Got Almost Fried Yesterday.

[Zack Miller]

Time to buy a voltage meter pen it sounds like! It only costs $15 for that to never happen again!

Yup. Our house got hit by lightning two months ago. Fried the TV, WiFi access points VCR, and the. Tankless water heater. It was a bitch finding the circuit breakers for the tankless. Turns out there were two. One was old for a prior regular heater and the other breaker was widely separated on the panel. Without the pen, I may have never figured it out.

 

[STP]

I’ve been bit several times, due to carelessness and just being lazy. The below can be your friend, particularly with outlets:

 

[anotherbob]

If Nikola Tesla wasn't suppressed so heavily, we'd have free energy and incidents like this would be an historical curiosity.

View attachment 76641

more of a maybe. Considering the source was Tesla on that. I mean sometimes experimental stuff looks more promising then it turns out. Though that's still a pretty freaking impressive maybe.

 

[Charlie718]

I’m an Engineer in commercial buildings in Manhattan and have come across all different types of bad situations, one instance was a breaker panel that the feeds were disconnected but the neutral was getting back feed with 460v randomly. Never trust a tap tester unless you wanna get hurt. ALWAYS go for the Multi-Meter and test before you stick your hands in. Never trust that it was good a minute ago because you can’t see or smell electricity and you NEVER wanna feel it!

 

[hairvise]

Wow, that sounds terrible! Were you holding a tin of FVF and trying to dry it out?

 

[saltedplug]

Glad you're ok. My encounters have been mild.

 

[brian64]

At first glance I thought the thread title was you almost got fired yesterday...turns out it was just a near electrocution...still could have ruined your day though...glad it was only almost.

 

[LongHairDontCare]

Time to buy a voltage meter pen it sounds like! It only costs $15 for that to never happen again!

These things have saved my skin a few times. When I was doing remodels, I used to carry one constantly after I got ‘bit’ a couple times, from someone dicking around with the power and turning it on and off

 

[mso489]

Electricity is such an omnipresent feature in homes and work places, we get lulled into thinking of it as pretty safe. Unless we are child-proofing a house, we seldom think about it, maybe just getting a little skittish with repairs. Like picking up broken glass, it is always a wise thing to have a cautious attitude. My wife calls me "the safety officer," joking, but I hope that is somewhat true. The power company doesn't call out, "Taser! Taser!"

 

[timelord]

We still have the original wiring in our apartment from when it was built (1930s). Certainly doesn't meet modern standards (even in Brazil) and once it is safe to have tradies in the apartment (a Covid issue rather than anything else) I'm looking for a complete rewiring (hopefully with dual 110v and 220v circuits).

In the meantime; here is our main switch panel:

 

[rajangan]

We still have the original wiring in our apartment from when it was built (1930s). Certainly doesn't meet modern standards (even in Brazil) and once it is safe to have tradies in the apartment (a Covid issue rather than anything else) I'm looking for a complete rewiring (hopefully with dual 110v and 220v circuits).

In the meantime; here is our main switch panel:

View attachment 77474

That certainly looks like it was built well at the time it was new.

 

[timelord]

That certainly looks like it was built well at the time it was new.

It's certainly a solid bit of kit; I guess it will have be replaced with new wiring but I'll see if I can repurpose it for Model Railway control or some other equally unlikely purpose.

 

[rajangan]

It's certainly a solid bit of kit; I guess it will have be replaced with new wiring but I'll see if I can repurpose it for Model Railway control or some other equally unlikely purpose.

Oh yeah. That's a great idea.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

About a year ago I installed a new dryer cord by plugging it in first... I thought I had been struck by lightning.. I suffered no injuries. God looks out for dumbasses.

 

[jpberg]

We still have the original wiring in our apartment from when it was built (1930s). Certainly doesn't meet modern standards (even in Brazil) and once it is safe to have tradies in the apartment (a Covid issue rather than anything else) I'm looking for a complete rewiring (hopefully with dual 110v and 220v circuits).

In the meantime; here is our main switch panel:

View attachment 77474

That is awesome.
220V?

 

[Charlie718]

We still have the original wiring in our apartment from when it was built (1930s). Certainly doesn't meet modern standards (even in Brazil) and once it is safe to have tradies in the apartment (a Covid issue rather than anything else) I'm looking for a complete rewiring (hopefully with dual 110v and 220v circuits).

In the meantime; here is our main switch panel:

View attachment 77474

Those are some old Frankenstein’s lol. The old building I worked in last had those as the main switch gear panel, it was fun times... not

 

[timelord]

That is awesome.
220V?

Are you asking if it is 220v or want I want 220v? Brazil has two 'standard' voltages depending on city or state.

São Paulo city is 127v; other cities in the state and elsewhere in Brazil are 220v (hotels in São Paulo may have dual supplies in which case 220v sockets are coloured red with the 127v white). (Confusingly although the 127v is the standard in São Paulo it's commonly referred to as 110v - but there again many Brits still think they have a 240v system which they haven't since the 1970s!).

I've moved from Aus (and prior to that UK) so I actually have a lot of kit that is 230v (that I would like to use. We do actually have a single 220v socket in our kitchen but I don't use it because it is was definitely not professionally installed with a dodgy looking cable coming from behind the switch panel.

Also there is no earth wiring to any of our sockets (some parts of Europe used to be the same) but these days an earth link is mandatory. As far as I can work out; our main switch has three conductors because we have a 3 phase supply direct to the apartment and not so the all three of the L, N and E can be disconnected - anyway; I've never seen an earth connection with a fuse on it before!

 

[timelord]

Those are some old Frankenstein’s lol. The old building I worked in last had those as the main switch gear panel, it was fun times... not

I haven't seen anything like that since I had a tour of the data centre in which I worked in 1978. Three of the largest IBM mainframes in the UK; masses of disk and tape drives etc. so very beefy power feeds from the National Grid (duplicated from two sub-systems in London); a room full of lead-acid batteries to supply full power to the machine room for 15 minutes whilst the standby generators got up to speed (with some contingency time) and enough oil on-site for two weeks. All this in Central London where it was highly unlikely we would lose both direct feeds from the National Grid at the same time; and if we did it would probably mean we had bigger things to worry about!

The connectors from the grid were massive; the switch gear was massive and although it was all in locked rooms it was all sitting within protective cages so it was impossible to accidentally get to it. The first thing I noticed in your picture was no safety cage; call me old fashioned but I don't think a blue 'do not cross this line' line painted on the floor offers much protection in the event of an accident!

 

[Jaylotw]

I nearly got killed while working on some live stuff in a car wash. I told the guys that under no circumstances were they to turn the wash on and run a car until I gave the go-ahead, but, autopilot took hold when a customer showed up and a guy pressed “send” on a car, turning on the solenoid I was working on. ZAP! I heard the wash start up just in time to jump back and yell, sparks flew. It was bad. It was 10 years ago, but I’m pretty sure it was a 480v control that I was messing with, something that isn’t powered up until the button gets pressed.

That’s when I learned to never trust anyone. And to kill the breaker. And double check voltage. I eventually fired the guy after he sprayed bugmelt on a woman’s face.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

I remember once when going over power grids on stages in a class, the instructor said there's 2 types of people......grabbers and blow backers. Some people grab onto the power source and others blow back. Sounds like you lean towards that first category! Luckily you shook free eventually.

I have to assume it is still somewhat connected with the level of caution employed.
I've never had a screwdriver contact a live wire, just a glancing shock from a few live light fixtures.
Oppositely, when I was very young there were a few instances where I had to be pulled off the electric fence.