Getting a belt

[smartalek]

This is a question I've been asking since I first felt that wonderful feeling of 230 v ac running through me. If I'm stood on the first floor of a house, on wooden floor boards (an insulator) resting on brick (another insulator) how can I still get a belt just by touching the live wire when there's no path to earth? A bit more of a physics question I suppose but there's got to be some bright sparks on here.

 

[jaresquire]

Have seen lectures in electromagnetism with the prof insulated from earth touching a van de graaf machine at maybe 100kV, made his hair stand on end!
AC is of course more leaky and will find capacitive paths to ground.

 

[Mr Mark Sparks]

circles, i disagree with what you are saying. Are you saying you could basically grab hold of a single live wire, say a feed to a ceiling rose you wouldn't get a belt? Can you maybe get some footage of you doing this as I would gladly watch it all day long!!!

ive taken many a switch off live and someone has said thats live
i have then shown them with a volts stick that its live
then touched the bare end and gone on to explain the bird on a wire theory


obviously rubber soles carpet etc

dont try this it could go wrong

 

[nickblake]

I have once been in a situation a guy had install an outside 70 son bulkhead that didnt work so i whipped the cover off and holding the reflector i spotted the live incomming had been connected to the earth terminal i was holding a live reflector and not feeling a thing , thank god for fibre glass ladders and insulated boots , hair looked good to

worst shock i had blew me across a room and through a plaster board wall ended up with my head between the legs of a shop manager thought i was in heaven , notally my own stupid fault , but since that day been more carefull

 

[jaresquire]

Lady manager?

 

[chiplard]

Isn't there a saying about keeping one hand in your pocket when investigating potentially live wires?

This is to stop the current passing through the chest.

Not trying to mock you circles, just don't want inexperienced people who may read this to think they can safely touch a live conductor. Any live conductor can potentially induce a shock big enough to cause a person serious damage. Obviously if you have a good enough insulator to stop the current flow back to the transformer then you wont get a shock, but this cannot be guaranteed in most instances. Therefore it must always be treated as a threat and given the respect it warrants.

 

[nickblake]

Lady manager?

oh yes lol not sure who was the most embarressed me or her me i think took me ages to repair the damage lol

 

[nickblake]

This is to stop the current passing through the chest.

Not trying to mock you circles, just don't want inexperienced people who may read this to think they can safely touch a live conductor. Any live conductor can potentially induce a shock big enough to cause a person serious damage. Obviously if you have a good enough insulator to stop the current flow back to the transformer then you wont get a shock, but this cannot be guaranteed in most instances. Therefore it must always be treated as a threat and given the respect it warrants.

agree with you on this one when im working live yes i know you shouldnt but there are times when its a must , i always have a hand in my pocket its a habbit i picked up years ago .(no rude comments please )

 

[circles]

This is to stop the current passing through the chest.

Not trying to mock you circles, just don't want inexperienced people who may read this to think they can safely touch a live conductor. Any live conductor can potentially induce a shock big enough to cause a person serious damage. Obviously if you have a good enough insulator to stop the current flow back to the transformer then you wont get a shock, but this cannot be guaranteed in most instances. Therefore it must always be treated as a threat and given the respect it warrants.

So what are you saying, you don't want the film anymore?......... And there I was looking forward to my new acting career...

In all seriousness I would always advocate safety and the best way to be safe is to fully understand what it is you are dealing with and protect yourself accordingly. Obviously if someone doesn't know what they are doing and are not sure then leave well alone.

However, your statement where you just said, your insulation cannot be guaranteed, I have to take issue with. I can guarantee my own insulation in every case without fear of electrocution because I evaluate the environment that I am working in and if there was dampness, wet walls, radiators etc I would move the set to a safer working area or remove it entirely. I didn't just assume that the same safety procedure would apply to every TV that I repaired. It didn't, and I acted appropriately for every eventuality. Hence me still being here to tell you about it...

 

[chiplard]

Why take the time to evaluate when you can guarantee by isolation?

Did you evaluate when you had your part p assessment?

 

[jaresquire]

Why take the time to evaluate when you can guarantee by isolation?

I used to say that to my shrink..

 

[mayfair]

Next time i go to the builders yard im gonna try ordering 100 X 6000 Ohm bricks, see what i get LOL

 

[GStueyXR]

Without a path to origin, then current cannot flow, FACT......

But everything is capacitive, and so EVERYTHING will experience an inrush current.

And as 95% of us already know, these inrush currents feckin hurt.

 

[circles]

Why take the time to evaluate when you can guarantee by isolation?

Did you evaluate when you had your part p assessment?

Sorry didn't quite understand that.....I've never done a part P assesment wouldn't know what it was if it hit me over the head. Although I would like to study that area, hence me being here.
As I have explained earlier in this thread in the early part of my career I worked on live chassis TV before the company I worked for supplied us with isolation transformers. If you didn't evaluate you died of it. They didn't have RCD's in those days either.

Anyway some appliances have to be earthed when you are working on them such as the old microwave ovens. If you got a shock from the -4000v off the cap or magnetron you were brown bread. That was a low impedance circuit and would quite happily continue pumping you full of -4000v until someone switched it off. You couldn't run one of those through an isolation transformer.

Anyway all I am saying is that knowledge is your friend and ignorance your enemy. It's no good lying to those that don't know by telling them that live wires kill without explaining why and why it isn't always the case.....As someone mentioned earlier about the bird on the wire, it is precisely the theory of why the birds don't get fried.

 

[jaresquire]

I've heard more birds die because they collide with the lines as they only look down?

 

[circles]

I've heard more birds die because they collide with the lines as they only look down?

Well it has to be, they certainly didn't die from sitting on it....