dangerous advice?

[Bill Wright]

"A live wire is a wire with current flowing through it. Because neutral doesn't have any current in it, but line does, you could say that line is live. This explains why that you can be shocked from touching just the line. You can't be by touching just the neutral or ground. Line to neutral is the most deadliest if it travels across you. Line to ground will tingle a lot, but it won't necessarily kill you because the current draw isn't nearly as much as line to neutral."

from:

Bill

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is such nonsense.

[charles]

a live wire is still live when there is no load on the circuit.

[Tim Watts]

WTF? And there's no way to downvote/upvote "answers" or comment/edit them?

Looks like a rubbish site.

[Tim Watts]

When you crowdsource stupidity...

[The Natural Philosopher]

[Brian Gaff]

Oh dear, somebody that is not reading their specs very well. Also the tiny amount of current needed to kill if across the heart is a sobering thought hence the one hand in the pocket advice I have used all my life. it can burn you, and damage nerves but its not going to kill you if you get a shock across your fingers or hand to arm.

Incidentally has anyone here had an RF burn, that is most certainly one of the worst pains I can recall

[JoeJoe]

You are going to be he load if you touch it.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Brian Gaff was thinking very hard :

Yes, lots of them. It can burn the skin, but also through to the underlying tissue, as can HV.

[The Other Mike]

Yes some of it is bollocks but you are reading it from a UK point of view and might be interpreting it incorrectly.

They use centre tapped transformers for domestic supplies in the USA so you have a 110v - 0v - 110v presentation, with two lives at the 110v end of the transformer at 180 degrees phase difference and a neutral point, also being earth at the centre tap.

You can thus have 110v loads from live to the centre tapped neutral and circa

220v across the two lives, with no neutral connection.

It's extremely similar to the 110v 55v-0v-55v transformers used here in the UK, which when correctly wired have the centre tap properly earthed back to what is the local 240v supply earth.

You touch either of the live connections on the secondary and you get a shock at

55v potential to ground.

You touch the centre point (equivalent of the neutral in the USA) and it's very close to zero volts with respect to the surrounding earthing / grounding surfaces.

You contact both secondary 'lives' and you get a shock at 110v potential difference with 55v potential difference to earth.

[John Rumm]

Well its wrong on so many levels... the daft comment about line to earth being less deadly than line to neutral is perhaps the stand out bit of "dumbness"!

[JoeJoe]

Probably the same website where people were advised to dry their dropped-in-the-toilet iPhones in the microwave.

[John Rumm]

Even allowing for that, its still pretty dire.

No, let me take that back. Actually allowing for that - it makes no difference at all, its just as wrong!

Which highlights that the centre tap is earthed, and hence the comment about a line to earth shock being less "deadly" makes no sense.

[Andy Burns]

Maybe it's sponsored by the Darwin Awards?

[newshound]

Unless you read it in the context of US (and possibly French and other continental?) systems, where neutral isn't.

But yes, the problem of allowing idiots to crowdsource.

On a more philosophical point, I think it is fair to say that most of "our" generation treats all traditional "advertising" as damned lies.

What I'd be interested to know is to what extent the snowflake generation apply the same skepticism to anything on-line. A lot of people seem to be quick to cry "Photoshop", but I worry whether the percentage is high enough.

I guess you are never going to stop more suggestible individuals from getting drawn into the self-reinforcing stuff, be it islamic radicalisation or something on the opposite wing. Which poses *really* interesting and difficult questions of internet regulation.

Anyway, I'm calling for cynics and skeptics to unite under the 1660 motto of the Royal Society, "Nullius in verba"!

(For those without the benefit of a classical education, "Take nobody's word for it").

[NY]

So in America and (parts of) mainland Europe, is neutral not connected to earth potential at some point in the distribution chain?

I can see that a earthed-centre-tapped transformer for supplying 220V in addition to (2x) 110V supply will have a higher potential between live and neutral than between live and earth, and hence higher current, higher ability to kill etc. But is the potential between 110V (or 220V in Europe) live and neutral significantly greater than between live and earth?

[soup]

Pain in a burn is good (FSVOgood). Better not to get burned at all but a painful one is better than a numb one that has gone deep.

:- It means the nerves are still intact enough to send pain messages to the brain. A deep burn that has killed all the nerves in the surface layers (3rd degree) doesn't hurt so much but the skin is a lot more damaged.

Anecdote :- I remember him (the lecturer) telling us about what percentage of skin cover each body part equaled, front of leg 10% etc adding up the whole body only comes to 99% leading to lots of jokes about 1% rise etc.

[Brian Gaff]

Yes never let a radio ham use your very high location to run a station without actually telling you he is attempting to load op a random bit of wire dangling over a roof.

I still have a slight scar on my palm over 40 years later.

I gues it tends to cook the tissue! Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Yes anyone remember the Wichita linemean? Spelling could be compromised in this message. No letters were harmed while it was typed. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Yes right then, what was that song keep away from third rails?

If that spleen dump at the end was meant to say don't believe everything to read anywhere then that is always the case, one mans truth is another mans lie.

I don't believe in Ghosts but something picked up a pen and threw it at me in an empty room when I was 14 years old. There are things we do not understand, but ghosts are probably nothing to do with it. Brian