What wire goes where???

[ban-all-sheds]

I remember when I was a child sticking the barrel of my cap pistol through the grille to touch the element of an electric fire to see what would happen....

 

[Softus]

I remember doing the very same thing, but with my father's steel tape measure.

More by luck than judgment, this successfully earthed any potentially fatal current through the wire guard thingy. The element was never quite the same again though.

 

[vsynth]

As a child I stuck a fork onto the element of an electric fire, blew a piece off one of the tines ^^

 

[Reg_Prescott]

I did the same with a metal coat-hanger I'm amazed I made it to adulthood with the spectacularly stupid things I did as a kid.

 

[Bumbly]

Aged about nine I touched the element of an electric fire before it got hot. I was amazed to experience a jolt right up my arm.

I got loads of shocks as a curious kid - never did me any harm. I once put a plug into a 13 amp socket, romoved the unscrewed cover and touched the exposed pins. God knows why - I was just curious. I would not recommend it though. It teaches you a healthy respect for electricity. Anyone with a dodgy ticker would not be so lucky.

I guess the point of 240 volts is that it is not usually fatal ?

It seems to take thousands of volts to execute someone. Depends on your fat content ?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I guess the point of 240 volts is that it is not usually fatal ?

It depends on so many factors, two major ones being what route it takes through you (I bet your plug test involved the fingers of one hand) and how good a contact you make.

240V is fatal often enough for me not to want to try it.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

As a child I stuck a fork onto the element of an electric fire, blew a piece off one of the tines ^^

IIRC not much happened with my cap gun experiment, as we had a TT supply and well drained chalky soil, so the fault path would have had a higher resistance than the load, even if I'd made contact at the phase end.

No fuse would blow, and there were no RCDs in those days.

 

[Softus]

IIRC not much happened with my cap gun experiment, as we had a TT supply and well drained chalky soil, so the fault path would have had a higher resistance than the load, even if I'd made contact at the phase end.

Yeah, that's what any 7-year old would say - I bet you look back on that theory and realise how far you've come.

 

[Adam_151]

It may well have an exposed metal element.

If it does, touching it will not only burn, but will deliver a potentially fatal shock too

Funny how its still deemed acceptable to have toasters like this... but not electric fires

 

[securespark]

Depends on your fat content ?

In that case, 9V should see me off.