American madness

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
In the July 1960 copy of Electronics Illustrated there is a hot dog cooker that essentially passes the 117v mains through the hot dog. OK it will work but even with its safety plug etc I feel it is still rather too dodgy. Granted the mains is lower but some US projects leave an awful lot to be desired.
HSE would have a field day if these things appeared here in the UK nowadays.
  Electronics-Illustrated-1960-07.pdf (Size: 11.53 MB / Downloads: 16)

[feathercurls]

There is still this nowadays:
Coffee cup electrode boiler

[Stockden]

It appears that these were quite common in the US at one time: http://blog.kevmo314.com/presto-hotdogger.html

Hugh

[Diabolical Artificer]

For a second there when I saw the thread title I thought you were referring to the latest exploits of that stable genius over the water. It's the sort of thing he might invent.

Not american but Big Clive on Youtube has done several video's on dodgy electrical consumer items, mostly Chinese, like hand warmers that use petrol as well as Russian gas cooker igniters. See - https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom

Andy.