wall plug wiring

And the "shell" of the socket goes to the neutral

Reply to
clare
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That Stormin guy said much the same. The toaster shell should either be isolated, or grounded.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

What socket has a shell? WTF?

Reply to
trader_4

I read once toaster shells aren't grounded because of what could happen if people hit the heating element pushing the toast down. Forks? Knives?

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

I was probably around 14 years old when I got an old shortwave radio which was probably made in the 40s. It had a metal case, which was isolated from the metal chassis buy some rubber grommets. There was no transformer. Those grommets had become brittle and the case was in direct contact to that chassis.

Shortwave radios need an antenna and have a ground screw that needs to be grounded to complete the antenna. I rigged up a piece of wire outdoors, ran it to a tree for an antenna. Then I connected a piece of wire from the GROUND screw to the screw holding the cover on the wall outlet. The cord on that radio was obviously wired backwards. When I plugged the radio in, that thin piece of wire I used for a ground wire, instantly went up in smoke, and since it was right by the outlet where I was plugging in the radio, that red hot wire fell on my hand and burned right into my skin, before it blew the house fuse. I had burned deep into my hand, leaving the melted insulation enbedded in my hand. That was very painful.

My father was really pissed off about it and after taking me to the hospital, he said I could not play with electricity anymore. His brother (my uncle) was an electrician. He looked at that radio and showed me what was wrong. He wired it properly with a grounded cord, and told me to replace those grommets before I ever consider plugging it in again. I did that, and after my father calmed down (I think my uncle talked to my father about it). When I tried the radio again, it worked fine.

That was a hard lesson to learn. But it could have been worse if a fire had started. There was always a small reminder, because that wire left a burn mark in the linoleum below that outlet, and another burn in the wooden table the radio was on. (The outlet cover plate had to be replaced since it was all charred too. My uncle did that, and might have replaced the outlet too).

I still have that radio, even though I have not used it in years. It brings back good memories of my youth and bad memories of that incident, but a BIG LESSON in electrical safety.

Reply to
Paintedcow

People who stick metal forks, knives, etc into toasters, should be sent to the electric chair, because they are too stupid to deserve to be alive! :)

Reply to
Paintedcow

Could be isolated. I've never put a VOM on a toaster, might do that some day for raw excitement. My toaster has two wire cord and plug, so the shell is probably isolated. Does anyone have a three wire corded toaster to test?

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

There were plenty of "hot chassis" electronics made before the transistors started showing up. I had a tv that would light you up if a knob fell off and you touched the shaft. After a while I figured out I should flip the plug. They may have had NEMA 1-15 receptacles but the plugs were not.

Reply to
gfretwell

This kind :

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Reply to
Retired

With the possible exception of a commercial unit I don't think there has been a grounded toaster sold in North America in over 40 years - and I have NEVER seen one that was not isolated from the factory.. Some of the better ones even switched both wires years ago.

Reply to
clare

Years ago my mother complained about being shocked when doing dishes, checking out the situation I found if a metal pan in the dish rack was touching the toaster and you touch it and the sink you got zapped. Using a meter there was 120V between the toaster and the sink, non-polarized plug, reverse the plug and no problems.

Replaced the plug with a three prong to prevent reversing the plug.

Reply to
Idlehands

If someone is stupid enough to stick a fork in a toaster when it's plugged in, they get what they deserve. I want to watch.

Reply to
dangerous dan

If nobody ever did anything dumb, we could eliminate about half of the electric code.

Reply to
gfretwell

Yep, I still find it sort of amazing they even allowed such things. Sure, the elec codes were much less than they are now, but they still had codes and those live chassis were simply dangerous. At the very minimum, they could have used polarized plugs, which would not have added any cost to the device, since they had to install some sort of plug anyhow.

I wonder how many people died from electrocution back then? It's just like I was talking to an old farmer who was my neighbor before he passed away at the age of 90 something. He was telling me when he ran a hog farm on that property (where he still lived). He constantly spoke about hogs getting electrocuted. One day I got to see his barn, and I was shocked at what I saw of the wiring in there. Wires with bare copper exposed, switches and outlets just hanging by some wires (no box) with a little electrical tape around the screws, lamp cord attached to stock tank heaters, and so on.... UNBELIEVABLE!

After he died, the new owner of that farm cut the wires going to that barn the same day he moved in. He had an electrician rewire the house immediately. Eventually he had the barn and other sheds rewired too.

Reply to
Paintedcow

Have you checked youtube?

Reply to
Perilous Pete

Does switching both wires increase the chance of GFCI's tripping?

I'm picturing a situation where there's a lag between the opening of hot vs. the neutral. Wouldn't the GFCI sense that?

Reply to
DerbyDad03

The problem was the number of non polarized receptacles out there. The

3d house I lived in was built in 1953 and it did not have them. I don't really remember 1-15s (polarized 2 wire) until after the 5-15 (3 wire) was available and used in commercial.
Reply to
gfretwell

Nope. Dr Kirchoff says the current in a circuit is equal everywhere if there is only one path. When the first switch opens, the current stops.

Reply to
gfretwell

+1
Reply to
trader_4

That is only for steady state. When a switch first opens or closes there is a short time before the current reaches that point depending on how much inductance or capacitance is in the circuit. As the electricity will travel around the earth about 7 times in one second there is a small but usually too small of a time for most simple circuits to mater.

I doubt that any GFCI or arc sense type of breaker would be designed fast enough to detect that.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

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