Francois, who died?

[Robert Morein]

Know any specific case of someone who died as a consequence of the cheater
plug tweak?
Not in a planet of six billion individuals?

Golly, it must be a serious hazard.
Francois, be sure to ground your umbrella.

[ScottW]

Robert Morein wrote:
> Know any specific case of someone who died as a consequence of the cheater
> plug tweak?
> Not in a planet of six billion individuals?
>
> Golly, it must be a serious hazard.
> Francois, be sure to ground your umbrella.

Ok Bob, let me relate to you my personal experience. In high school
electronics class our dumbass teacher whose name we'll call Bob just
because it seems appropriate, wanted to show us how the old tec scopes
we had could be used as differential input if you floated the scope
with a cheater plug. If you didn't the scope probe ground was earth
ground. So like good little students we did as we were told and
started taking differential measurements.
Some kid from the bench behind me reached over to touch my arm to get
my attention.
Next thing I know both of us were on the ground having been severly
jolted.

What we found was that some of the filter caps were tied to chassis
ground and therefore floating the chassis put some AC on the chassis.
The kids bench behind me was on the other leg of 110 so between his
chassis and mine there was enough juice to knock me off my chair. When
he reached out and touched me the path was closed...no need for ground
etc.

You want to know where theres a ground in your living room? Every
piece of gear with 3 prong plug probably has its chassis tied to earth
ground. If you float a chassis and it isn't tied to other chassis
grounds and your one gear has a fault that results in AC on the chassis
and you touch them both.... you could get popped. Now one could go
through the system and make sure that lifting one piece of gears ground
doesn't really float the chassis so that it remains grounded through
connections to other equipment so should a fault develop...no harm will
come... but you don't talk of that at all.

ScottW

[Robert Morein]

"ScottW" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Robert Morein wrote:
>> Know any specific case of someone who died as a consequence of the
>> cheater
>> plug tweak?
>> Not in a planet of six billion individuals?
>>
>> Golly, it must be a serious hazard.
>> Francois, be sure to ground your umbrella.
>
> Ok Bob, let me relate to you my personal experience.
Scott, we've all had experiences like that. It is not relevant to the
current discussion.
[snip nonsequitur]

Not my living room, Scott. I say, make sure there's no good ground nearby.
That includes three wire grounded equipment.

If you float a chassis and it isn't tied to other chassis
> grounds and your one gear has a fault that results in AC on the chassis
> and you touch them both.... you could get popped.

No, because as part of the recipe, a GFCI is required.

>Now one could go
> through the system and make sure that lifting one piece of gears ground
> doesn't really float the chassis so that it remains grounded through
> connections to other equipment so should a fault develop...no harm will
> come... but you don't talk of that at all.
>
I believe I said enough, but your additional words are good.
An audio system is tied together with interconnects.
If one has a ground fault, the GFCI will immediately break the circuit.
Perhaps somewhere, someone has an isolated piece of three wire equipment
that could serve as a ground. If this equipment is not tied to the two wire
equipment with interconnects, it could serve as a ground, and therefore, a
hazard. However, for an accident to happen, three other things have to
happen first:

1. A piece of equipment, either with a 2 wire plug, or a three wire with
lifted ground via cheater plug, has become defective, with absolutely no
other symptom, such as extreme hum, which is either unlikely or impossible.
2. The GFCI must be defective.
3. The user touches both pieces of equipment simultaneously.