As I wrote, the guy who wired it was an Electrical Engineer, so I guess that means he had a striped hat. The garage was detached but didn't have a stake, AFAIK- just the ground in the wire feeding it and he did it wrong. My dad told me on several occasions that the lawn care people refused to use the outlet on the outside of the garage because they were getting shocked and every time I would check it, there was no voltage present but since we were getting the place ready to sell when I was zapped on the concrete, I had some motivation. I found that if I flipped the 3-way switch, the problem stopped and to be honest, I could never understand why a 3-way switch was needed when a motion sensor would have done the job. I found which wire needed to be disconnected, wire nutted it and put a blank plate on the box- done, and the new owner didn't have a problem.

While I was beginning to learn about refurbing/repairing tube guitar amps, I saw the frequent recommendation that when probing inside, a wooden or bamboo chopstick should be used and since I have plenty of the bamboo type, that's what I use. Works well and I haven't been zapped, yet. One of my amps has B+ over 500VDC and I'm extra careful with that one.

I used to work on ski boats and one day, I needed to adjust the advance on an HEI distributor- while I was leaning over to get into position with the timing light, I leaned too far and to catch myself, I put my other hand on the exhaust manifold. Got a handful of >50KV. That was fun. Oh, yeah.

Well, when I first ran into wondering about 3-way switches, there were no motion sensors that anyone could afford.

My first shock was about 500 VDC, yup, plate voltage on an output tube. My conclusion from that was that I did not like shocks. I have been carefully avoiding them ever since. Maybe my love of solving ground problems is related to that.

On the same amp the hand holding the probe slipped and the probe -- not me -- shorted the 120VAC. It was cool to see the brass under the tin plate of the probe. This also told me something to avoid.


Ah, the moments of our lives that we will never forget!

I made a nice wire stripper out of a needle nose pliers for my dad. That wasn't the goal, but the tip of the pliers touched the metal junction box when I tried to cut the hot wire when I though that circuit was turned off. This was over 45 years ago and simple testers like the ones with three lights that are inserted into the receptacle didn't exist. Strips 14ga insulation off very nicely, without cutting into the wire.

I have a combination wrench that slipped out of my hand and touched both terminals of a car battery- has a couple of spots that are no longer covered with chrome. That would be a good way to show people that low voltage can still be dangerous.

The XY Problem again! What were you actually trying to accomplish?

Classic mistake number 4. We have all done that, except for the guys who are lying about it.

Watt?
You have a tester with three lights that inserts into a receptacle and strips 14ga insulation off very nicely?

I have a story about a tester... While building a store, I had no power in a certain demo area and the electricians were still on site. I told them about it. They threw a 3-light tester into the outlet and showed me there was power. I stood there, puzzled, while they took the tester out and started to walk away. Then it occurred to me.

I told the guy to come back and put the tester into the outlet. It lit up properly. I told him "watch this," plugged my drill into the outlet, pulled the trigger, and the power indicator suddenly showed no power.

Somehow someone had managed to make a connection with 14ga wire that would pass enough current to light a neon bulb, but not enough to run an actual device. They fixed it but they never saw it to begin with.



Explain spot welding to them. Probably a quarter volt but at a hundred amps... just guessing.

In college we had "The Free University" where block of classrooms and times were made available for anyone to teach anything. There were the usual photography, musical instrument playing, cooking, sewing, a few classes on very adult subjects, and our course on "20th Century Survival". My roommate and I demonstrated how to deal with mundane issues around the home, such as faucet washer replacement, fuse replacement, lamp cord replacement, speaker hookup, and because there was interest, some basic auto maintenance.

For our fuse and lamp cord lesson we had a small fuse box, an outlet, and a lamp. Built into this arrangement was a too thin wire. At just the right moment in our (rehearsed) narrative about why we have fuses and why the proper wire size, proper fuses, and tight connections are important, there was a "flash, crackle, generous plume of smoke" from our little circuit. We captured the students' (mostly women from the area) attention.


Ask anyone who has attempted to jump start a car using coat hangers about their lesson in wire size, current, and heating.

Is that really a thing?

Didn't see "...when I tried to cut the hot wire..."?




If those had been in the same sentence, I might understand how you could think this, but they weren't.



In case you don't want to guess-

[Link: en.wikipedia.org]

Spot welding voltage and current depend on material, needed penetration and thickness.

I was installing a car radio and somehow, a hot wire touched the frame of the dash in a mid-'70s GM car- a foot of insulation turned to carbon in a fraction of a second- pretty impressive.

Yes, I saw that. But first I saw this:


I took this to mean that making a nice wire stripper out of a needle nose pliers for your dad WASN'T THE GOAL because you stated something, then said "that," a word used to refer to something that has previously been described. But you meant "that" to refer to what's coming next. Sorry.


A similar thing is going on here -- it's not totally clear just what the reference is. The classic example of this kind of misunderstanding is the old classified ad that says "piano for sale by woman with mahogany legs."

EDIT:
This joke about a wife sending her engineer husband to the store:

“Go and get a pint of milk, and if they have eggs get six”

So he disappears and comes back ten minutes later with six pints of milk.

“Why on earth did you get six pints of milk?” His wife asks. He replies

“They had eggs.”



It's always best to reread what one writes in order to be sure that that that that we're talking about doesn't point to the wrong thing.

I still don’t get why you won’t invest in one of those simple outlet testers. You can get some pretty good answers instantly.

I don’t remember why, but I was replacing a projector at a guys house, and I found a wiring fault in the projector outlet with my tester. Told him to get it fixed before I came back with his new projector. He hired an electrician, and found one of the wall outlets had wires reversed, affecting a couple outlets following it.

Those testers are cheap and very useful. Your multimeter is also required for testing but will mostly show faults but not tell what’s wrong.

I agree with you. I missed anyone saying they won't get one of those testers.

Do you ever think 'TLDR' when you re-read your posts?

I'm sure most of us carry something in our vehicles that use AC- small fans, work lights, etc. Any of those can help when the tester shows good but things don't work- if it looks good but a light or fan won't work, the voltage is there, but the available current isn't.

A meter can tell if the hot and neutral have been swapped- measure from the hot and neutral to ground- one should show voltage, the other shouldn't.

No. If I did, it would be tl;dr.

Do you ever think "that was misleading and unnecessary" when you want to comment on one line of a post but you copy the entire seventeen paragraphs into your post?