• lazynooblet@lazysoci.alEnglish
    79·
    2 days ago

    They are starting to rip out the cables used in car chargers. It’s only 2m long, costs £300 to replace and the thief strips out £4 worth of copper.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
      418·
      2 days ago

      1: Why’s it $300 then?

      2: All theft from Tesla owners is valid in 2025

      3: Why do people assume they aren’t selling the expensive cables whole?

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
      61·
      2 days ago

      That will be great when I’m on a long trip looking to charge in the middle of nowhere lol.

      I have actually been stranded a couple of times already. Still love electric though

    • OmegaLemmy@discuss.online
      31·
      2 days ago

      In turkey there are a lot of people who gather cardboard for recycling for a wage of about 30-40 dollars a day

      Is the USA version of this just pulling copper?

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
        8·
        2 days ago

        Well, except that it’s nearly always super damaging.

        The US version would be more like collecting cans back when they had a 5 or 10 cent deposit. Today I can’t really think of anything like that. Maybe driving Uber/Lyft. Or just panhandling/begging.

        • Bob@feddit.nl
          4·
          1 day ago

          People do that now in the Netherlands. The bins on the streets of Amsterdam sometimes have little holsters for bottles and tins so you can leave them for people who’d otherwise (or I imagine who still) dig through the rubbish for the deposit.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
        73·
        2 days ago

        Stealing copper, getting under older cars and cutting out catalytic converters, yes. Copper is not a big money maker but it’s better than collecting aluminum cans.

        The problem with 90% of crime is poverty. They do hundreds of dollars of damage to make a few bucks. If we had universal basic income or better safety nets these crimes would nearly vanish overnight.

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
          227·
          2 days ago

          In a world where correlation does not equal causation, crime would pre-date capitalism.

          Oh. Wait.

          • HereIAm@lemmy.world
            17·
            1 day ago

            Ah yes, the feudal system was ideal for fair treatment and everyone had a roof over their head and a full belly.

            They’re saying poverty is the source of these desperate crime. Doesn’t matter what economic or governmental rule you live under.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
            151·
            2 days ago

            So you think the people who do this shit do it for fun? If they had ubi they’d still be crawling under cars to cut cats?

          • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafeEnglish
            7·
            1 day ago

            You’re a terrible human being with reading comprehension issues and a weak grasp of history. I would rate you better than our current president, who is a pedophile and a rapist. I would rate you on par with Alex Jones, who afaik is a loud mouth bigot with delusions of having cracked the code but has not directly raped anyone. This rating is based on 1 interaction. I do not wish to have more interactions.

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 day ago

      If this is how the Western world arrives at harm reduction and UBI for everyone - that it’s just good business - I’m not even gonna be mad.

        • Shard@lemmy.world
          1·
          5 hours ago

          It’s not that £4 cable costs £300. £4 is the scrap value of the copper once the insulation has been peeled off. Freshly made cable costs a bit more than that.

          It costs £300 to fix because of the cost of the cable, labour and the workmanship.

          • Comment105@lemm.ee
            1·
            4 hours ago

            Well, the ones making the cable still probably only make a small fraction of the value in labor. The majority of the inflated price goes to C suite paychecks.

            I remember when I made 10s of thousands worth of cable every day from cheap materials and walked away with a couple thousand a month. I ended up quitting that job, but the slightly mentally challenged woman there who was the most efficient and accurate to spec probably still sits there making cables every day.

      • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        It’s not a long distance and they don’t have super large gauge. I’d have expected 0 or 2/0 but apparently 2-4 is common.

  • LifeLemons@lemmy.mlEnglish
    13·
    2 days ago

    Me when I keep moving a super strong monster magnet of 10¹⁰ >!(I forgor the unit of measurement for magnetic strength)!< near the copper wire:

    (Suddenly the copper shits itself)

    • Tja@programming.dev
      2·
      2 days ago

      Are you trying to melt the copper by induction? Not much else can be done with a magnet, since copper isn’t ferromagnetic…

      • LifeLemons@lemmy.mlEnglish
        11·
        2 days ago

        I meant induce so much unwanted voltage that the voltage regulators can’t even handle, killing all electrical supplies

        As some pointed out, 10¹⁰ T is too much, I think 10 T will do

    • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
      8·
      2 days ago

      The unit is Tesla. For reference, the earths magnetic field is around 50 μT on the surface (depending on latitude), and MRI machines have 1.5 T or 3 T. So your 10¹⁰ T might just nail you to the earth’s iron core 😂

      • brachypelmasmithi@lemm.ee
        4·
        2 days ago

        Given that even 3 T is already considered a large amount of flux, would it be even possible for an object with 10 billion Tesla to even exist? And if so, what would it take to achieve that amount of flux? Does a neutron star or a pulsar* get even remotely close?

