Getting electricity to the work place

We have mentioned several times the creative way electricity is obtained for the work place in Mexico. We have seen the techniques used in Thailand as well, clearly an international standard exists. We thought we would let you see how it is done. We tried not to get too close. (Survival Camp starts to look like an CAL-OSHA training facility.)

If you are at a construction site and there is no power? Easy, the first photo shows how you connect bare wires into your neighbor's junction box. The neighbors place will be too far away, so you will have to have extensions. Also easy. The second picture shows how - just twist the bare wire ends together to make the cord the length you need. Ok, so now you have power in the construction site. Well, you may need to have a splitter, to direct your power to various places. Very easy. A piece of wood with two nails and the wires twisted around them. In this case you want to have the splitter act as a switch, so just disconnect one of the wires, like the white one in the third photo. The black wires leave the "splitter" and go to an extension cord. Oh wait, the extension cord isn't long enough to reach to the splitter. Again, an easy task. Just remove the plug and twist the bare wires together again as shown in the fourth photo. The fifth photo shows that it is, in fact, an extension cord. Orange for safety. And speaking of safety, be careful not to overload your new set-up...nothing more than a light bulb.... guess again... Viva la México!

You can see all of this for yourself in the attached photos. Do not attempt this at home.

By the way, we have seen welders take bare wire ends and hang them on the public power lines to power their arc welder. We have seen another welder insert two bare wires into the hot contacts of our spa breaker box. That's when we back away slowly, and disconnect the TV for a while. Just in case...