Forgot the "never assume anything" rule..

[khryslerkid]

Anyone ever get zapped from a TIG torch to your filler rod? I did, makes you a big jumpy every time you light the torch for a while.

Hell yea! Just lay your bare skin on the table!

Working in a hospital, I was changing a ballast in a dark hallway, operating room in use, no shutting off power. Standing on a step ladder, unscrewing the wire nuts and I hear a "tick, tick, tick" on the floor. Well it was the sound of the wire nut and I'm twisting on bare wire! 277 will wake you up!

 

[khryslerkid]

We've heard it a million times...when you're working on a running engine, wear gloves and don't touch your coil tower(or plug boots for that matter) if you don't have to....I usually always wear gloves but wasn't today while taking some quick voltage checks..my hand grazed the wire at the coil tower while my other hand was touching a ground point and bzzzzz..."but the boots are all good!"..the boot visibly covered the metal terminal end, but there must have been a microscopic gap there-enough to arc to my hand. As a professional electrician and someone that's been working on cars for many years, sure made me feel stooopid! (not to mention a little jittery for a bit) Be safe everyone!

I had a father-in-law who would be under the hood, with the engine running and ask you to hand him a wrench or a pair of pliers. Well, he would have a plug wire off, with a screwdriver stuck in it, holding the bare shaft and when he grabbed that tool you were handing him, you got the $hit knocked out of you. It didn't seem to bother him for some reason, he just laughed real hard!

He was also good for charging up a condenser, leave it lying on the work bench and ask you to get that for him. That's a good zap too! Lol

 

[SoCal440GTX]

Why does grabbing the coil wire seem 8 times worse than grabbing a plug wire? (LOL!)

 

[BeeKool]

Well technically it is but you can get 480 across 2 legs. Doesn't require 3 to kill you. But, yes each leg is 277volt.
1 leg 277 volt
2 legs 480 volt
3 legs 480 volt

This summer I will be adding on to my operation. This includes bringing 3 ph over from 2 miles away to power the new dryer. Over the next couple of years I will be changing my entire operation over to 3 ph. Will be a learning curve for me

 

[khryslerkid]

This summer I will be adding on to my operation. This includes bringing 3 ph over from 2 miles away to power the new dryer. Over the next couple of years I will be changing my entire operation over to 3 ph. Will be a learning curve for me

3 ph isn't that hard to work with. If it runs backwards just switch the two legs.

The thing you have to worry about with 3 ph, is if you loose one leg, (single phasing), it will burn up a running motor real quick. Or if a motor is timed to come on, like an air compressor, during a power outage with only one hot. I'm wondering if there is a protector to keep this from happening when you loose one leg?

 

[kiwigtx]

As an apprentice, I was connecting some 2kW electric heaters above workbenches for the Fitters (yeah I know ...softies) and as I connected the final part - Neutral in to Neutral to load, my Supervisor demonstrated the switch operation. Fricken hell!!!!! I was bouncing up and down for a good 3 seconds (felt like an hour or so) and I felt every single one of those 50 Hertz rippling through my body. Apparently it was funny to watch - the head Fitter was running the lathe and saw it all happen. He was laughing for weeks about it.
Not nice, and certainly not the last time I have had a decent belt off the mains. Always test what you are doing, and don't do the live termination until last.

 

[moparwacko]

There's nothing in the world that prepares you the first time you "clip in" to a 230 or 500KV to barehand wearing a buzz suit.
You become a bird on a wire, but deep down you get the feeling it's wrong.
Watch some chopper lineman videos and see what I'm talking about- now that's fun.
I didn't get the nickname Wacko for nothing.

 

[ws23jrt]

Stealing copper tends to weed out those that don't know how to do it.


I wired lots of new machines for a company I worked for in the eighties. (I was/am self trained about this stuff.)
One time I thought I had a connection correct and when I turned it on there was a big bang as the breaker tripped. --It shook dirt from the ceiling (where the conduit ran) that rained dirt to the floor. It was a concussion sound that that I felt more than anything. (this was 440 volt).--
Btw I had a taste of 440 once and am lucky to tell of it.

As others have mentioned--voltage will reach out to grab you. Amperage from the grid is like an open flood gate at a dam--(flow). Voltage is preassure and amperage is volume.

 

[shorty64]

Back in the late '60's while in the USAF, I was flying on a mission where the equipment I operated this trip was a prototype set-up from a government contractor. It had oscilloscopes for watching/calibrating signals processed thru a whole crap load of conditioning stuff. I happened to touch the frame on one scope while also having a hand on a 35mm film canister mounted on the 'scope. Immediately I bounced off the side of the aircraft and in irate reaction was about to kick the damn thing when I realized my combat boots were off for comfort.

