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.

 

[chiplard]

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.

For a capacitor to charge surely there must be current flow. Please feel free to shoot me down in flames if this incorrect.

 

[GStueyXR]

For a capacitor to charge surely there must be current flow. Please feel free to shoot me down in flames if this incorrect.

But current will not return until capacitive saturation is acheived... Hence RCDs tripping out when large capacitive loads are swiched on!

 

[circles]

Here's a question for you to try and illustrate my point. If you use a voltage stick or a probe to measure a live terminal or wire why don't you worry about getting a shock? Let's introduce something else into the equation and see what happens....
Would you be happy to deliberately earth yourself and then use the probe on the same terminal? Or would that be introducing a risk? After all it's only the insulation of the probe that is preventing you from being electrocuted. If you were working in a metal shed which was earthed would you be happy measuring voltages relying only on the integrity of your test equipments insulation?

Did evaluation just take place I wonder?

 

[circles]

In answer to the capacitor thing....A capacitor will discharge when there is a circuit of some description back to it's common line.