Switch a switch with wet hands

I don't do this, but I have am AC fan with a remote switch. I put the switch in the hot wire, and the neutral wire is 10 feet away. That is, the hot wire comes to the switch and goes back to the fan's plug and on to the fan where it does its work. The neutral wire goes straight to the fan's plug.

I've been tempted to turn the switch on, or off, with wet hands, while wearing slippers with soft, black soles (plastic, vinyl, rubber?) on a carpeted floor, on a wood subfloor, while touching nothing else with any of the rest of my body. Even were I to somehow trip, there is nothing to touch but wood and sheetrock.

I'm trying to figure out how, even if my hands were dripping water, soapy water that would conduct electricity, and the water made it into the switch, as a contiguous wet area reaching from my fingers to the metal contacts or stripped wire, I could get a shock, or killed.

And I can't see how. Since even though the wire is hot, I'm not touching anything else. I've gotten lots of 110V shocks and iirc, every time I touched a hot and something else. I've gotten one 2000v shock from a color TV and I was being very careful and didn't notice touching anything else, but I think I must have.

Reply to
Micky
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You win the moronic award for today! :D /?\ .?.

Reply to
bob_villain

Holy Crap! You finally said something I agree with.

Reply to
Gordon Shumway

Let me see if I understand this...

You don't think that you'll get shocked/killed if you use the "remote switch" with soaking wet, soap covered hands, but are still reluctant to try it just in case you are wrong. Is that correct?

If so, here is a very simple solution:

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Keep getting your hands wetter and wetter, even going so far as standing in a grounded bucket of water, until you trip the device. Once you know the conditions under which you would have been shocked, back it off a notch.

QED

Reply to
DerbyDad03

If you keep trying hard enough.........maybe one day.

Reply to
Seymore4Head

Right. It would also be hard to know if enough water has gotten into the swtich (one of those big ones, shaped like an almond, almost 2 inches long, an inch high, and more than 1/2 inch thick, with a rocker sw. at the top.)

You must have misread my post. In my situation, I am not grounded.

Reply to
Micky

Maybe easier than you think:

"but I have am AC fan with a remote switch. I put the switch in the hot wire, and the neutral wire is 10 feet away. "

That's some mighty interesting wiring. Normally conductors are run together, not with the hot and neutral separated. Probably a code violation, but we don't have much to go on.

And the chances of getting shocked would also depend on what kind of switch it is. Flipping a properly installed wall toggle switch with wet hands, I do that all the time, obviously other people do too, either in a bathroom without tripping the GFCI or other switches without GFCI and I've never got a shock. It would be hard for the water to get into the contact area of the switch. On the other hand, if it's some half-assed little inline switch made for a lamp cord, I sure wouldn't pick the whole thing up with wet hands, hold the cord and switch in one hand and operate the switch with water running from my hands into it.

Reply to
trader_4

Better solution. clap clap

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Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

I didn't misread anything. I was simply suggesting that you do everything you can to trip the GFCI, including standing in a grounded bucket of water. Once you know what it takes to trip the GFCI, you will know how far you can take it.

*If* you actually have to ground yourself while having a open hose stuck down the back of your pants and the switch in your sock to finally trip the GFCI, you can be pretty sure that you can safely use the switch with wet hands while ungrounded.

Of course, you could just leave the GFCI in place and never worry about wet hands again.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

my gas dryers stat switch recently failed the dryer is just over a year old. the original switch is designed cheaply all plastic, but not durable.

so i bought a standard momentary contact switch, but am grounding the switch for safety.

i just wish companies would go back to building stuff that lasts, ratherthan being theabsolute cheapes it can be made

Reply to
bob haller

No, it's not a violation of code. They are a common device, sold for remote control of electicial items that don't come with remote control. They're all wired the same way except I'm not sure, now that I think about it, which wire has the swich. I assumed it should be the hot wire by analogy to house wiring.

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Right. It's not easy, but it's also not as hard as with a wall switch, to get water into this switch.

But the point of the question was, Does it matter if it gets water in it? What if with a wet hand I stuck a stiff uninsulated wire in the hot slot of a receptacle, but I was standing in slippers on carpet on wood and I wasn't touching any other metal anywhere. That is safe, is it not?

It's inline, but it's not the little one. It's one of those big ones, shaped like an almond, or a water bug, or two parens () , about

2 inches long, an inch wide, and more than 1/2 inch thick, with a rocker sw. on one long side.

Something like this, but the older design, made from the 1940's to the

70's or 80's.
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And mine is rated not for 3 amps like this one but for 5A - 250 VAC 10A - 125 VAC 5A - 125 VT

For VT see:

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That was the extreme case, and I did say all that, but in practice, my hand would be damp with maybe one drop falling from it. In the time it takes to walk from the bathroom all the other water would fall off. And there's no reason to use the other hand or to touch the cord.

Reply to
Micky

2,000V or 20,000V? You don't have to have much contact to get a shock from 20,000V. Fortunately the 20,000V in a doesn't have much current capability.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Gill

Might he have wired it switch leg? That's not against code, afaik.

I wouldn't either, mostly out of caution and respect for electricity. Not because I'd expect to be shocked, unless, I'm completing the circuit in some way.

Reply to
Diesel

Just 2000 volts or so. It was limited too, or I moved too quick to get a long dose.

I'm sure it wasn't the picture tube supply. I was nowhere near that, and I think it would have felt even stronger. But even though I was being very careful, it must be that my hand moved and touched something on the main chassis or board, I forget how old it was.

It "knocked me across the room" and I dislocated my shoulder, which hadn't been out of its socket for 11 years. After that, the shoulder came out twice and then 3 times a week. I had surgery about 6 months later, and it hasn't been out since. Though I can't quite get my arm straight up, or hold my hands behind my back now.

My bad shoulders were the major reason I wasn't drafted, but I didn't avoid surgery so as not to be drafted. I really didn't want it. I'm reluctant to have people cut into me. And I had a summer job where I worked hard, putting down rebar and rebar supports for an xway, and the shoulders stopped dislocating after that. The other one hasn't been out since that summer job, except once 20 years ago when it was really forced out, and it sprang right back in.

The story I head in the 70's was that if a shoulder came out 3 times, you were doomed and had to have surgery, but the left was out 4 times already, and the right 8 or 10, before that summer job. (I read my brother's orthopedics book on how to put the shoulder back in. A lot of people do it wrong, including the swim coach who I let do it wrong, shame on me -- I suspect that's still true. Customs die hard. -- and may cause more damage. And I would stop someone on the street to ask him to put it in for me, and tell him how. But eventually I got control and could put it in myself using the muscles in the bad arm itself, and my other hand.) A lot of people say it's the most pain they've ever felt, but it didn't really hurt that much for me. I think that's related to how easily they came out in the first place, sort of.

And that summer job made them both stable. Even the right one woudln't have needed surgery were it not for that tv.

"Knocked" in quotes because I don't know for sure if the shock made my legs push me, or if I did it myself out of fear. Since the shock was applied through my hand, I don't see how it would know about my legs, so I must not have been knocked anywhere. I just jumped back with more force than I normally use.

Reply to
Micky

How does that work? Was it like an explosive blast? Or was it more like a time warp where space was expanded behind you and compressed before you?

Reply to
Buster Hymen

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