The earth's connected to what??

[securespark]

Not dead easy to see here. I had the cam squinting through a small gap to see how an extended light switch connection had been made. The cpc is connected via choc block to two black conductors...

The voltage between live & this "earth" is 169V.

Make of that what you will!

The cringe-worthy moment came when the customer told me he tried to get the light working by connecting the cpc to L2 of the light switch.

"It buzzed like heck, so I switched it off quick..." he commented.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

There are some people who seem simply not to realise that there is anything to know.

There are some people who appear so unfamiliar with any kind of imaginative thinking that they don't even get to the stage of asking themselves "I wonder how it works?"

 

[securespark]

So, any guesses as to what the black wires are connected to?

(I have not investigated this fault, so do not know...)

 

[Spark123]

Probably nothing, assuming the 169v was measured using a high impedance volt meter.

 

[Lectrician]

I was working on a large site once. Refurb for a large pub chain. There where several subby sparks, and one evening they where going around doing all the wall lights.

There where two types of lights, all the same. The terminal blocks where as expected, but the earth was on one side as opposed to the *usual* central location (I know many are like this these days).

One spark managed to miss this somehow when jumping from doing one type of light to the other, and endup up with a 50/50 chance of putting the live in the earth terminal.

There was no testing done, and the head spark just turned on. I can still remember the lights making funny chinking and chatting noises!

 

[securespark]