How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

[fzabkar]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

Did you lose consciousness?

No, just some pride. :-)

[fzabkar]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

probably not as dangerous as the 10-20KV i got hit with from a CRT, but that was residual so hardly any current!

My boss (a mad Irishman) demonstrated a TV's protection circuitry by grabbing hold of a CRT anode and then switching on the TV. The TV's PSU hiccuped and he remained unharmed. I think you will find that the ABL current limit is typically set at 1mA which is probably not enough to kill you.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

The AC house wring in the US are fed with power transformer 240V with center tap, the center tap is connected to earth ground, the safety GND wire is also connected to the center tap, the neutral wire is also bonded to the SAFETY GND. The The Voltage between L1, L2 is 240 and it is usually used for electric stove, Dryer, etc.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...ic/hsehld.html
http://www.esgroundingsolutions.com/...he-main-panel/

I think both sides on my breaker are connected together Budm. I'm attaching some pictures. In the picture you attached, they show normally 240V is getting 120V from each side of the panel. None of my 240V lines are like that at all. All of them get it from the same side. I've attached some pictures for you to see of that too. I'm going to read the links you linked to.

If my two sides of the breaker box are separated, should I try to run all the 240V's like it's ran in that picture you attached? Where one hot is on one side of the breaker panel, the other hot is on the other side or don't it really matter? I'd think it probably wouldn't matter so much because I'm not drawing super crazy amounts of current or anything. So it really shouldn't matter, right?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

The first picture is a bit blurry but shows where the hot lines from the second picture go. The third picture shows how I think they're connected, at the bottom there. I think the panel is just a big U. Then the last picture there, that's one of the 240V breakers. I should have put black electrical tape on the white HOT closer to the actual circuit breaker. You can see it here a few inches back. I was trying to keep it up to code.

[budm]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

There are two buss bar one for L1, one for L2 coming down in the middle section that you cannot easily see in the pictures.
http://www.bobvila.com/articles/wiri.../#.Vzo2DvlVhBc

BTW:https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...7&d=1463430832, those 3 incoming power wires do not look good, it looks like they are running hot.
Those terminal should be check and tightened once a year by qualify electrician, those are aluminum incoming wires.

http://www.hankeyandbrown.com/electrical

http://www.fluke.com/fluke/uses/comu...el_overheating
http://www.circuitbreakersblog.com/tag/overheating/

[stj]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

My boss (a mad Irishman) demonstrated a TV's protection circuitry by grabbing hold of a CRT anode and then switching on the TV. The TV's PSU hiccuped and he remained unharmed. I think you will find that the ABL current limit is typically set at 1mA which is probably not enough to kill you.

lol - he wont do that on most tv's
the safety is not a current limit - it's an overvoltage cutout.
usually set to cut the power at about 22KV
unless it's a really big tube - then it could be over 25KV

[desert-rat]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

I had a guy that worked with 400hz stuff tell me that being shocked by it feels different than 60hz.
On a side note,my dad went back to the 25hz days. He said it was hard to read with a bulb on 25hz as you could see it pulse,or flicker.

[stj]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

probably true, that's the rough framerate of cinema projectors.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

There are two buss bar one for L1, one for L2 coming down in the middle section that you cannot easily see in the pictures.
http://www.bobvila.com/articles/wiri.../#.Vzo2DvlVhBc

BTW:https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...7&d=1463430832, those 3 incoming power wires do not look good, it looks like they are running hot.
Those terminal should be check and tightened once a year by qualify electrician, those are aluminum incoming wires.

http://www.hankeyandbrown.com/electrical

http://www.fluke.com/fluke/uses/comu...el_overheating
http://www.circuitbreakersblog.com/tag/overheating/

Thank you. How do I find a qualified electrician? The electrician who wired this house, I don't think he was qualified. I think we got scammed, hook line and sinker. Is there someway to make sure they're actually qualified and know what they claim they know?

