The benches in my high school electronics lab were all nicely solidly
grounded, METAL benches underneath, so this thought makes me shudder
<G>  You can bet we got into the habit of not touching anything while it
was live (to make it worse, I'm tall enough that I was almost always
squeezed in against the metal underside of the bench.)  Birds on a wire
aside, you're safest if you assume you're grounded & be accordingly
PARANOID.  It's not that those electrons are out to get you - it's that
they just don't care whether they kill you or let you live.  (And yep,
I've worked on live HV, but I try not to, and make sure I PAY ATTENTION
to what I'm doing - I cherish my life, among others <G>)

  Mark, any benches I buy WON'T be hard grounded, 1 Meg is GOOD <G>

Sean Breheny wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I think this may be a good place for me to ask a question that has always
> bugged me:
>
> I know its NOT a good idea (to put it very mildly) to touch a hot 120v or
> 230v line. However,I don't understand why anyone can possibly receive a
> shock at all if they are wearing shoes and only touch the hot (and not a
> grounded,conductive object at the same time). Or, for that matter,even if
> they have bear feet but are on a non-conductive surface.
>
> I know that the danger is MUCH greater when one contacts BOTH the hot and
> ground with parts of their body,but is this the only (theoretically)
> dangerous situation?
>
> NO, I'M NOT  ADVOCATING EXPERIMENTATION IN THIS AREA!!!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sean
>
> At 01:00 PM 2/16/99 -0800, you wrote:
> >why do you have a potential across your hands when the item under test is
> >connected to mains through an isolation transformer? i thought (like dave)
> >this was the safest way to go, and disconnecting the ground on the scope a
> >work-around for those not concerned enough to use an isolation transformer...
> >
> >BTW, i never saw any sparks when working this way :)
> >
> >ge
> >
> |
> | Sean Breheny
> | Amateur Radio Callsign: KA3YXM
> | Electrical Engineering Student
> \--------------=----------------
> Save lives, please look at http://www.all.org
> Personal page: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/shb7
> mailto:shb7@cornell.edu  Phone(USA): (607) 253-0315 ICQ #: 3329174