By what have you been electrically shocked? (NOT electrocuted.)

[bdesmond]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

To add something constructive here, having done a few dumb things working on telephone lines, remember there's ample current on your POTS handoffs from the telco to give you a nice zap. PBX wiring (what you'll see in an office building) is generally higher current/voltage. POE Ethernet while we're on the subject is +48V DC and I forget how many mA max, but I have had the pleasure of locating POE taps without the Fluke more than once.

My point in other words - communication cabling, primarily telephone (and Ethernet) will give you a nice little zap if you're not careful. It's not just high-voltage connections that can make your day unpleasant.

 

[Chris15]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I WIN
Not only have i been hit by straight up 120 and 220 but yeah I FELL OFF THE CATWALK in my high school several years ago. When i fell i cut my chin on an ibeam and then blacked out from falling and getting electrocuted on our 277v house lighting system.

Is this telling you to be more careful?

To add something constructive here, having done a few dumb things working on telephone lines, remember there's ample current on your POTS handoffs from the telco to give you a nice zap. PBX wiring (what you'll see in an office building) is generally higher current/voltage. POE Ethernet while we're on the subject is +48V DC and I forget how many mA max, but I have had the pleasure of locating POE taps without the Fluke more than once.

My point in other words - communication cabling, primarily telephone (and Ethernet) will give you a nice little zap if you're not careful. It's not just high-voltage connections that can make your day unpleasant.

I seen to recall that, at least in Australia, telephone lines leave the exchange at 48 volts, but the level at your end is largely dependent on your distance form the exchange.

If I recall correctly, the minimum voltage for an electric shock to e perceivable is 40 volts... be warned.

 

[bdesmond]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I seen to recall that, at least in Australia, telephone lines leave the exchange at 48 volts, but the level at your end is largely dependent on your distance form the exchange.

If I recall correctly, the minimum voltage for an electric shock to e perceivable is 40 volts... be warned.

Goes up to 90 I believe for a ring and then obviously variable voltage for a conversation. I try not to deal with the physical plant end of my job too often but I went through that phase and certainly learnt a few things from the school of hard knocks.

 

[Chris15]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Goes up to 90 I believe for a ring and then obviously variable voltage for a conversation. I try not to deal with the physical plant end of my job too often but I went through that phase and certainly learnt a few things from the school of hard knocks.

It may very well be. Thing is that there is every likelihood that US and Australian systems are different.

 

[Diarmuid]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I once licked a nine volt battery, without thinking, when I made this 'moisture tester'..... I'm not suer whether that actually counts, but I think it hurt a bit at the time.....

 

[Chris15]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I once licked a nine volt battery, without thinking, when I made this 'moisture tester'..... I'm not suer whether that actually counts, but I think it hurt a bit at the time.....

I believe that some people think that touching a 9 volt battery to the tongue is an appropriate means of testing if the battery is flat. I warn those people, people die from doing this. The statistics show that, but they don't show what they were doing at the time, so maybe the battery is not totally at fault.

 

[Diarmuid]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I once licked a nine volt battery, without thinking, when I made this 'moisture tester'..... I'm not suer whether that actually counts, but I think it hurt a bit at the time.....

I believe that some people think that touching a 9 volt battery to the tongue is an appropriate means of testing if the battery is flat. I warn those people, people die from doing this. The statistics show that, but they don't show what they were doing at the time, so maybe the battery is not totally at fault.

I just want to clarify, at the time I wasnt actually testing to see whether the battery was flat, but more just trying to test a project I had made, and whilst I can clearly see now it was a totally stupid thing to do at the time, it didnt seem so stupid, as it was just a rash action, and I didnt really think it through.

 

[saxman0317]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

o am i notorius for this one. Being a pool tech. i have been caught by many different systems. Pumps, control panels, faulty breakers, eletrical chlorine generation systems, you name it. As well as the random shock working on trucks, minor wiring jobs and playing with stuff. By the way...3 phase hurts and you wake up in a hospital...not suggestied...

 

[Mayhem]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

To add something constructive here, having done a few dumb things working on telephone lines, remember there's ample current on your POTS handoffs from the telco to give you a nice zap.

Thanks for telling me this now – I learned out the had way when I was 14 and dropping a telephone line into my bedroom from the main line in to our house. Being young and a lot less knowledgeable back then, I decided to strip the wires with my teeth. Will not be doing that again in a hurry.