So, from that article, it shows 240 is 120V from one bus and a 120V from another bus. But then they talk, further down on the page, about how 120V is just a double pole breaker (which seems to imply it's 120V's from the same bus). The giant bars that the breakers hook into are the buses. I have two hot buses, right? I think I finally understand. I thought because my double pole breaker was 2 breakers on the same side, ecah breaker was connected to the same bus. But from what you're saying, I'm guessing left side bus crossses over to the right side and vice-versa every other breaker, right? So I can hook up double pole breakers and get the 240V that I need...

[budm]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/arti...213817,00.html

http://electrical.about.com/od/panel...e-Breakers.htm

[stj]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

u.s. electrical standards are clearly bullshit.
in europe those incoming terminals would have to have 2 clamp-screws to be legal.
we dont trust only one to hold the wire on high current circuits.

can you show us what's on the other end of the large wires.
if they go to a sealed meter then the power company may need to replace them.

[budm]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

u.s. electrical standards are clearly bullshit.
in europe those incoming terminals would have to have 2 clamp-screws to be legal.
we dont trust only one to hold the wire on high current circuits.

can you show us what's on the other end of the large wires.
if they go to a sealed meter then the power company may need to replace them.

Can we see pictures of Euro circuit breaker panel you have in your house to see how it is done?

[stj]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

not really, the meter & master-fuse have covers on them with company seals fitted so we cant run a meter-bypass wire!

also, all the bussbars and breaker terminals are covered by a panel.

i will try to get pictures of the actual components unfitted.

here is a description of how a domestic system is usually rigged,
first the cable from the street goes into a master 100A fuse,
that feeds the meter and sometimes a timeswitch. (to switch between different rates at different times - it feeds back to the meter)

the meter then goes to the master switch - 2 pole.
the master switch feeds the bussbar(s) feeding the breakers.
and the breakers then go to the individual wires that feed everything.
sockets are wired on a ring btw - look it up.


ok.
this is why i cant foto it.
they are shielded like this:

that is no longer legal btw, AFAIK all new installs must use metal boxes.

some junction boxes.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

My box is generally sheielded as well, I just removed the sheilding so I could work on it. I'm pretty certain this box isn't up to code. I don't think my dad hired a certified master electrician. I think the guy was an idiot and just saw how his house was wired and wired it how he thought was right.

I'm pretty sure code says the electrical lines in the attic, they need to be so far away from the scuttle, not directly over it. Also, they shouldn't just be dangling in the air like they are. They should either be stabled to the rafters, drilled through the rafters or in conduit. We're in the country, I have no idea how this passed inspection when the house was being built...one girl came, three times during the build phase. That was it.

I'd like to get a qualified electrician in to check everything out and make sure everything's good. I'm sure that'll cost some money. There where wires (ground / neutral) that weren't even hooked up in the box. There were wires in the outlets that weren't hooked up. I guess they could have come out.

Also, the wires that go into the outlet, they got some bare metal showing. If I were to do it, I would have stripped them jus right, so no bare metal was showing. I don't think that has much to do with code there, but still, I think a real professional would have done a much better job and probably charged much more than 10$ an hour....

[stj]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

that's below minimum wage here!!!

a certified electrician would probably cost 50-70us$ an hour.

[fzabkar]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

lol - he wont do that on most tv's
the safety is not a current limit - it's an overvoltage cutout.
usually set to cut the power at about 22KV
unless it's a really big tube - then it could be over 25KV

It was an old Philips set (from the 1980s ?). I think I may be wrong about the ABL, though. The load on the EHT would definitely have caused the video amps to shut off, but I also heard the main PSU hiccup. So perhaps it was the current draw on the primary side of the FBT (from the B+ rail) that caused the PSU to go into overload protection. It would only require a few mA at 25kV to load the PSU.

• 25kV x 4mA = 100W

I wouldn't be game enough to try, though.

[kaboom]

Re: How much current goes through me when I touch 120VAC?

One thing to do if from a dead-start. It's a bit different if you grab it after the aquadag cap has charged!