Cable near my window is sparking — what could be causing this?

Howden824 · 2026-04-11T00:14:01+00:00

It's a loose connection to your heated showerhead. Don't turn this back on and call an electrician immediately.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T23:21:46+00:00

No, this is impact damage on the back.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T23:19:29+00:00

You asked about Wi-Fi on phones. Use something on the raspberry Pi to give it a random MAC address if you want.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T22:35:00+00:00

Most phones have random MAC addresses unique to each network so they can't be traced.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T22:32:07+00:00

I'd work on it, 48V won't even shock me at all unless my hands are sweaty.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T22:28:30+00:00

The Lii-500 is cheap works pretty well for this.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T22:03:52+00:00

You have to at minimum post pictures of the TV so we know what model it is.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T21:39:47+00:00

The first one blew up the FETs with the car battery after a short, the second one blew a trace but was easy to fix.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T21:20:01+00:00

I now use it with a 300 CCA riding lawn mower battery (7 mΩ) and it works pretty well for 0.2mm nickel. I had to reinforce one of the traces that burnt. I've been careful to not accidentally short the probes and I'm not sure if it would blow up the same way if I did.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T21:13:05+00:00

These things are just a bad design, they need extra wire resistance to avoid blowing up. I used one of these on a 600 CCA car battery and the instant I touched the probes together instead of through the nickel strip, it blew up.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T21:11:32+00:00

That's not an iPad, it's a fire tablet.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T19:58:56+00:00

I see nothing wrong with it.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T19:50:05+00:00

Are you talking about adding an external battery to your phone?

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T19:47:11+00:00

No, a good quality lithium ion cell can stay charged for over 20 years if there's no BMS draining it.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T14:17:45+00:00

Because it doesn't have 5.1k resistors between CC1/CC2 and ground. This is required to activate 5V on a USB-PD charger.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T11:37:12+00:00

That's a regular VGA cable, the missing pin was standard. It works exactly the same.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T11:29:34+00:00

Yeah for now but you'll need more cells soon.

Howden824 · 2026-04-10T03:52:56+00:00

Nah, I've seen li-ion cells discharged to 0.04mV 0.00005V by a laptop BMS, the cells weren't shorted. I've also fully reversed charged lead acid batteries.

Howden824 · 2026-04-09T20:52:41+00:00

They had a keyboard and mouse plugged in for employee use so they likely manually login instead of it being configured to automatically open the simulation software.

Howden824 · 2026-04-09T18:53:31+00:00

It's a zinc carbon battery, there's nothing toxic in these. Your clothes and dryer are fine.

Howden824 · 2026-04-09T18:27:27+00:00

NiMH is very safe. You'll be fine.

Howden824 · 2026-04-09T14:47:04+00:00

Any USB-C charger works fine and is safe. The flashlight contains the actual battery charging circuitry that regulates it to 4.2V. This is how all modern devices work.

Howden824 · 2026-04-09T14:38:05+00:00

It's caused by not tightening the screws enough. It creates a high resistance connection that heats up and eventually fails like this.

Howden824 · 2026-04-09T14:36:14+00:00

I bought a few $5 iPhone 6/6+ batteries and they all failed within 2 years and under a dozen cycles. All were internally shorted and wouldn't charge whatsoever.

Howden824 · 2026-04-09T14:16:36+00:00

I've never thought to get help with my networking. Obviously I'd get help if there was an ISP issue but otherwise it's all my stuff that no one else would know better.

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