        * - pulling these examples kinda out of my ass – while i’m sure neutron stars have extreme magnetic fields i’m not so sure about pulsars

    • Entropywins@lemmy.world
      94·
      2 days ago

      That is a methpipe…a straight glass tube filled with steel wool would be a crack pipe… don’t want that awkward silence and judgement from addicts when you call it the wrong name!!!

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    31·
    2 days ago

    I want like 1 ft of carrier bundle fiber optic, because I think it’s cool as shit.

    Every time I see one of the spools I want to go up and hack a foot off of it but I wouldn’t want to come off as a tweaker.

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        33·
        2 days ago

        those are boring, i want hunks of cable, undersea cable, backbone cable, local telco.

        what can I say, I probably have issues :)

        • FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
          5·
          2 days ago

          The blast resistant stuff is pretty neat too. I just hate dealing with the gel/icky-pick when you have to terminate the cable.

          • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
            5·
            2 days ago

            I used to absolutely love putting vampire taps on thicknet.

            Okay, now we’re going to put an AUI connector right here. First you’re going to need this drill, to drill a hole into the cable… Wait what?

              • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
                5·
                2 days ago

                Heh, It was a piece of coax cable but it was really thick and bright yellow. I was about the same thickness as an average sized thumb. The whole thing ran at ten megabit.

                It had a crap ton of shielding in it. It wasn’t the kind of cable you could just bend around a corner you had to give it room to bend. Because of the shielding and relatively low speed, it could run a very long distance (500 meters)

                The vampire taps were these beige metal boxes with a stainless steel cradle on top that locked the cable in.

                You used a tool to cut the hole in the cable, it was this screwdriver looking thing with a tiny little nub of a drill bit in the end. The nub of drill bit was the exact right length to drill down to the core of the cable and expose the center conductor. All you had to do was make sure that the hole was clear and then none of the ground mesh touched the center conductor or the pin that would have to slide into the hole.

                After you drilled the hole you put the coax down into the cradle and turned a screw on the top, It would bite into the ground on one side and a little metal needle would touch the center conductor and the other side.

                The coolest part was, shit was coming out all the time, and every time it was something amazing and futuristic. When the technology could barely do anything and all of a sudden you could do something new It was just magical. The advance is all seem kind of boring these days in comparison.

                • FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  2 days ago

                  That does sound cool, it must have been pretty labor intensive. How long do you remember these things being used before they were phased out?

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
          9·
          2 days ago

          I do cable a lot for my work. I have probably a mile of cat 6 at this point. I do fiber too, and yes I want a big chunk of undersea cable to make art with.

          Edit, I accidentally replied my own comment:

          Honestly we just throw chunks of fiber away. For our purposes, if it’s over 320 feet it’s going to be fiber anyway. I made the mistake one time of underestimating the amount of fiber I’d need and cost my company a lot of money. Now I always over order and the extra goes in the trash because it’s worthless. Next time you see guys doing fiber they might just have some scrap fiber to give you.

          A few weeks ago I had a guy come up to me and jokingly say hey you should give me some of that copper line. I was feeling generous and gave him an unopened 1000ft box of cat6. Don’t tell my boss!

          Edit edit- it was plenum, and the good stuff that goes for $300+ on eBay, please don’t tell my boss. I never sell it because I like my job.

          • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            kingly say hey you should give me some of that copper line.

            Haa! that’s great. Imagine trying to harvest those 22g strande from the TP :)

            I hit an auction for an electrician that went out of business, I got a bunch of remnant boxes for different coax for around $10. They all had between 100 and 500ft left. Most of it’s just RG8 but there’s some strange dual cable sat line in there that’s almost decent. I do a little home networking so I have a few hundred feet of cat 6. on hand and prob a half spool of cat5 that I’ll never use. And I have.

            Mostly I want the big stuff because I see it but never actually get to touch it. It’s like I’d probably want a mainframe if I hadn’t spent plenty of time screwing with one.

            • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
              5·
              2 days ago

              Might as well scrap that 5 if you’ve got enough 6. They melt it away to conserve the copper. You might get some decent money. I’m typing with gloves because I’m about to go do ice breaker and snow for the hood. Good luck!

            • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
              2·
              22 hours ago

              I was rereading this thread today because I’m a cable dork and I thought you might like this bit I forgot to tell last night.

