Electically live things you don't expect - OW!

[DarkLight]

Re: Electically live things you don\'t expect - OW!

we used to grab on to electric fences (cattle) when I was a kid (with rubber shoes on) to prove to the kid (barefoot) it didnt hurt much....

by the time they got up (ten feet away) we were long gone...laughing so hard your sides were gonna bust ..hehe.

 

[yuandrew]

Re: Electically live things you don\'t expect - OW!

Man Newbie, you musta been really lucky.

Human "Hotwires" don't last long

http://www.emanator.demon.co.uk/bigclive/sparky.htm

Note: Don't click the above link if you're squemish!


About electric fences, my former neighbor had a "Fido Shock" system that we've set up to keep his dog out of the flower beds. Anyway, I was helping him re-route the fence along the border of his lawn and around a tree.

Anyway, when we were finished, he let me plug the fence back in and we watch the dog sniff at the fence then touch a wire with his nose and YELP!

Anyway, with the fence energized, I decided to touch part of it. Now, I was wearing sandles at that time. At first, nothing happened. So I walked a few feet down the line, now standing in wet grass. This time, I had one blade of wet grass brushing up against my foot. I touched the fence again and YAHH! That really hurt!

 

[mattheww50]

Re: Electically live things you don\'t expect - OW!

A few years ago I was in Dublin Ireland, playing sidewalk superintendent as these two guys were drilling away with compressed air jackhammers, and suddenly this huge sheet of flame shoots out with the Jackhammer. Initially I thought they hit a gas line..
About 2 second later the various building alarms are tripping, and I notice the stop lights are out, and so is the lighting in all the shops. The drill end of the jackhammer is white hot. Jackhammer operator was more than a little shaken up, but no burns, or shock. As you may have guessed, he drilled into a conduit with a 7,000 volt distribution line inside. Those things are usually set to trip at about 100 amps.
700,000 watts can make a fairly big piece of metal white hot in a hurry.

Somehow I don't think the Jackhammer operator is going to be in a big hurry to be working on a major street again...

 

[bwaites]

Re: Electically live things you don\'t expect - OW!

yuandrew,

Something not quite right about the pics.

Check the relative position of the bucket guy against the background building, the "snapping wire" in the 1st and last photos versus the middle one, the bottom right wires with insulators, and so on. If the guy made that much "poof" and survived I'm shocked, (oun intended!) but some of the variables don't seem to fit the story.

Bill