When you need to ensure your power supply is up to snuff a dummy load is often used when it isn’t feasible to test with the real load. You will often see this on a big scale when load testing emergency generators. Normally you would use a large resistive load that is air cooled by fans. Mikeselectricstuff demonstrates his array of resistive loads but for a new project he didn’t want to build another one for his new project so he did some out of the box thinking. He shorted the output of the power supply with the right length of light gauge wire to draw the load needed. Normally this type of wire would heat up and melt with any significant load so he put it into a large tub of water to allow for direct cooling. The wire he selected is enameled so that it doesn’t short out to adjacent wires in the tub but provides for virtually no thermal resistance so the water can draw away the heat.Â