Rewiring an old projector - add an earth cable?

On Thu, 02 Nov 2017 16:09:24 +0000, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk coalesced the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension...

I had one of these until about 5 years ago.

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I got the train set when I was 5 or 6, but I remember the controller just as much for the electro-plating and electrolysis experiments I did when I was about 12

Only seems to be worth £5 or so.

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Reply to
Graham.
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In message , Graham. writes

No, they are not worth a lot, but are good, solid performers and will pass a modern PAT effortlessly. The one above is the A2, the next being the slightly larger A3 which has a cutout that operates with a very satisfying 'clunk' when shorted.

Reply to
Graeme

I have a vintage sewing machine that I was happily using with live shorted to the metal body, until one day I happened to ground myself against something and felt a tingle. As long as you don't use something like that while soaking wet and holding onto a water pipe you'll probably be fine. So my choice would be to keep it original, but other people may be more sensitive to/about mains voltage.

Reply to
Rob Morley

In article , Rob Morley writes

I don't think it can ever be wrong to add an earth wire can it?

Reply to
bert

I once hired a carpet cleaner which was double insulated, but had a metal outer case, presumably for durability. Unfortunately, the cable had slipped through the grip, whilst still functioning, and the live conductor had made contact with the casing. I only realised there was a problem when it sparked to a radiator.

Luckily no harm done, and hire fee waived, but it could so easily have been much more serious.

Chris

Reply to
Chris J Dixon

I wonder if an RCD would have reacted, before contact was made with a good ground.

I tried to find figures for domestic electrocution accidents in the UK, but it seems they don't justify a separate category so must be pretty uncommon. I suspect that there are many "could have been much more serious" incidents and very few "was actually rather serious" ones.

In a lifetime of messing around with electricity I've made a few things go bang, and had a few jolts that "could have been much more serious" (if they'd made me fall off a ladder, perhaps) but I've only had two jolts that I wouldn't want to repeat, from a car ignition system and a valve amp output transformer, both across the chest to a good ground (obviously I was careless and broke the "keep one hand in your pocket" rule). I was young and fit at the time, I wouldn't want to bet that I'm still as resilient.

Reply to
Rob Morley

I've only had two bad shocks. One was on a knuckle when my finger touched the live and neutral contacts of the main switch on an appliance, and the other was from a valve amp anode transformer which I later measured at about

400V AC (it was before any rectification/smoothing circuitry).

I take extra care now, after having a heart attack (not caused by an electric shock!), in case my heart is more prone to across-the-chest shocks.

I had a hefty tingle when I unplugged the aerial feed from the DVB-T tuner in my PC. I eventually traced it to my TV which was connected via the aerial screen on another leg of the aerial. It normally floated at about 150 V via a high resistance, but with a 300 kilohm resistor in place of a British Standard Human, the voltage was still about 70 V - enough to be very noticeable. I was holding the metal aerial plug in one hand and the earthed PC case in the other hand: fine until the cable was unplugged when the screen of the plug was no longer connected to earth.

This was a TV from about 2000, so not exactly an ancient live-chassis device. I worked out afterwards that the PC was the only earthed device in the circuit. The TV was two-wire double-insulated, as was the VCR and the hifi (connected to the TV by SCART lead and audio lead respectively). The PC was the only thing (normally) keeping the ground of everything earthed.

Reply to
NY

The wires don't even need to work loose. Any leakage on a bayonet bulb base insulation will do the trick if the holder is metal. The black stuff they used to use can get leaky when hot. Though most projector bulbs seem to be glass insulated.

Reply to
therustyone

20 something a year, mostly from people being stupid

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

I was expecting a punchline where he complained about not being able to plug another garden tool into the extension lead after you'd fixed it.

Reply to
Adam Funk

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