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smart power strip (australian plug!)
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on April 19, 2013, 09:37:39 am ---Where do you stand if there is an electrical fire caused by amateur wiring over there? Here, your insurance company will tell you it sucks to be you. Do they not mind over there?
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This is the purpose of the permit and inspection process. If you make anything more than trivial wiring changes without a permit, and those changes cause a fire, the insurance company may say it sucks to be you. It is the permit that tells the insurance company that the changes were inspected and approved by the city inspector. The permit is not so much permission to make changes as it is a record of the changes and inspections involved. Once the town has a passed inspection on record you are good with the insurance company. This is the process I am going through with my gameroom project right now.
This is also why places that do not allow laymen to do this work will not allow laymen to pull permits. The accountability for the safety of the work falls on the person who signed the permit application. If the location does not allow laymen to pull permits then it basically limits that sort of work to licensed electricians. Not many electricians are willing to risk their license by signing permits for other people who are going to do crappy work. Some might, for a fairly high fee, and then inspect the work themselves before the city inspector comes in. That happens in Rhode Island here at times.
Vigo:
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on April 19, 2013, 09:37:39 am ---Vigo, the only danger of a car battery is if you drop it on your foot ;)
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You know, I wondered about that. I've done plenty of auto work, and since it is battery power, I assume there is low danger about getting zapped. But then I read those mechanical repair manuals for the cars when I need to fix something, and the recent ones I see all tell you to disconnect the battery for everything. I can understand on the complex repairs, but simple things get to me. Replace brake shoe? Step one: Disconnect battery. Change oil? Step one: Disconnect battery. Then the manuals have these huge warning pages about how a battery can discharge on ya and kill ya. I dunno, maybe it is a huge liability reason that they try to freak me out about battery discharge, maybe it is because of hybrids.
:dunno
danny_galaga:
--- Quote from: Vigo on April 19, 2013, 10:30:22 am ---
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on April 19, 2013, 09:37:39 am ---Vigo, the only danger of a car battery is if you drop it on your foot ;)
--- End quote ---
You know, I wondered about that. I've done plenty of auto work, and since it is battery power, I assume there is low danger about getting zapped. But then I read those mechanical repair manuals for the cars when I need to fix something, and the recent ones I see all tell you to disconnect the battery for everything. I can understand on the complex repairs, but simple things get to me. Replace brake shoe? Step one: Disconnect battery. Change oil? Step one: Disconnect battery. Then the manuals have these huge warning pages about how a battery can discharge on ya and kill ya. I dunno, maybe it is a huge liability reason that they try to freak me out about battery discharge, maybe it is because of hybrids.
:dunno
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A 12V battery can't possibly "discharge on ya and kill ya". The human body has roughly 500 ohms resistance- V/I x R means 12/500= 24 mA. The battery would probably discharge as quickly due to it's own internal resistance! You can hold on to the terminals of a 12V battery all day and you probably won't feel anything at all. I can tell you that you CAN feel 24V quite easily. It's a tingly sensation much like (and obviously for the same reasons as) putting your tongue on a 9V battery to see if it's charged. A series of batteries, say in a hybrid would be a different matter, although being DC would still be safer than AC of the same voltage. It's the cyclic nature of AC that really messes with your heart. If doing any electrical work on a car, a manual will probably tell you to disconnect the battery, in case of shorts. For any other reason, all I can think of is to prevent the car being started accidentally :dunno
Interestingly, just found this while looking for the resistance of a body-
--- Quote ---The current may, if it is high enough, cause tissue damage or fibrillation which leads to cardiac arrest; more than 30 mA[3] of AC (rms, 60 Hz) or 300 – 500 mA of DC can cause fibrillation.[4][5] A sustained electric shock from AC at 120 V, 60 Hz is an especially dangerous source of ventricular fibrillation because it usually exceeds the let-go threshold, while not delivering enough initial energy to propel the person away from the source
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also
--- Quote ---There were 550 electrocutions in the US in 1993, which translates to 2.1 deaths per million inhabitants. At that time, the incidence of electrocutions was decreasing.[13] Electrocutions in the workplace make up the majority of these fatalities. From 1980–1992, an average of 411 workers were killed each year by electrocution.[11] A recent study conducted by the National Coroners Information System (NCIS) in Australia [14] has revealed three-hundred and twenty-one (321) closed case fatalities (and at least 39 case fatalities still under coronial investigation) that had been reported to Australian coroners where a person died from electrocution between July 2000 and October 2011.[15]
--- End quote ---
So 120V is not quite as safe as you guys are making out.
Chad, even a 'trivial' change of wiring could lead to a dangerous situation if done incompetently. Where would an insurance company draw the line? That's rhetorical, because I reckon the insurance company won't be drawing any lines if it means they don't have to pay ;D
Edit: got the resistance wrong. Looks like the resistance is much higher. It only goes down to say 500 ohms if you are being electrocuted by a really high voltage such that the skin suffers dielectric breakdown...
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on April 20, 2013, 09:57:54 am ---Chad, even a 'trivial' change of wiring could lead to a dangerous situation if done incompetently. Where would an insurance company draw the line? That's rhetorical, because I reckon the insurance company won't be drawing any lines if it means they don't have to pay ;D
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I imagine they would draw the line at any noninspected change that caused a fire. I don't know that they would be able to detect something as simple as a badly swapped outlet, though. Wiring layout changes are fairly obvious to an inspector. A bad new termination inside a box that was put there 25 years ago? Not so much.
danny_galaga:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on April 20, 2013, 08:46:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on April 20, 2013, 09:57:54 am ---Chad, even a 'trivial' change of wiring could lead to a dangerous situation if done incompetently. Where would an insurance company draw the line? That's rhetorical, because I reckon the insurance company won't be drawing any lines if it means they don't have to pay ;D
--- End quote ---
I imagine they would draw the line at any noninspected change that caused a fire. I don't know that they would be able to detect something as simple as a badly swapped outlet, though. Wiring layout changes are fairly obvious to an inspector. A bad new termination inside a box that was put there 25 years ago? Not so much.
--- End quote ---
Oh, they'll find it alright...
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