[QUOTE=chalsall;424912]My advise is you never want to work with electricity alone. You might die, if you don't know what you are doing.[/QUOTE]My grandfather would shut off the entire house before ever removing a coverplate. He knew what he did not know. And erred on the side of caution.

I grew up with a military trained electronics technician. "Left hand in the back pocket and use a non-conductive tuning wand to poke around." "Intentionally putting yourself in a live circuit is court-martialable. Even holding a 1.5V cell by both ends."
I have taken an electronics course at the local community college. And learned about electricity when I was young (first soldered when I was not yet a teen, helping put in the sound system on the building in question.)

When I saw 13V on the meter, I says to myself, "Self, put everything back and step away." I know that I could handle everything ok, but the GFI's would not like it.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;424928]When I saw 13V on the meter, I says to myself, "Self, put everything back and step away." I know that I could handle everything ok, but the GFI's would not like it.[/QUOTE]

Try working with 800V DC. Can you say serious arc?

A funny story we read:

[QUOTE]The Electric Fence Incident:

We have a standard 6 ft. fence in the backyard. A few months ago, I heard about burglaries increasing dramatically our area. In pondering how I could make sure this never happened to us, I had a great idea for a DYI security system. I got an electric fence charger and ran a single hot wire along the top of the fence. Legally, I cold say it was to stop the dogs from getting out of the yard. I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, one made for 26 miles of fence wire. The directions recommended I used three 8 ft. long ground rods which I was to drive 7.5 feet into the ground. Like a good boy I followed the recommendations set forth in the directions. You see, the ground rods are the key. The more ground rod you have in the ground the better the fence works. Especially, if you are powering 26 miles of fencing. On reflection, a ½ acre yard may not have needed as much grounding.

One day I'm mowing the back yard next to the fence with my cheapo flea market POS 6 hp push mower when I notice the hot wire for the electric fence has broken and was laying on the ground in the yard. I knew for a fact that I had unplugged the charger so I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it to throw it out of the way.

A star went supernova inside my head.

It seems as though I had not remembered to unplug it after all.

Picture it; I'm standing there and I've got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the 1.7 gigavolt fence wire in the other hand. Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and on its cover there is a picture of an upside down cow on fire.

Time stood still.

The first thing I noticed was my balls trying to climb up and take refuge in my chest cavity. My ears curled downwards and my hand spasmodically clamped firmly around the wire. I even could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain. Every time that Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in the deepest, darkest, most primitive wildernesses of my grey matter. I was literally at one with the engine. It seems as though the fence charger and that POS lawnmower were fighting over which one would control my electrical impulses.

Science says you cannot crap and pee at the same time. With my new experiences, I beg to differ. Not only did I do both simultaneously, and all at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. But to me is seemed more like a Matrix kind of bowel movement, where you're all leaned back and time is creeping along then a leisurely BAM, BAM, BAM, you just crapped your pants 3 times. It seemed like there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together it was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.

At this point I'm about 30 minutes into my ordeal (but probably only 2 seconds) holding onto the fence wire. My hand has seized up wrapped around this burning sun palm down and I can't let go. Now I grew up around farms so I know a little about electric fences. First and foremost, you don’t pee on them. But, Mr. McDonald always had those tiny POS chargers made by International, or whomever, that were like sticking a 9 volts battery on your tongue, just kinda tickled. I had this tiger by the tail, and the tiger was made of sheet lightning. The three 8 foot ground rods were now efficiently accepting signals from me through the permadamp soil. At this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to just man up and take it, until the lawnmower runs out of gas or I die.

'Oh Damn!,' I think, as I remember I had just filled the tank! However, a ray of hope spears down, the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has started coughing a loping pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it.

With the important bits now well past my chest area and still headed north, I think 'Oh God please let that damn lawnmower die... pleeeeze die’. But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam lope nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner's right foot.

So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity and standing in my own backyard, covered in filth, begging God to kill that damn mower or, with mercy, me. God did not take me nor the mower that day. He left me there, covered in my own fluids, to flounder in the misery my own stupidity had created.

