Aluminum wire going to make a comeback?

[Elektrishun]

I see the wow face @Elektrishun , but an apprentice on a residential job was killed here when his forehead brushed a live 120v hot. So it is just as deadly, and i've heard the argument that a 120v poke is deadlier than 240v and above because it won't throw you off.

I am not doubting 120V, under the right circumstances, can be dangerous.

But the odds are that contact with 600/347 is going to be far worse.

347V is deadly because that is the voltage that causes your muscles to contract where you can't let go.

600V will be a mule kick with burns.

 

[Elektrishun]

Survival of the fittest....

Reminds me of a documentary about a tribe in the Amazon Rainforest that builds treehouses, I dunno, a hundred feet up. The whole family is up there and the kids are wandering around like it's a 2 foot drop off the outdoor deck.

Like you stated, Survival of The Fittest.

 

[Darren]

I am not doubting 120V, under the right circumstances, can be dangerous.

But the odds are that contact with 600/347 is going to be far worse.

347V is deadly because that is the voltage that causes your muscles to contract where you can't let go.

600V will be a mule kick with burns.

See that contradicts what i have heard. 120v and you can't let go, 240v and you do let go. Thankfully i haven't experienced it either way. I burned the shit out of my ass cheeks welding on an asphalt plant in the rain (see the pun there?), so even 30v can hurt like hell. The plant would get shut down by MTO in the rain, so we would always do plant maintenance in bad weather

 

[Darren]

Reminds me of a documentary about a tribe in the Amazon Rainforest that builds treehouses, I dunno, a hundred feet up. The whole family is up there and the kids are wandering around like it's a 2 foot drop off the outdoor deck.

Like you stated, Survival of The Fittest.

I was watching a show about baby cougars learning to hunt mountain goats today. On the side of a 900' cliff. How are these animals not extinct?

 

[Elektrishun]

See that contradicts what i have heard. 120v and you can't let go, 240v and you do let go. Thankfully i haven't experienced it either way. I burned the shit out of my ass cheeks welding on an asphalt plant in the rain (see the pun there?), so even 30v can hurt like hell.

No, in all seriousness. 347V is super dangerous compared to 120V or even 240V. I have taken the electrical safety courses numerous times.

You can get away from contact with 120V. But if it passes through your body the right way it can create ventricular fibrillation.

 

[Elektrishun]

I was watching a show about baby cougars learning to hunt mountain goats today. On the side of a 900' cliff. How are these animals not extinct?

I once read a book by Jared Diamond which discussed theories on evolution. One of the sections that I remember and recall often is his theory on why male birds are so colorful. Didn't think had anything to do with attracting females in the obvious way. And why would evolution not give them camouflage instead to help avoid predators? He purposed that if you can be that colorful and survive it means you are a strong male and that's what makes you attractive to females.

Maybe that has something to do with hunting on 900' cliffs? You successfully hunt in that terrain and you get all the "bird feeder" you want (see the thread about mice for "bird feeder" which refers to an animal that is a slang term for, well, you know ).

 

[Elektrishun]

See that contradicts what i have heard. 120v and you can't let go, 240v and you do let go. Thankfully i haven't experienced it either way. I burned the shit out of my ass cheeks welding on an asphalt plant in the rain (see the pun there?), so even 30v can hurt like hell. The plant would get shut down by MTO in the rain, so we would always do plant maintenance in bad weather

I don't weld, wish I knew how. But that was 30V DC?

If that is a correct assumption then that would likely have been high current toasting your buns. Like a 12V car battery. The voltage ain't much but if you get between the posts it's going to get hot real quick.

 

[Darren]

When I was about 5 years old I stuck something metal in an outlet and got a zap. No harm done other than I learnt a painful lesson that day.

And now you're a sparky. I took a lawnmower engine apart when I has 5 or 6 and I'm a mechanic. Interesting.

 

[Elektrishun]

And now you're a sparky. I took a lawnmower engine apart when I has 5 or 6 and I'm a mechanic. Interesting.

My brother would tear apart every bike he had and he's a mechanic. Go figure.

 

[Darren]

I don't weld, wish I knew how. But that was 30V DC?

If that is a correct assumption then that would likely have been high current toasting your buns. Like a 12V car battery. The voltage ain't much but if you get between the posts it's going to get hot real quick.

It was high current low voltage, soaking wet, pouring rain, building up the mixing paddles due to wear. All steel structure, everything is bare metal in the hopper/ wear areas. Path of least resistance was my ass when it wasn't the electrode. I barely felt it until i got home and my GF thought they were beating me at work.

the ground was permanently bolted to the structure of the plant. The foam rubber insulated welding lead was wrapped around me. Worst pain for a month or so.

 

[BaitMaster]

The worst I’ve heard of guys getting blasted is on 347. High voltage DC is no friggin joke either.

My days as a young apprentice instrument mechanic saw me shocked by an adjustable dc power supply that I had turned on high voltage range instead of low. 200vdc on a stainless work bench is not a fun time.

 

[slow-poke]

I am not doubting 120V, under the right circumstances, can be dangerous.

But the odds are that contact with 600/347 is going to be far worse.

347V is deadly because that is the voltage that causes your muscles to contract where you can't let go.

600V will be a mule kick with burns.

We were taught 600V injures and kills more electricians than any other voltage, usually from arc fault type situations. So the get thrown off or clamp on is one aspect, but the amount of energy released from a typical 600V fault is just so much higher. Under normal circumstances arc faults don't occur when the service is < 480V.

From Wikipedia....

OSHA found that up to 80 percent of its electrical injuries involve thermal burns due to arcing faults. The arc flash in an electrical fault produces the same type of light radiation from which electric welders protect themselves.

As an example of the energy released in an arc flash incident, in a single phase-to-phase fault on a 480 V system with 20,000 amps of fault current, the resulting power is 9.6 MW. If the fault lasts for 10 cycles at 60 Hz, the resulting energy would be 1.6 megajoules. For comparison, TNT releases 2175 J/g or more when detonated (a conventional value of 4,184 J/g is used for TNT equivalent). Thus, this fault energy is equivalent to 380 grams (approximately 0.8 pounds) of TNT. The character of an arc flash blast is quite different from a chemical explosion (more heat and light, less mechanical shock), but the resulting devastation is comparable. The rapidly expanding superheated vapor produced by the arc can cause serious injury or damage, and the intense UV, visible, and IR light produced by the arc can temporarily and sometimes even permanently blind or cause eye damage to people.

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