Ever wondered what 400 Volts looks like...?

Here in South Africa, our wall plugs push out about 220 Volts normally.
If you are really clued up on how to reconfigure a substation though, (let's say by removing a few cables here and there), then you can boost this meagre figure to 400+ Volts...!

....which is exactly what happened to a client of mine last week....
It went something like this I believe:

• Thief sees substation.
• Thief enters substation after dark.
• Thief switches off substation.
• Thief steals cabling.
• Thief switches substation back on....
• = 400 Volts sent through all major appliances, computers, fax machines, alarm systems and pretty much anything plugged into power at the time, for a radius of approx. 400m around the substation. Nicely done, Mr cable thief.

....and the final result?

Lots of this:

The sad, charred insides of a now toasted fax machine

...the moral of this story?

It may not be the worst idea ever, to unplug all of your office / home electronics each evening, unless you have a super foolproof surge protection system in place.

It's just not worth the risk!