Can electricity conduct through a fine spray of water?

[John Larkin]

This is the Wild West. Life is cheap.

120 barely tickles anyhow.

[John Larkin]

Quincy sure is.

[Commander Kinsey]

Surely when the mist lands, it forms a film of water on all surfaces, making everything live.

[Commander Kinsey]

Yet everything is super expensive over there.

Indeed, so why the fuss about GFCI over there?

[John Larkin]

Because it's super good and there are too many over-paid engineers. We just got back from the Alemany Farmers' Market and that stuff is both good and cheap. The seasonal stuff, fresh from the farm, is cherries, peaches, beans, corn, and Romanesco (broccoli or cauliflower, nobody seems sure.)

Scardey-cat politicians mostly.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Recently, I went to visit someone with a very extensive outdoor Christmas light display. He said he never uses GFCIs, they are too annoying with all those nuisance trips.

[Commander Kinsey]

We have some bullshit over here called "Fair trade" which pays farmers a "fair price" instead of what the market decides. Look, it's a business, they compete. If the farmer can't make a profit, either he's not as good as Mr Jones next door, or there are too many farmers.

The last 240 shock I got was through my finger, touching the live input by mistake while feeling the temperature of the transformer in a UPS. Stupid grounded crap. If it wasn't grounded I wouldn't have got a shock, don't they realise you need to complete the circuit?

I know many Americans who believe it's necessary. And for some reason you guys fit them seperately to outlets where you think you need it. At least in the UK they just stick one in the fusebox for the whole house. Why do something more than once?

[Commander Kinsey]

You mean robotic swordsmen?

How can that work? Electric fences are pulsed about once a second. Whether you stopped the flow or not, the shock stops.

My friend did it once, he jumped and made his jeans disgusting.

[John Larkin]

Do you get many false trips?

The GF outlet in our kitchen occasionally trips when I use my hand blender, but I think it's from emi, the switch sparking, not actual ground leakage. No big deal, the reset button is right there.

[Martin Brown]

Not very and at the moment when they do enough current will flow to dry them out again PDQ but no more. Condensing fogs and dew or sticky snow are more likely to cause trouble for them than rain.

If an arc develops then the breaker on the line should interrupt supply.

They are designed to have a rain shadow, but even if it did there is enough power in the line to evaporate small amounts of pure water away (which isn't a very good conductor in the first place).

This explains the mechanics reasonably well:

[Carlos E.R.]

Not even once per month. I get one now and then with some rainfalls, I suspect somewhere in the laundry room (a hut in the patio) there is some fault or faulty equipment.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Not so easy if you have a whole house protector. You have to find the device that caused the trip. Maybe find a flashlight first.

[John Larkin]

That's one advantage to a local GFI outlet. You're right there.

[Rod Speed]

None of those do, essentially because the insulators have an inverted section at the bottom of each bulge which never gets wet in that situation.

And you never get line dropouts in that situation.

[Commander Kinsey]

I have fuses, I was speaking for the sissy majority.

My parents have one, it's not tripped since they moved there in 2005, even when my dad touched live plug prongs (because they can't detect live to neutral shocks).

Why would it trip for that?

[Commander Kinsey]

Just replace it with a fuse.

[Commander Kinsey]

I don't understand, surely there's continuous water from the live to the ground? It's lying in wet grass!

Why be cautious if there's a breaker?

[Commander Kinsey]

Not sure what's wrong with your penis, but I produce a continuous stream.

And of course it couldn't kill you, your legs are not a vital organ.

[micky]

What can I tell you? I've been doing this for 20 years, all winter, all summer, rain, snow. I only pick it up to use the lawnmower or weedwacker and then I drop it wherever I am when I diconnect it. After a few days the grass grows and you can't see it.

The breaker might break. That is, not work.

[Commander Kinsey]

I'm guessing the connector's connections are quite a bit inset and the water doesn't flow into them.

Never known of that happening, despite the bullshit on them about test weekly. Seriously? Turn all the power off in your house every week? I'm guessing only OCD folk actually do it.