Understanding basic electricity?

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Not at all boring or useless twizzle, thanks for taking the time to make that post! Found another great site here

http://www.members.shaw.ca/len92/electricity.htm

 

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ok guys, let's wrap this up, please tell me now if I finally understand this thing, getting back to the question I had asked earlier, tell me if I am correct here Please, if a person should place an object like a regular screwdriver into an AC wall receptacle, normally that person would get shocked, is this becuase that person now becomes a conductor of electricity becuase he/she is standing on the ground and so creates a circuit so the charge goes through him/her into the ground? If so, then if that person should be wearing "rubber" boots, the person should NOT get shocked because the rubber is breaking the circuit, is this all correct?

 

Yes - on the assumptions that 1) the screwdriver has no insulation at all (a rare item these days) and 2) the boots are a perfect insulator.

You might feel a tingle, as your body is being charged +ve and -ve 50 times a second.

It is not an experiment I would care to do! Chiefly because perfect insulators don't really exist!

Harry.

 

In the 70's, I used to work on TV's Harry that were live chassis, meaning that the metal chassis was either neutral or live. The chassis was used as the return path for the current, much like a car. It was hard to say by looking at the plug, because most houses had 2 pin clix plugs which could go either way round. This meant that more often than not I was touching live stuff every day, though as long as I was careful, I wouldn't feel anything. I did get my fair share of zaps though when I inadvertently lent back on a radiator or touched a grounded soldering iron

Moral of the story; electricity can kill, don't play with it!

Glad you are finally getting the gist Mike

 

Hm - I used to work on TVs in that era. Perhaps I was super-cautious, but I only got a few shocks!

Most of the time was with a company that could afford isolation transformers. Coupled with well insulated tools I seem to have survived!

Harry.

 

Yeah, thanks, finally got things more or less sorted out. Will begin with my project here next week, it was the main reason why I started looking into this in the first place.

 

Ah but you were in a nice workshop equiped with isolation transformers - luxury

I was refering to my stints in the field

 

If you use a tester to test a circuit prior to connecting a pc and the tester shows these:

* Hot & Neutral is Reversed.
* Hot is open
* Neutral is Open
* Faulty ground

What would you guys do for "each" fault shown by the tester?

 

I am not sure what kind of testing device you are referring to Mike but I suspect it is one of those gadgets you plug in a wall outlet?

Also, I don't like the terminology. I prefer to use the correct terms i.e. live and not just open but *open circuit* but that is just me being pedantic.

If the live and neutral are reversed the equipment will still work but what ther testing device is telling you is that the socket has been wired up incorrectly and hence could be dangerous.

Hot is open - is saying that there is no live feed to the wall socket. If this is the case, then nothing will power up.

Neutral is open - is saying there is no neutral return path for current to flow, hence nothing will power up.

Faulty ground - is saying that there is a problem with the earth connection, either it is open circuit or it has a high resistance - either way the device will still work but as we have mentioned before, earth is there for safety reasons, so if there is a problem with earth the device that is plugged in could be unsafe.

There could be numerous reasons why a tester would show these results and to be honest, if I were you, I would get a sparky in and get him to diagnose the issue.

 

Sorry I forgot to mention that the tester is one of those cheap simple gadgets from Radioshack. So, if I understadn you correctly, if you as a Tech go to someone's home and test the outlet as your first step and see any of these problems, you the pc Tech do NOT attempt to fix anything but let that person get an electrician to fix it, is this the correct procedure for a pc tech?

 

I'd say so - yes.

I assume the tester in question is one of those plugs with 3 leds.

If I don't see 3 leds on mine I won't use the socket - period.

Harry.

 

That makes sense and should be the responsibility of an electrician and not a pc tech, thanks.