Off Topic: Darwin Award

[Swingman]

A couple of pints of Scotland's finest beer will do it ... two pint input, two gallon output.

[Robatoy]

2000yqn.googlegroups.com:

No pun intended?

[Puckdropper]

Robatoy wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Nope, didn't even realize there might have been something in there taken as a pun.

Puckdropper

[-MIKE-]

Really? We're using mythbusters as our final word on science?

Love the show, but they *hardly* hold to scientific method and occasionally get it right.

In this particular case, if the voltage/current is high enough, you don't need a "continuous stream." The electricity can arc from drop to drop to drop.

[Robatoy]

The voltage would have to be one heckuva lot higher than the 600 volts typically found on a third rail, which is what Mythbusters was trying to establish. For a charge to jump from one drop to the next, to the next the voltage would have to be a lot higher, such as an electric fence.

Other than that, Mythbusters is a 'reality' show with a twist. They like blowing shit up to get ratings. One is supposed to suspend any belief in scientific methods.

Why so serious?

[-MIKE-]

Not serious, just blabbin.

I don't think they ever got anywhere near 600 volts on the show. I don't know the exact numbers, since I'm only recalling what my buddy told me (electrical engineer for AEP), but lines that would fall from a pole near a highway or roadway could be 1000+ volts, and certainly very high current.

[Robatoy]

Quite often as high as 23,000 volts. Pee on one of those, and all that'll be left would be your boots. Dusty boots... likely just footprints. The 4-part biggies go to 500KV and can carry upward of a gigawatt.

[-MIKE-]

I was trying to narrow it down do what would be carried by a pole that could be knocked down in a car accident. But I've seen some pretty tall aluminum poles near roadways, carrying distribution lines that are certainly up near the 23k you mentioned.

[Lee Michaels]

"Robatoy" wrote

Quite often as high as 23,000 volts. Pee on one of those, and all that'll be left would be your boots. Dusty boots... likely just footprints. The 4-part biggies go to 500KV and can carry upward of a gigawatt. =====================

Years ago I was reading about survivors of lightening stikes and industrial electrical accidents. Talk about an extreme experience! One guy was inside a big electrical relay room when they turned the power on. Some of these folks changed their personality. Most were very grateful to be alive.

But the most interesting factoid was that some of them, no way to determine a percentage, actually grew a third set of teeth. Think about the impications for dental health! It would be hard to find research volunteers though.

[Robert Bonomi]

'typical' residential distribution -- with a 'can' transformer per residence is going to be in the more-or-less 1.2-4 KV range.

Feeds -to- a sub-station -- one that feeds the residential distribution -- tend to be in the 15-35kv range.

Metro distribution is usually in the 75-141kv range.

Long haul primaries -- e.g., 'the grid' -- are in the 141kv and up range. circa 25 years ago, I knew of a _few_ places that were as high as 600+ kv.

The breakdown voltage across an air gap -- what it takes to make a spark _initially_ jump -- is in the range of 20-75kv/inch. "Clean, _dry_, air ns at the high end of that range; "damp, dirty, polluted" stuff can be well below the low end.

Insulation stand-offs tend to be 1" per 'few' KV

[Robatoy]

Some scientists speculate that a lightning strike hit the primordial soup and it sprang to life.... over time...more so for some than others....nebber mind.. BRAINSSSS

[Robatoy]

That would all be pretty much spot on, sir. You have to go a ways to be needing corona inhibitors.

[Larry Jaques]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 01:36:39 -0800, the infamous "LDosser" scrawled the following:

It would be, up until the point the 17kv went through it. Nobody I know pees in morse code, y'know.

-- An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do. -- W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge, 1943

[Larry Jaques]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 05:48:16 -0800 (PST), the infamous Robatoy scrawled the following:

innews: [e-mail]:

Um, _what_ pun, Toy? "In the end"?

It really isn't funny. (wrong end)

-- An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do. -- W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge, 1943

[LDosser]

Drink till midnight, piss till dawn!

[LDosser]

And crossing streams? Eh, what about That?

[LDosser]

Some scientists speculate that a lightning strike hit the primordial soup and it sprang to life.... over time...more so for some than others....nebber mind.. BRAINSSSS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Throughout the entire thread I've had the picture in my mind of the minister in Caddyshack golfing in the thunderstorm.

[Lew Hodgett]

The motto of the Pistol Club.

Lew

[Mark & Juanita]

.... snip

Try 2000 to 4000 volts:

Reading the instructions for one of the units, they have a device you can buy that will send an alert when voltage drops BELOW 4000 volts. Very low current, so it's not dangerous, just extremely painful.

[-MIKE-]

So they use a step-up. Makes sense. We've all done those science class experiments with those weird globe things that sends 10k volts through your body and makes your hair stand up.

I have a current detector that bugs the crap out of me because it beeps just from rubbing against me or anything plastic. The customer support guy said it's registering the voltage in the static electricity generated from the friction which can be upwards over 600 volts.

Same buddy from AEP told me they've had guys killed from lines they knew to be dead, but someone was running a generator in a residence, without turning off their main breaker. The step-down transformers on the poles built the current up back through the line and "bam!"