OT: Ceiling lamp install

[Leon]

My dad, once an electrician for Western Electric, welded his screwdriver on to an oven switch like that. That was some 60+ years ago. I remember seeing sparks flying from behind the oven/range

[Leon]

I wonder if he wired your home too? ;~0 You just got a steal in the neighborhood didn't you? ;~)

[Leon]

Absolutely not!

I bet he wants to know now. Ironic, he hates guns, But like most conspiracy weather people, there is money to be made. So he will make an exception this time.

[krw]

That's the definition of an ohm. What is the resistance of the human body? It can only be known by the voltage across the body divided the current through it. The resistance is very complex and nonlinear.

A big unknown is the resistance of the skin. It can be much higher than your numbers. This is the reason that you can touch a wire and only feel a tingle at one time and a nice large jolt, another. Skin resistance varies all over the place mostly dependent on the water content. It's also the reason sponges saturated with salt are used for executions.

Tasting a 1-1/2V battery is a reasonable measure of its utility but don't try it with a 9V battery (very painful, DAMHIKT).

[krw]

Many moons ago my MIL was complaining about getting shocks off her dryer since they'd (recently) moved. I thought it was just capactive coupling and she was really sensitive so connected a wire from the dryer case to the cold water pipe behind the washer. *FLASH* It blew a 60A fuse in the box in the laundry. Me thinks, "hmm not capacitive". I took apart the dryer and it was wired right. Then the circuit panel. "Everything good in here". Finally I looked in the outlet box. It was a mess getting to it which is why it was last. It had obviously been put in after the house was built because the box held in the wall only by the cable. Anyway, the white and red were reversed putting 120V on the case.

After I fixed it she told her husband that she'd been complaining that the dryer was taking twice as long as it did in their previous house (only 120V across the heater wires).

[Beeper]

Thanks, Leon. No worries, *my* sarcasm is not broken. ;-)

[Beeper]

Oops. My sarcasm *detector* is not broken. ;-)

[Michael Trew]

Haha no, I know enough "to be dangerous" I suppose. But I can spot dangerous too... I did have to fix a few "homeowner" repairs here. Two circuits I totally disconnected. What a rat's nest - not worth it.

[Michael Trew]

Heh, I suppose I've worked with too many electricians.

[Michael Trew]

It's not a method I would advise, aside from jest, but I have done it in a pinch. It's a lot better than frying yourself.

[J. Clarke]

The thing is, if you use a voltmeter then you have to go down to the breaker panel, flip the breaker, and then go back to wherever you were working, likely finding that the most expensive tool in your toolkit has walked off while you were away. But if you use the screwdriver, the breaker's tripped and the circuit's dead and if you work real fast you'll have the job done before some helpful soul turns it back on.

[Bill]

As the person who installed the lamp, after removing the wire connectors I connected a screwdriver to the positive and neutral wires. It is commonly done to the terminals when approaching an A/C motor capacitor, and I did it for peace of mind before touching the ends of the wires, even though I had to reason to think I had anything to worry about. If I really thought they might be live, I would have used a voltage detector. Fortunately, there were no sparks, and work proceeded as planned. The lamp has two 100w bulbs on a dimmer, provides great light, and any lack of symmetry gets less notable by the day! Nothing left to see on this thread! : )

[Puckdropper]

Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I've gotten in the habit of turning the saw off, putting my hands somewhere safe (I find it helps prevent the temptation to move) and waiting for the saw to spin down before moving. So what if it takes a full minute to spin down? How long would it take for an ER visit? Hours, how long to live with it? A lifetime.

Let me burn the minute.

Puckdropper

[Puckdropper]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

On household wiring? How so?

Puckdropper

[Leon]

Yes! Me too. ;!) Watch every tool until it coasts to a stop.

So what if it takes a

Not long at all. Maybe 5~6 seconds. But until you plan that far ahead, it is like turning off a fan and waiting until it stops rotating to leave the room.

How long would it take for an ER visit?

The ER visit was probably 2~3 hours. And I have learned to live with it. The only real issue I have now is buttoning a long sleeve on the opposite hand.

Absolutely! Because NO ONE is incapable of making a mistake.

[J. Clarke]

And how is a "false positive" a bad thing? Better to err on the side of caution.

[krw]

I do the same. I did get hurt on the saw once. I dragged my arm across the stopped blade. It wasn't a disaster but was a bit messy.

[krw]

It should be like a bandsaw and have a brake. An electronic brake would be good. Sliders come to a halt pretty quickly.

My last ER visit was 5hrs before they even had me sign the paperwork to be seen, eight hours total. I'd just had a car accident and the paramedics had me on a stretcher. I had a broken arm, possible head trauma (blood thinner) and pacemaker (lead) damage. Things that should have been a priority. The Paramedics were required to say until I was admitted to the ER.

Once I had to wait in the lobby with the druggies and flu patients (hacking up their lungs) for a couple of hours. Syncope brought me there and was admitted for known, and unknown, heart issues. I had a pacemaker a week later.

ERs aren't my favorite places. Seen too many of 'em.

It's where we want to be anyway. ;-)

[krw]

A high-impedance voltmeter will read line voltage where there is none because there is enough capacitance across the wires and leakage through all sorts of devices to show up on an otherwise dead circuit.

[krw]

It's not all good. It gets one to stop trusting the device. It's also a PITA trying to find a problem.