Tossing a charged Capacitor in the Bathtub

[Bob_Villa]

In manufacturing where many large inductors (motors) are used, the electric grid has to use huge capacitors to put the current back in phase.

[micky]

Wow! Color tv or black and white?.

[micky]

I wonder how God thought to make us feel the pain of electricity when we didn't even have electricity when we evolved.

[JimT]

When I was a kid in the 3rd grade I was fixing our old b/w console unplugged. I thought it would be safe. I discharged a capacitor and it gave me quite a shock through the rivets in the kitchen knife I was "fixing" the TV with. If you completed the circuit through both of your arms it could easily cause cardiac arrest (where the one hand in back pocket idea comes from). I learned my lesson. Always discharge capacitors!

this always cracks me up

I love the sound the amp makes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! LOL

[AaronJ]

Color had higher picture tube anode voltages but B&W was bad enough. When you got zapped it really woke you up, but worse was losing some skin off your arm when it involuntarily jerked backward and scraped against those jagged metal chassis and cabinet parts. When changing tubes or doing other work inside the TV you tried to stay away from that picture tube wire but invariably it got you. Even with the TV set turned off it could zap you if you forgot to discharge the picture tube with a screwdriver to the chassis. These fond memories from work as a TV tech in the late 50s, the golden years... ;)

[micky]

I myself only have a DC bathtub.

[micky]

I meant electricity beyond the tiny amounts in our bodies.

But you can't feel the pain from your own electricity. I wonder why He made us feel pain from 110 volts. He probably knew we'd have that some day, but it means until 150 years ago, we could feel pain from it even t hough there wasn't any.

I'm not countring lightning.I don't think people avoid lightning for the same reasons.

[micky]

Were you over its rating? Or near it?

But be sure not to buy wrought iron lawn furniture.

Doug, lots of possible reasons he did not answer, but I don't think your wise crack was offensive. No one thought you meant for him to hurt himself.

[micky]

What about George W. Bush? Didn't he say he was the deliberator.

[Tony Miklos]

Reminds me of the time I brought the little kid out of my boss. I had him hooking up small electrolytic caps to 120VAC via an extension cord and out a door. We kept increasing the size and it didn't take too long before they didn't explode, they just tripped the 20amp breaker. Never forget when he told me "what ever you do, don't tell my wife!".

[jw]

No problem. I knew you were joking. I wish I was. The ladder was old and had some dings and dents, but I've used it for years with those dings. I'm around 200lbs, so not really overweight (well, maybe 10 lbs). I know the snow under the ladder was much at fault. the legs probably slid in different directions, and both vertical legs buckled. Down I came. No, that was not fun! I had a wooden ladder snap once, but the sound gave me warning, and I slowly came down and did not fall. This damn thing just buckled in one second or less. with no sounds or anything to notice. Oddly enough I fell faster than the ladder because the damn ladder landed on top of me, and whacked me in the face, so that added a black eye and cheek to the damages. A broken off piece of one leg actually punctured the aluminum siding on the house too. It took me

10 or 15 minutes to get up, then I got pissed and threw the ladder. Thats when I realized I needed to go to the hospital amd got someone to drive me there.

Note, the ladder was on a wooden deck covered with and inch or two of snow. It would have likely held up if it was on the lawn snow instead (and probably not hurt as much either).

[jw]

. Mormons dont die, they just vanish into a different universe. And for anyone, if the person has life insurance, they cant die at all. (at least that's what the insurance crooks, (I mean salesmen), say!!!

[jw]

I have noticed some things on power poles that look like pole transformers without any secondaries and they are smaller. The HV line just enters and exists then midway to a farm or industrial complex. Maybe those are the caps. I never understood their purpose.

Besides industry, large farms have lots of power hungry motors. I just operate a small farm, but even I have hay elevators and augers and other devices with fairly large 110 or 220 volt motors.

Also, in reply to others speaking in electronics terms I am familiar with non polarized as well as electrolytic caps. I worked on a lot of electronics when I was a kid. Mostly tube stuff back then, and back then, mf meant micro-farad, and mmf meant miro-micro-farad. Oddly enough they were also called condensors in those days. I still fart around with a few home repairs of electronic stuff, but these days finding parts is a challenge, if not impossible. Especially ICs. That takes the fun out of it.

[jw]

As much as I worked on electronics as a kid, I never know if an AC cap (motor starting cap) would hold a charge. If nothing else, this thread answered that it dont.

[jw]

That is pretty funny. Actually he probably felt nothing. He touched an input, the body picks up a lot of things especially the 60hz AC around him. That is what you hear. If you have a guitar cord plugged into an amp, and grab the tip if the plug on the guitar end, it will make that same sound. That amp volume was up pretty high too.

You can do the same with a home stereo using a cord plugged into an AUX, TAPE, or PHONO input, touch the end of the cord (you wont get a shock). (Phono inputs do this the best, they have an extra stage of amplification..... of course most modern amps probably dont have a phono input anymore).

[Bob_Villa]

Power grid capacitor bank:

[Jules Richardson]

It was a color - I thought I'd discharged it, but either the discharge wire wasn't making contact properly, or it was the dielectric absorption effect I mentioned in another post, but it still gave me a pretty nice zap when I later touched it.

I grew up in England and had a few 240V shocks in my youth when messing around with stuff, and they just tingle. This was a lot more painful, and my whole arm hurt for a couple of hours after.

cheers

Jules

[bud--]

If they are wired in series on the distribution wiring they are sectionalizers.

a not-great description.

They take the place of a fuse, and are always downstream from a recloser. Reclosers are also wired in series, but are much larger.

PF correction caps are wired phase-to-phase.

[Tony Miklos]

Well you got some bad info.

[Ralph Mowery]

While you might say they charge with DC only, a capacitor will charge on an AC circuit. It depends on where in the cycle the capacitor is removed. It can be charged anywhere from 0 to the maximum peak line voltage. It is being charged and discharged 120 times a second for standard house current in the USA. Half the time one plate will be positive with respect to the other and half it will be negative.

When saying AC or DC capacitors, that is very misleading. The polarized and nonpolarized is more correct.

Connect and disconnect a motor starting capacitor enough times and it will have a charge stored in it during one of the times.