hey! that's not a wire!

Thank you. :)

Looks like bruce has managed to save the day and reclaim your collective manly honor. Go bruce!!

(you know this just may spur me into getting something cooler than cool at the gun show this weekend ... if you're in the area, just in time for Christmas and Chanukah and Kwanzaa and Solistice giving ... Valley Forge Convention Center, 12/20-21/2003. Friend of a friend runs the show. Great quality stuff, good deals, no crappy flea market vendors.)

I fried an earlier version of this drill doing the peg holes in my timber frame. It had done a lot of hammer drill work in concrete previously though so lets not blame Milwaukee. musical interlude- "what made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me."

Never believe journeyman electricians, its their job to kill off any apprentices who show any ahem potential.

I drained a 330V capcitor, that I thought was dead, into my arm while attempting to pull a bulb out of a strobe. I don't think the capcitor was "full", so there's no telling how much I took, but there was a momentary thought of "why won't my hand let go?" followed by a jump backwards and lots of screaming as the pain found its way up my arm and nearly into my shoulder.

Anyone know if there is any truth to the old wive's tale (old man's tale?) of touching potentially live wires with the back of your hand? The idea, from what I've heard, is that if there is current flowing your muscles will jump and pull your arm away from it instead of grabbing the wire.

Personally, I prefer a multi-meter to that method or touching your tongue to it. :p

Hey, I thought this was the MAN thread, what's with all this sissy talk?

My worst shocking was when I was working maintenance in a department store many years ago... it was my first week. There was a flourescent panel that was out, so I figured that it was a burned-out tube. Using my aluminum ladder, I removed the tube without incident, and went and got a new one. It turns out that the tube was fine, what had happened was the hot wire had come out of it's wirenut inside the fixture, and was grounding to the metal. I discovered this when I went to put the new tube in, and my finger grazed the fixture.

There was a guy buffing the floor not too far away, and I can imagine the scene from his perspective... out of nowhere, he hears a loud "Whaaaah!," followed immediately by the loud popping of a flourescent tube, and the sound of shattered glass raining to the floor. As this happens, the lights all go dark in that little corner of the store. He came running around the corner to see me in the dim light, standing on my ladder, covered in white phosphorus dust and surrounded by shards of broken glass.

"Are you ok?" has asked after staring for a moment.

"Oh, I'm fine," I said. "How are you?"

I was always a little carefuler after that. Amazingly, for all the times I was shocked on that 16-foot ladder, I never once fell to a bloody, broken death on the tiles below. I teetered a few times, but never fell. When standing on a ladder I always used insulated tools, but I always had to work on hot circuits because we couldn't have lights off while there were people in the store, and that resulted in brushes with electricity from time to time. The doctors say I might have brain damage, and that I may start using non-words like "carefuler" and "non-word."

Dude...your handle is Hot Pastrami, you just got married, and you live somewhere in the barren West, if my memory serves me correctly.

What do you mean the doctors say you *might* be brain damaged? :D

Well, the doctors also say that I *might* be the sexiest creature ever to live. They must have an uncanny gift for understatement.

Cough.

Here's the deal... the reason you are supposed to use the back of your hand is not so much that you'll be repelled, that's a 50:50 thing<G>, but if your muscles do contract, at least you won't be grabbing the live wire.

I know that most sane people don't work on live circuits by choice, but consider this, if you work on a live circuit, and you do something stupid, you'll know instantly from the loud crack the subsequent loss of potential when the breaker trips. I almost always work on household circuits live for just that reason.

As far as telephone stuff goes, plain old telephone service is -48Vdc to -52Vdc, but can only deliver a few milliamps before various protective devices fire. ISDN, T1, and the like however run at -130Vdc, and can deliver quite a bit more current. I learned this when a telco guy mismarked a demarc point<G>!

As far as really high voltage stuff goes... the coolest thing I ever saw was a chain dropped across two phases of a 500KV circuit. I worked for the power company at the time, and we were testing our own protective systems. Two bucket trucks, one on either side of the line, and each guy holding one end of this big assed chain (I missed the part where they got the chain from one bucket to the other... I'd have really liked to see that!!!) On the count of three they drop the chain, and if causes a fault... but it also mysteriously disappears.

At the time we witnesses were all standing on rubber mats with out feet touching... anyone want to explain why?

Yes, yes, yes to the sideburns and ALWAYS, ALWAYS a hell yes for the goatee baby! :D

Damn! High voltage is cool.

But how is that possible? I thought that high voltage lines could only be worked on when shut down or, if left live, by helicopter. The helicopter gets close, becomes part of the circuit, and then is able to work on the line. If two guys were on bucket trucks and were holding a chain, I'd think they'd be too close and in the field. Wouldn't the bucket trucks then ground the field, cooking the guys, the chain, and all?

Just being in the field doesn't get you lethal shocks. You can feel it and it makes fluorescent tubes light, though.

i feel like that all the time.....call me uncle fester

keep it in the girlie thread!

Has anyone been electrocuted while shaving? Not that your pain would be cool or anything...

Electrocuted, no. Sliced open by a damaged foil on an electric razor, yes. I don't know how it got damaged and the time I shave is far too early to be thinking about things like checking the foil for damage.

I use a rotary now.