On August 2, 2019 at 09:17, Ernie Gilman said...
Agreed. In fact, all of this information is not only fine, but absolutely necessary if the person attempting to do this work is NOT an electrician. For them, it is even more important for them to be told the depth of possible confusion and the amount of information it might take to figure it out.
If that discourages them, then they'll be guaranteed not to kill themselves or perpetuate the problems that are there now.
Since deadly levels of electricity are involved, if this discourages the amateur, well, that's a good thing.
I think that anyone who wants to tackle this is ignorant of the real possibility of danger, over-confident in their knowledge and ability or knows exactly what they're getting into but the latter would most likely be a journeyman or master electrician. Electrical engineers may know the theory, but I know of one case where an EE wired a garage and switched the neutral on the 3-way switches, which resulted in the metal siding (and any metal touching it) to be hot when the switches were set in specific positions. That was an interesting tingle- glad I was on concrete, rather than the lawn.
For the others, it's unlikely that they would understand the principals of proper grounding, bonding and the need for maintaining correct phase in each circuit.
At least this doesn't involve >400VDC, as it can in equipment that uses tubes. A slight jolt of AC can be exhilarating, but under the right/wrong circumstances, that can be lethal, too. I have heard that getting slammed by plate voltage is extremely painful.
