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Question about get shocked from wires hooked into keyboard encoder...
Jakobud:
Theoretical Q: Lets say I had my IPAC and I had a wire running out of the ground connection and another wire running out of some other random connection. If I didn't have these hooked up to anything on the opposite end, could I get shocked by touching them?
SNAAAKE:
--- Quote from: Jakobud on March 26, 2003, 02:11:04 pm ---Theoretical Q: Lets say I had my IPAC and I had a wire running out of the ground connection and another wire running out of some other random connection. If I didn't have these hooked up to anything on the opposite end, could I get shocked by touching them?
--- End quote ---
I dont think it will draw enough power(hell if I know)...However I got zaped by toucing a pc speakers isolation transformar :-[.
Trust me..wasnt funny at all(maybe little funny :D).
Never take any chance jakobud..the zaping wasnt that bad but what if was a monitor..I would have been bacon :-[.
AHHHHHHHHHHH !
MameFan:
There's only 5 volts Direct Current running through a keyboard controller. You'd feel more touching a phone wire (24 volts idle, 50+ volts ringing) or a 9 volt battery.
Unless you touch the wires to your tongue, you likely won't feel anything.
Be careful about "picking a random ground" however. Depending on the quality of your home wiring (e.g did the previous owners do it themselves or was it contracted/inspected), they may have goofed up neutral and hot or neutral and ground, therefore if you connect the ground to a ground on the frame that also attaches to the AC side of wiring, you may have whats called a "ground differential" that may cause a rather significant ~60 to 120 volt AC shock, and/or fry stuff.
Granted, sounds like you're working on a PC emulator and not a real arcade machine, so you're already totally protected by the sealed PC "switching" power supply.
However, if talking real games, I know this from experience... One of my bedrooms downstairs was WIRED BACKWARDS. Neutral was hot and hot was neutral. Plugged in my machine, powered up... Nothing. Touched the coin door to check the service switch inside... OUCH!!!!!!! 120 volt shock! (tested to ground with a tester). Thank goodness it didn't fry the PacMan machine I plugged in, or I would have filed suit against the previous owners (seriously!) since they clearly never had it properly inspected.
After a strong amount of cussing, I powered down and rewired all the outlets in the room correctly. And then took the neon tester to every other outlet in the house and found that only that room (that the previous owners "finished" themselves) was wired backwards.
GRRRRR....
romid:
Actually, (please correct me if Im wrong) I dont think its the voltage that makes you feel the shock-- my understanding is that its the amount of current.
of course, your body (or fingers as the case may be) is just acting like a big resister so then maybe voltage does matter.. can anyone clarify?
MameFan:
They both matter.
A PC power supply puts out 5 volts at 15 to 30 amps. A common wall outlet puts out 120 volts at 15 amp (circuit breaker rating). Guess which will be felt and/or possibly kill you?
A monitor tube can hold 25,000 volts, but at a (relatively) low amperage, but is also known to be able to kill you.
So it is a combination of the two, not just one or the other. And of course, it all depends on your resistance and conductivity. If I had touched the coin door with my other hand or foot touching wet ground, well, I may not be here. Luckily I had rubber shoes on and touched with one hand only, not grouding myself elsewhere.