water and electricity don't mix?

akg · Oct 22, 2005

is it that electricity affecting nerve cells causes the problem..or that it affects the muscle? in the case of ac causing uncontrollable muscle movements and spasm? i think electricity affecting the muscle decides ur fate . (dc sticks u and ac flies u apart) ..what abt others ?

madmikejt12 · Oct 22, 2005

i thaught electricity affected the nerves (sending impulses) which caused muscles to contract and go wild.
And i also thaught that if you were grounded, the electricity would pass through you but it wouldnt be life threatening :?: :?:

Someone Electro · Oct 22, 2005

You must prevent any electricety to run trough you by not toching anything grounded. So if you wod float in air you cod toch the mains whithout geting shocked but if you toch the L and N or ground you wod get shocked.

Nigel Goodwin · Oct 22, 2005

madmikejt12 said:
i thaught electricity affected the nerves (sending impulses) which caused muscles to contract and go wild.
And i also thaught that if you were grounded, the electricity would pass through you but it wouldnt be life threatening :?: :?:

You don't want electricity to 'pass through you' - there are essentially two modes of mains electrocution.

1) From live to neutral - BOTH wires connected to your body (say between hands?).

2) From live to ground - ONLY live connected to your body, the neutral connection is then via your body through the ground (because neutral is grounded at the sub-station).

Either can kill you - or even if the shock doesn't kill you, it might cause you to fall and break your neck :lol:

Most household electrocutions are probably the second type?, where you are shocked via the ground.

Someone Electro · Oct 22, 2005

Like it wod be stupid to hold on the neutral wire while working. :lol:

It shod shock you even more if you toch it directly becose there is less resistance in the path.

A long time back a school mate was fooling whith an mains plug in school. I told him not to do it.He sead that he can only get shocked if he toches bouth wires(L and N).The mains then proved to him his wrong and got a good shock.LOL :lol:

Dont wory he is still alive.He just jumpled and his finger was just red and hurt for about 1 hour.

audioguru · Oct 22, 2005

Guys working on live high-voltage wires are in a well-insulated hoist, and they get a huge arc when approaching the live wire. The other side of the connection is their capacitance to ground.

You can hold a long florescent tube up beneath high-voltage wires and it will light a little. Its upper contact makes a capacitive voltage divider to ground. If you are grounded you will feel a very small current. :lol:

danielsmusic · Oct 30, 2005

thanks for the replys, iv bin on holiday, that is why i didn't post for a while.
i have had two mains electric shocks one through my finger and one through my body (hand to hand). i am still here, just luck was on my side. i always touch electrical stuff with wet hands and recently, i touched a bare live wire with 240v ac in it and didnt even tingle. so mabe alot of people are unlucky and electricity kills or burns them, and some pleople are lucky like me. back to the water though. for example if i was in a saltwater swimming pool and dropped a live desklamp in it, what would happen :?:

Someone Electro · Oct 30, 2005

If you thoched the neutral wire notng will hapend.Becose neutral is the same as the gound wire and the ground wire is the same as the ground your standing on.

So only thong the live will shock you.

salt water.Mithbusters testes that and meshured 1A of curent trough the dummys heart!So it wod lireraly fry you.

danielsmusic · Oct 30, 2005

i think i seen that one, was the one when they were testing what would happen when a bolt of lighting hit your house and they built a little house for buster ... he was in the shower and i think it broke the multimeter :lol:

Nigel Goodwin · Oct 30, 2005

danielsmusic said:
i have had two mains electric shocks one through my finger and one through my body (hand to hand). i am still here, just luck was on my side. i always touch electrical stuff with wet hands and recently, i touched a bare live wire with 240v ac in it and didnt even tingle. so mabe alot of people are unlucky and electricity kills or burns them, and some pleople are lucky like me.

You have to be really unlucky (or determined) for 240V to kill you, but a number of people manage it every year!.

An old friend of mine committed suicide many years ago, he was a BT Engineer. He replaced the fuses in the fuse box with nails, got an extension lead (and replaced the plug fuse with a nail), and ran the lead into the bathroom. He then got another plug (with another nail as fuse) and fitted wires from the plug to both wrists and ankles.

He then sat in a bath of water, and plugged himself in to the extention lead :cry:

As usual, it was over a woman - his wife, and a well known 'slapper'.

madmikejt12 · Oct 30, 2005

ouch!!!

Someone Electro · Oct 30, 2005

He didnt make it right?

No i that episode they ware tring out the electroical aplience in the bath tub mith.Salt puts out ions on water and makes it very conductive.

_3iMaJ · Oct 30, 2005

danielsmusic said:
this is a silly one realy, but if i put 2 mains wires into a bowl of water and put my finger in the bowl im not going to get electricuted am i? unless im grounded of course.

Water itself is not a conductor, the solution needs to have a salt dissolved into its components to carry the charge. Basic chemsitry.

akg · Oct 30, 2005

Basic chemsitry.

Basic electrochemistry 8)

Someone Electro · Oct 30, 2005

Yes water by it self is an insulator.

But tap water has impuretys that make it slitly codnuctive.

Disolving lots of salt in it make it a suprisingly good conductor.

danielsmusic · Oct 31, 2005

i am suprized at the poll results, every one i have asked about it had said "no" very defensively. they allways say "mix water and electricity, and you will die" there must be one short circuit in the sea and millions of people swim there and they are alright. water out of a tap has a high resistance is nothing is added, and even in the sea where there is billions of tonnes of salt in the sea. i bet nobody had died in the sea from a man made electrical current.

zachtheterrible · Oct 31, 2005

danielsmusic said:
i am suprized at the poll results, every one i have asked about it had said "no" very defensively. they allways say "mix water and electricity, and you will die" there must be one short circuit in the sea and millions of people swim there and they are alright. water out of a tap has a high resistance is nothing is added, and even in the sea where there is billions of tonnes of salt in the sea. i bet nobody had died in the sea from a man made electrical current.

Daniel, it really depends on the situation. A short circuit in the sea would kill someone if they got in the path of the current. Have people been killed by electric eels I wonder?

I had someone tell me about a guy who went out to turn off the spotlights at a football game after the game. it had rained and the field flooded and he got shocked.

Two 120V leads seperated by a mile of water will not shock anyone because the resistance between them would be too high.

audioguru · Oct 31, 2005

zachtheterrible said:
I had someone tell me about a guy who went out to turn off the spotlights at a football game after the game. it had rained and the field flooded and he got shocked.

Two 120V leads separated by a mile of water will not shock anyone because the resistance between them would be too high.

It is true that he got shocked. The mile of water guaranteed its very good connection to ground and the submersed skin area of the man guaranteed he was also grounded. His high amount of submersed skin area reduces the effective resistance of the high-resistance water and the high-resistance of a smaller amount of dry skin.
He touched the wet switch which is probably operated at much higher than only 120V due to the lights' high power and the high voltage jumped over the wet switch and into him. ZAP! :cry:

zachtheterrible · Oct 31, 2005

Two 120V leads separated by a mile of water will not shock anyone because the resistance between them would be too high.

This and the guy that got shocked are two different examples.

Although, I'm rethinking what I said about the two 120V leads in a body of water seperated by a mile . . .

danielsmusic · Nov 10, 2005

hmm, what about this situation then.
what if i drop a desk lamp in to the bath while i am sitting in it. i have salt and minerals mixed with the water as well. would the current flow to me or through the fillerment

water and electricity don't mix?

do water and electricity mix

yes

no

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