On becoming an electrician

Erronius

Erronius

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The frightening part is just how little current can kill you.

With the higher voltages, you have to start worrying about it jumping across air gaps, and needing better insulation. For 120v I feel like rated boots, being dry, and not grounding out your dumb ass with your off-hand, those kind of things will keep you safe enough. But once you get over 600v that starts to mean little, if anything.

I was on a site years ago, and I was joking about breaking out a rubber mat for me to stand on. Dudes looked at me dead serious, and said they weren't allowed to use them any more because they wanted everyone to LOTO instead (funny enough, what I was working on was definitely live). I imagine that, given a choice, a lot of folks would have chosen the rubber mats and to leave stuff live...so NOPE! can't use them any more. That's the only time I've heard that, but I also haven't seen rubber mats in years (besides what linesmen use)

At least with 120v, I've never felt 'frozen'.

When/if I retire, part of the celebration will they that I somehow managed not to kill myself when doing something stupid
 
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Borzak

Borzak

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Did some work on a hopper and vents above an electric arc furnace at a steel mill while it was in operation. Shit scared me. The power was coming in wasn't even cables but very large metal shunts for lack of a better word. Everyone else seemed to be afraid of falling in. I figured I had enough sense to stay within the handrail but all that freaking current right there enough to melt steel bothered me. Rebuilt the entire structure because it was seriously falling apart, the mill rolled us 14" thick plate to make new base plates on one side for the columns to even them out. Then the place closed down a few months later. The hum of it all made you think you were feeling it while it was running.
 
Kajiimagi

Kajiimagi

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For the record, in MB SC with it's sky high humidity I had 480 air arc. Somewhere in this forum (use the SEARCH!) I said something to the effect that I subbed out voltages that were going too fast to shock you. Nope fuck that.

Dumbest thing I ever did. Was adding a neutral for a panel that my fucking asshat estimator didn't look at to discover his ingenious plan to 'just add a single pole breaker' wouldn't work because the goddamn panel was 480 only. Inspector would not let me just hit the bonding jumper on the front of the main switchboard. For reference this building was old enough the stairwells were Nuclear fallout shelters (for real). He wanted me to hit the neutral bar, ON THE BACK OF THE BOARD. I laid in the switchboard , while it was live, under load and drilled the neutral to add a lug for the new wire. I was never so mad in my life.
For the record of people that don't know a lot about electricity. If I somehow got into the harmonic current on the neutral , someone would have to come put me out. If I somehow got into the main buss (this was an old switchboard) I would have been dead, and exploded , and you would have to wipe me off the walls.

To everyone going ' you stupid mother fucker' ; I agree.
 
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