A little snip from Ken Javor's message: ]]]]]]]]]]] SNIP ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] Okay, let's grant a conductive pea soup fog within a millimeter or so of a human body. I am standing on a rug, over a pad, attached to a wood sub-floor. I grab a hot wire and get buzzed. Where is the current going after it leaves my body? ]]]]]]]]]]]] END SNIP ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
Do you have a dog in your house? Perhaps there was some "electrolyte" in the rug :-) On a more serious note. The rug and pad could be full of holes. Yes they are insulators; but not solid. The wood will have a moisture content in equilibrium with the ambient air. What is the conductivity of dust which is everywhere? What was the relative humidity at the time? Were you sweating? Were your shoes damp? Some people like to work on circuits live because they say that it makes them more careful by always assuming the wire is dangerous. One reply mentioned that he knows an electrician that says it's no problem working on live 220 as long as you wear rubber shoes and keep one hand in your pocket. Two terms come to mind for me... Hubris and Adrenaline Junkie :-) Does this person always keep that hand in his pocket? He must be an amazing person to be able to hold an outlet and turn the terminal screws with the screwdriver in the same hand. Does this person never sweat? Does this person always make sure that his boots are dry? Does he make sure that none of his buddies drink coffee or soda or any other kind of liquids within spilling distance? One handed shocks are possible. Every situation is different. Once you put your hand on a live conductor, you now make yourself part of a current divider. Engineers like to sit around and calculate the stray capacitance of this and the impedance of that and hypothesize about the salt content of the human body. I'm an engineer; and I like those ideas as mathematical excercises. But as an engineer, I appreciate that math is only a model for the real world. I also appreciate the mathematical fact that I have only 1 life. I don't have time to calculate the surface resistivity of the dust on my floors. So, when it comes to real life, I like to keep it simple...Turn it off, tag it out, lock it out. Live to calculate the surface resistivity of dust and the stray capacitance of the human body tomorrow :-) Chris Maxwell Nettest This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to emc-p...@ieee.org Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: emc-p...@hypercom.com Scott Douglas emcp...@ptcnh.net For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