Bottom line was the civilians had mixed up the high voltage screen voltage outputs that allowed you to check it via pin-outs on the frame front. I shut it down, pulled it out a bit on the slides, and fired up a soldering iron to reverse the pin-out leads. My crew chief wasn't thrilled as I was supposed to request permission first, yadda, yadda, but it wasn't his butt getting bounced by 35KV+.

Anyway, I did have a nice polite conversation with the contractor weenies once we got back, and learned to "never assume" everything was A-OK just cuz they said so.
Got some stories about operating from a semi-trailer over in sight of the N.-S. Korea DMZ but will save those for another time. Where else can you have that much fun with your clothes on and get paid too!!!

 

[Lets Roll]

I would be in the electrocuted numerous times and ways group too. Be safe and wear your PPE!

 

[SoCal440GTX]

I was running a 500HP 460V-3P-60HZ motor that the electrician had mistakenly wired with high voltage wires (+5000V). The motor spun up but the large inrush current smoked the insulation on those small wires and they shorted on each other. I will never forget that morning.

 

[Auggie56]

Until last June when I retired I was an electrician helper. I learned a lot from the guy. We did residential and commercial both. He was so confident in my work, he would send me out to trouble shoot and do small jobs by myself. We had a bucket truck to do light poles. This one location, the fixtures were just a few inches out of my "safe reach." I was replacing lamps and ballasts on my tip toes, in the bucket. I was threading in a 1K watt lamp, in a horizontal configuration. I could just reach the lamp. As I threaded the new one in, my hand came in contact with the threaded portion of the lamp. I took half a four eighty right there. It took an minute before I could put myself back together. I know, shut the voltage off. But with a computer controlled system, it's not always practical.

 

[BeeKool]

3 ph isn't that hard to work with. If it runs backwards just switch the two legs.

The thing you have to worry about with 3 ph, is if you loose one leg, (single phasing), it will burn up a running motor real quick. Or if a motor is timed to come on, like an air compressor, during a power outage with only one hot. I'm wondering if there is a protector to keep this from happening when you loose one leg?

We won't switch the shop to 3 ph. Just the grain handling/drying/storage facilities.
Basically just several 5,10&15 hp motors.

 

[kiwigtx]

I was threading in a 1K watt lamp, in a horizontal configuration. I could just reach the lamp. As I threaded the new one in, my hand came in contact with the threaded portion of the lamp. I took half a four eighty right there.

That is why it is mandatory to supply the lamp centre contact with the live conductor only, and the thread gets only the Neutral return. I quite often come across incorrectly wired Edison Screw fittings.

 

[BeepBeepRR]

Well these guys are just unfortunate.. This is what happens when you hit high voltage lines with a scaffold. Warning death: Also Warning Cooked people..

 

[Auggie56]

Well these guys are just unfortunate.. This is what happens when you hit high voltage lines with a scaffold. Warning death: Also Warning Cooked people..

Beeper, in 74' I witnessed a young mad getting killed, while assembling a TV tower, right under one of the high voltage lines, in a residential area. And in 84' I observed a dead body in the county morgue, of a man who was intoxicated, climbed a power pole when they had the metal rungs. Strange a how the voltage affected his body. Half, top to bottom of the body showed the damage, the other side nothing.

 

[BeepBeepRR]

Beeper, in 74' I witnessed a young mad getting killed, while assembling a TV tower, right under one of the high voltage lines, in a residential area. And in 84' I observed a dead body in the county morgue, of a man who was intoxicated, climbed a power pole when they had the metal rungs. Strange a how the voltage affected his body. Half, top to bottom of the body showed the damage, the other side nothing.

Yea sadly there is nothing they can do to get off that ****.. I haven't witnessed anything to this magnitude but it sure looks like a shitty way to die. I've been shocked several hundred times.. 120v to 277v but never feared that I would die. And you know sometimes you just have to work the **** hot because there is always some dipshit that needs their lights or computers or some reason to not kill the power.. Maybe they need to look at these videos and I bet they would never bitch about an Electrician wanting to kill a circuit again.

 

[BeeKool]

In '94, three of my neighbors were moving a grain auger in the dark. They hit the PowerLine. Killed 2 of them. Blew the souls from their boots.
I drove by and saw paramedics giving CPR.
Never move things around in the dark and always be aware.

 

[68gtxman]

I did a case (forensic engineering) where two men were electrocuted due to flashover. They were holding onto an aluminum ladder hoist as they adjusted it near some 20KV lines. The power jumped 10 feet to fry them. One lived with some pretty severe burns.

Know that you can be killed without touching the lines!

 

[oldbee]

And I remember from yrs ago reading a Reader's Digest story of female that got nailed in the heartland because she hit a 20kv wire with the farm implement. Voltage jumped thru her arm and out her ankle to ground, missed her heart though. Flattened all the tires on her tractor though!