Deeseearr

    I am pretty sure that the fire is quite expected and that the problem is the stupid user who didn't. xD

  • (nodebb) in reply to Ross Presser

    What is CodeSOD, anyway? I never figured out what the "SOD" part was, so I always think of it as "Some sod writing sodding code which makes it in here"...

  • Quinn (unregistered) in reply to The Beast in Black

    SOD is short for Snippet Of the Day. It looks like the post has been moved to feature articles as there is indeed not much code here

    This also reminds me of that one article where the bathroom water heater was somehow plugged into a UPS

  • Duke of New York (unregistered) in reply to Ross Presser
    Comment held for moderation.
  • (nodebb) in reply to Quinn

    I thought of that story as well.

    https://thedailywtf.com/articles/crappy-wiring

  • Worf (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.
  • (nodebb) in reply to Quinn

    Thank you! That's one small mystery cleared up :)

  • (nodebb)

    Heh! Looking at the comments (specifically, the comment by SwineOne) in the other UPS-related story linked above by Dragnslcr, it looks like that one also was posted to CodeSOD before being moved to Featured :-)

  • (nodebb)

    Sure, who said CodeSOD had to be about computer code? These stories belong in CodeSOD because they are about violations of building or electrical codes. Makes perfect sense. (/s)

  • Mark Whybird (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.
  • (nodebb)

    If they had any cod in the fridge, that would belong to the CodSOD category?

    I'll see myself out.

  • Jonathan (unregistered)

    So interesting to see from the comments how much of a factor the quality and length of extension cords is, as someone who's only ever lived with 230V supply, extension cord quality has never been a concern for me unless one is trying to run a ridiculous load on it, I would not even begin worrying about the cord quality (provided it passed basic standards, which all off the shelf cords here must) unless I know I'll be exceeding 3kW draw.

  • Craig (unregistered) in reply to Jonathan
    Comment held for moderation.
  • (nodebb)
    Comment held for moderation.

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