              So on that job where I underestimated the fiber, after I made the shitty call to my boss to tell him how bad I fucked up, I cut it around the mid point to make it easier to rip out. I swear to god not even 15 minutes later my boss calls back and says hey whatever you do don’t cut it! Pull it all out and wrap it up we’ll use it for another job. I’m like, sure thing boss. Luckily he either forgot about it or more likely gave me a break.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
      6·
      2 days ago

      Where the hell are you hanging out, that you regularly run into spools of fiber optic cable? I’ve never seen one in my life!

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        there’s a lot of construction near me, it was all wilderness, now they’re putting in housing developments.

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        6·
        2 days ago

        864f

        Aww, that’s awesome—you’re awesome! And that’s a wicked-looking cable. Sadly, I’m in the US.

        It made me ponder, though. It looks like several different product manufacturers sell affordable samples of some of the larger cables.

          • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
            3·
            2 days ago

            Ak, can’t seem to find them on my phone, there’s still on my computer but I can’t get back to that right now. I went to eBay and search for fiber optic cable and they showed up with giant spools of large cable with $1-$2. In the description below it clarified that they were just samples of the cable for that price and after you ordered the samples you could order more from them.

            If you can’t find it I’ll take them back up in the morning and post them here.

  • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
    3·
    3 hours ago

    But fibre does form a crucial part of a healthy diet. Much on fibre optic cables while you sweat hard to dig up the real copper.

    • Synapse@lemmy.world
      65·
      2 days ago

      It’s very valuable as a cable, but as material, it’s worthless. Pull on it to hard, give it a rough bend, cute it anywhere, and it isn’t a cable anymore.

        • towerful@programming.dev
          18·
          2 days ago

          They just cut it roughly, strip back the protective layers, then do a very precise and clean cut on the actual fibre and polish the end.
          Most of the time it will get spliced into a patch panel (instead of being installed into the patch panel). At which point the cleanly cut fibre is precisely aligned with the fibre from the patch panel, then melted together.
          It’s very precise. Splicing tools often use extremely high magnification, and very precise actuators to align the 2 fibre ends before they are fused

            • towerful@programming.dev
              6·
              2 days ago

              If it’s a break in the middle of the fibre, then they will use an epoxy housing for the splice.
              I don’t know the specifics, but something like this:
              Cut/clean up the break, put through an epoxy housing and tighten the cable grips. Strip back the protective layers, clean cut the fibres and splice them all appropriately. Carefully stuff it inside the epoxy housing, fill with epoxy and let it set. Then burry/rig it again.
              Those are what the large plastic cylinder things you see on cables are.
              Similar housings are used for splicing copper (both data and high voltage) cables that have to withstand elements/burying, just the size (and possibly internals, epoxy type etc) change.
              Black plastic cylinder that’s larger than the cable, with a couple cables coming out? Probably a splice point

    • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      18 hours ago

      Not very. Worthless if cut into short lengths.

      A thief who rips a bunch out of a construction site or similar won’t be able to sell it for anything, if that’s what you wanted to know.

    • credo@lemmy.world
      41·
      2 days ago

      You can take this and install your own fiber to home. Free unlimited internet.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Only the connectors and the skill to weld them on are expensive.

      The cable itself is just glass and plastic with some shielding.

        • AugustWest@lemmy.world
          32·
          2 days ago

          The difference is that your average crackhead/tweaker copper thief knows a sketchy scrap yard that will pay them a discounted rate for the copper cable and not ask any questions. It’s unlikely they know where to unload stole fiber optic cable.

          The sign is less to discourage theft than to prevent damage by copper thieves who are unaware of the difference and attempt to steal the cable.

        • ContriteErudite@lemmy.world
          22·
          2 days ago

          Copper cables are easier to reuse or sell as scrap due to the intrinsic value of the metal value and simple structure. Fiber optic cables are harder to reuse because they require precise handling, expensive connectors, and special training and equipment to splice together properly. Unless thieves steal pre-terminated fiber and handle it with extreme care or take entire spools with a buyer ready, fiber is essentially worthless to them since it can’t be melted down and reused like copper.

  • dumbass@leminal.spaceEnglish
    39·
    1 day ago

    We have crackheads in Aus, maybe we need to steer them towards our copper cable so they can rip it up and our government will actually give us the NBN we were promised, with full fiber all the way.

    • dan@upvote.au
      2·
      23 hours ago

      I’m still surprised that Australia didn’t do more with the HFC network. Seems like a missed opportunity. Some ISPs in the USA are trialing 2Gbps symmetric (2Gbps up and down) over coax using DOCSIS 4.0, and even DOCSIS 3.1 can get you at least 2Gbps down and ~400Mbps up.