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

nez

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well i know here at lewport we have this old lighting board called sparky that well i think its name says it all hahaha
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

A desk lamp, which I had turned off (manual switch) and then left, and someone had come in and tried to turn it on. When I came back with the right tool, I went right back to work. It was one of those halogen jobs, with the nice powerful power supply.

I also got shocked by a striplight that was mounted on a two-by-four. Needless to say, bringing the dimmer down all the way doesn't completely eliminate the current...(This was a small dimmer, so it wasn't major. It wasn't even as bad as being shocked by the desk lamp, surprisingly.)
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

yea i and that is why when ever i m dealing with lamps and im workin on them i unplug them hahaha i kinda had that happen to me accdentaly left one of our cove lights on ops when i went to change the blub
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Just to name a few...

Swimming pool pump, electric air compressor, spotlight, soundboard, pars in loft (3 times) (SOMEONE, was supose to turn them off while I changed light bulbs), Tazer, electric dog zapper (testing invisible fence), car battery, wall socket (I stuck a car key into it when I was 3), homemade flashpot, homemade stungun, ect...
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Unfortunately, this thread could be interpreted by some as saying that receiving an electric shock is no big deal. That is not the case. Electric shock can have many different effects dependent of the severity of the shock. Electrocution being the most serious of these. To quote propmonkey from an old thread on electric shock, "... shocked(electrocution is being killed by the way)...". None of you has ever been electrocuted. You are all still alive since you are able to post.

There have been several other threads on electric shock in the past. Some of them are:
http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1926
http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2989

Is is the amperage flowing across the heart which is the primary factor in determining the likelihood of death. Some sources say as little as 30mA is fatal. I have in the past seen a chart that shows the effects of electric shock at different currents. I however cannot remember where I saw that. What does have to be remembered is that for every 10000 volts of electricity, it will jump 1cm in dry air, further in air with a higher moisture content. So, it would follow that on a humid day, you would be more likely to sustain a shock. Similarly, your skin's resistance is highest when dry, so if you are wet, your resistance decreases and so the likelihood of shock also increases. So too does the likelihood of the shock being a severe one.

We all need to be careful in how we treat electricity. There are protection devices such as RCDs / GFCIs that should help to reduce the risk of electric shock. These have been discussed here:
http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3201
http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3257

We all need to be conscious that being shocked is not something that we should strive to achieve. Instead, let this thread serve as a means for posting how people have been shocked so that others may not make the same mistakes. I suspect that most shocks are preventable and so, ensure that you take all possible precautions to ensure that you do not get shocked.

Chris15 said:
There is a principle in electrical work that goes along the lines of assume that something is live until you have proven that it is dead. In this instance something like metering it and obtaining 0V or very close to it would be considered to be proving it dead.

As I have said in the thread on follow spot repairs here, I do not want to be sending condolences because someone did not treat electricity with the respect it deserves.

In Australia, it is required by law in most states as part of occupational health and safety requirements that all electrical equipment is tested by an electrician or other competent person and tagged to show that it passed the testing. Australian Standards prescribe the intervals at which this must occur. I believe that for things like theatres it is every 3 months, while for say office equipment that does not get moved it is only every 6 months. This is one strategy that can help to reduce the risk of electric shock, but I have to say that it is a flawed system, as I know of a followspot at another school that was tagged as having passed testing and yet, the technicians there told me that prior to testing, it had almost given someone an electric shock.

If we can all be observant of what is going on and remove if at all possible electrical hazards, we should not see high instances of electric shock.

With the safety warnings out of the way, I have not been shocked to date. I make a point of ensuring that precautions are taken and if I don't feel competent, I get a licensed electrician to do it for me. I have however heard that one of our music teachers plugged an amp in one day and got sparks from the back of it to a metal table leg that was behind it.
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

many a plugs, my desklamp in my room, strobe light, many fixtures and a filing cabinet...
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I would not say that getting shocked is a good idea at all. After the incident with the desk lamp and the strip light, I always check to see if whatever I am working on is unplugged, not just "turned off." Even if I know that I won't be touching something that could carry a voltage, I still unplug whatever I am working on, no matter how trivial it may be. Even if I am changing a christmas light bulb. No matter how paranoid it is, I know that it may one day save my life.
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Electricity.
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

Shocked by an electric dog collar... and I wasn't even trying.
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

propmonkey said:
and a filing cabinet...

nice. it doesn't get much better than that!

now... i know i am probably gonna die at the theatre today for saying this, but i have never been shocked by any equpiment. I've been darn near it... but never actaually got me... most of the old stuff shorts or starts on fire so i guess i'm just used to watching things very carefully and metering everything. knock on wood.

like i said though... now today i'll be on the ladder touch something get the shock of my life and fall to the ground-
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

o now the funnest electorshock for me has to be from my mp3 player it must collect the static im tellin you and it dont feel good to get shocked in the ears lol
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

i have this old Metal Control center that all my computer stuff plugs into, somethimes when i am typing i need to adjust the volume on my stereo (also old and made of metal). My Computer is improperly grounded so whewn i go to adjust the volume, My fingers start to get numb, not a cool Numb feeling either.
 
Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

I have yet to be electrocuted [as pointed out by Chris] however I have been shocked by a huge number of things.

One time when I was perhaps 7 or 8 I hooked a "dead" car battery up to a lawnmower in attempts to make a time machine... that was fun...

Repairing a lamp base on a light that was plugged in but the outlet was "off" I stuck in a screwdriver and WEE!!!

Coiling a cable that was hanging down from an electric, I got to the end and there was no connector... wtf? That one shouldn't have happened...

Just my stronger memories... and thats not including static shock either.
 
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Re: wat have you been electicuted by ?

My dad was sent flying about 5 feet by touching the wires that led to our well. He was okay, it could've been really bad.
 
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.
 

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