I believe that some people think that touching a 9 volt battery to the tongue is an appropriate means of testing if the battery is flat. I warn those people, people die from doing this. The statistics show that, but they don't show what they were doing at the time, so maybe the battery is not totally at fault.

Don’t believe the stats all of the time. Whenever someone is taken to hospital or dies, their medical record is ‘coded’ according to the international classification of diseases (currently ICD-10). Clinical coders do not have a medical background but instead are trained to read through the records and allocate codes for the principle reason for admission, existing diseases, treatments and complications etc. Sometimes they make mistakes and often there are differences of practice between coders. I spent three years doing heart research, where my job was to validate the codes for heart failure. I once had to go into the forensics department to examine the record of a young man that had been murdered. As he died on the operating table after having a cardiac arrest, his death had initially been coded as a heart attack. It is this sort of error that often leads to the “sensational” statistic. Also some of the stuff that gets emailed around the traps is utter crap.

 

[Chris15]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Don’t believe the stats all of the time. Whenever someone is taken to hospital or dies, their medical record is ‘coded’ according to the international classification of diseases (currently ICD-10). Clinical coders do not have a medical background but instead are trained to read through the records and allocate codes for the principle reason for admission, existing diseases, treatments and complications etc. Sometimes they make mistakes and often there are differences of practice between coders. I spent three years doing heart research, where my job was to validate the codes for heart failure. I once had to go into the forensics department to examine the record of a young man that had been murdered. As he died on the operating table after having a cardiac arrest, his death had initially been coded as a heart attack. It is this sort of error that often leads to the “sensational” statistic. Also some of the stuff that gets emailed around the traps is utter crap.

For all I know, they were leaning over the edge of a ladder when they tested the battery and so they got a slight shock and fell off the ladder. You could say that the fall was caused by the battery, but in reality, the battery was but one of a number of factors, things like the fact that they were 5 metres off the ground and over extending have far more relevance, but it could still have battery testing recorded in the statistics as the cause of death.

I tend to think that it may be that one or two people a year sustain injuries from this kind of activity, but that the statistics have suffered from a little embellishment.

 

[mbandgeek]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I once licked a nine volt battery, without thinking, when I made this 'moisture tester'..... I'm not suer whether that actually counts, but I think it hurt a bit at the time.....

Try licking three new ones right out of the package. Made my whole mouth go numb.

 

[soundlight]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

One of my board ops liked to lick nine volt batteries. We had to make him stop because we ran out of batteries for our wireless mics.

 

[control]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

electrical fence twice and when a lab partner pluged a device that i was not done wiring just to see if i was done yet

 

[soundlight]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Forgot about the electric fence. But ours was very low voltage and amperage, so it didn't hurt that much. We used to put aluminum foil on it with peanut butter on that so the deer would lick it. We had a garden that covered almost an acre, and we had a fence running around the whole thing.

 

[MircleWorker]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Umm, Last time I got shocked was on a Band Stand Light that shorted out in my hands.

 

[Chris15]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Forgot about the electric fence. But ours was very low voltage and amperage, so it didn't hurt that much. We used to put aluminum foil on it with peanut butter on that so the deer would lick it. We had a garden that covered almost an acre, and we had a fence running around the whole thing.

I thought that most electric fences ran at voltages upwards of 1000V DC. The current is low and it pulses, so the risk of permanent damage is very low.

 

[salva]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

probably the strangest one.

I got shocked by my bed frame. Apperantly when i was sleeping i broke a plug and it made contact with my metal bed frame...

lets just say i woke up with a jump.

 

[DarSax]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Funny this thread got bumped.

I got electrocuted for a good 5-10 seconds the other day. Was testing out a fresnell, didn't know the plug was broken until I put it into the wall (looked perfectly fine; hairline crack). All I could do was go ahhhhhhhh until I could finally pull my hand away (it was stuck, you know what I'm talking about). Meanwhile, it was a kids show, so they came running OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED??! And I was like "....well....kind of got electrocuted..." OH MY GOD!!!!! I heard them runnning away "Some guy over there got electrocuted and almost died!!!" It was actually kind of funny, if not embarassing...

 

[celtictechie]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

funny story 2006 Cancer Ball Focus I got shock with a beer in one hand and spining a barrel light in the other. Oh did i metion i was 20 to 30 feet in the air on a piece on metal. damm that hurt saved the beer thou. it was a sliver par can. it was fun 120 volts wow

 

[DarSax]

Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

saved the beer thou

Thank god it wasn't serious, then.