I have a 6V, 2A power pack here. Its one of those slim ones, which I believe means its swithcmode. What I dont get, If I am touching anything metal, powered by that transformer, then touch something else such as ground, another power cord etc, I get a zap from it. Its not a zap, as in , spark kind of zap, but a really strong tingle. What is even weirder, its only 6V. Could it be the frequency of it??
It's defective. There is leakage from the primary side.
It plugs in to a wall outlet, right?
The input AC is not completely isolated from the case or output.
The case of the power supply is plastic, and yes it does plug into the wall. I am currently running a few lasers off this power supply (With a driver, of course), but I hope its not slowly killing my lasers.
I think it's normal, I've experianced this kind of thing before.
A small leakage current from the primary side to the secondary side is permitted.
To minimise high frequency noise on the secondary side, a low value high voltage capacitor is connected from the 0V on the secondary side to the - rail of the DC bus on the primary side.
as long as the leakage to earth is below a certain level, 1mA if I remeber rightly, then it's perfectly acceptable.
I doubt the high voltage capacitor has gone short circuit because they're rated to stand 4kV pulses and are designed so there's no chance of them failing short circuit.
If this is a problem, you can power it from an isolation transformer or bond the 0V rail to earth.