I honestly don't know how I got loose from the fence wire. I woke up lying on the ground, the lawnmower beside me, out of gas. It was much later in the day and I was sunburned. There were two large dead grass spots where I had been standing, and another long skinny dead spot were the wire had lain while I was on the ground unconscious. I assume I must have finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing, had somehow let go of the wire. Upon waking from my electrically induced nap I realized a few things:

1. Three of my teeth seem to have melted and I have arc burns between my fillings.
2. I now have cramps in the bottoms of both my feet and my right butt cheek (not the left, just the right).
3. Poop and pee, when all mixed together, doesn't smell as bad as you might think. Especially with your gonads firmly lodged in your sinus cavities.
4. My left eye will not open.
5. My right eye will not close.
6. The lawnmower runs like a sumabitch now. Seriously! I think our little rap session cleared out some carbon fouling or something, because it is now runs better than if it had gone through the Earnhardt NASCAR custom shop.
7. I can turn on the TV in the game room by farting while thinking of the number 4 (I still don't understand this?)

That day changed my life. I now have a newfound respect for everything and I appreciate the little things more. Now I always triple check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow. The good news is that if a burglar does try to come over the fence, I can clearly visualize what my security system will do to him, and THAT gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over. Which also reminds me to triple check the fence before I mow.[/QUOTE]:ouch2:

My youngest brother worked (he's deceased) at Sound and Light for everything from nightclubs to funeral parlors. One time, he was on a (metal) ladder, pushing wire through above a suspended ceiling with something like a metal fishing rod. Someone had left 220 v exposed up there and he ran into it. 220 v AC is particularly bad, as I understand, because it is hard to turn loose of. He said that he had to think carefully about causing the ladder to fall over, which it did, dumping him onto a set of stairs. He was in very kinked up condition when I saw him; much more from the fall than from the shock.

It's been said the difference between 120 and 240 is about five meters. As in touch 120 and it hurts, and touch 240 you often end up 5 meters away.

[QUOTE=Mark Rose;424919]+1

120 volt is relatively safe. I've been zapped numerous times. I don't touch anything higher.[/QUOTE]What's at least as important as voltage is amperage.

I've touched 240V with no lasting effect --- a twitch and a strange sensation. I've had 40kV (judged by the length of the sparks) when pulling clothing over my head.

I also know of a guy who lost a finger when his wedding ring shorted out a beefy 5V supply. I wasn't present at the time but the story was that he was working on a live PDP-11 when there was a bright flash, a bang and liquid gold spraying everywhere.

[QUOTE=xilman;424965]a bright flash, a bang and liquid gold spraying everywhere.[/QUOTE]
I think that summarizes the story that Mike posted in another thread yesterday.

We had repeatedly 220-240V discharges through our body, and once a 600V too. We had many times high voltage discharges, but very low current, none of them dangerous. The 600V one, we were quite young, maybe 13 or 14, and we used to hide our "[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingshot"]weapons[/URL]" inside of the electric panel of the apartment building we use to live in, before going upstairs (we lived at the third floor, or second floor if you count the ground floor separate). We knew a trick to open the electric panel, and we could play outside with different/dangerous toys and avoid bringing them home, where out father, if he would catch us with such toys, electric shocks would have been "caress" compared with what he could do to our ears or buttocks... Moreover, we didn't have a sense of danger at the time and we didn't think that we could easily die. We knew not to touch any wire inside, but once we were not enough careful... Luckily we touched the hot spot with the back of the hand and we almost peed ourselves. Our father never found out, and except few friends, nobody heard this story till today.

[QUOTE=LaurV;424989]The 600V one, we were quite young ... Luckily we touched the hot spot with the back of the hand and we almost peed ourselves.[/QUOTE]
So that explains your avatar!

[QUOTE=xilman;424990]So that explains your avatar![/QUOTE]
:smile: :tu:

No one mentioned AC vs. DC.
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents"]War of Currents[/URL]
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect"]Skin Effect[/URL]

[QUOTE=xilman;424990]So that explains your avatar![/QUOTE]

not sure what explains mine my intelligence being a myth, the fact I anger easily, the fact that I don't really care much about appearance etc. ?