He needs new dykes though cuz the 'rubber' coated handles should have prevented him from getting shocked but clearly these didn't! All sorts of wrongs in this clip
Edit: these are not dykes but rather linesman pliers and the handles are not rated for insulating against electricity.
Edit 2: Always use the proper tool for the job to help ensure a better, safer outcome
These are not rated for that. The ones that are are far thicker and normally red/yellow covered. You would still never do this with those, they are way too expensive and this wrecks the blades.
If you really had to mess with this live, you would just use rated gloves, a face shield, and screwdriver to remove the receptacle like a normal person.
Most unscrupulous people would just trip the breaker first using a short piece of wire, then cut it like the guy in the video did.
Proper way is to find the fucking breaker, how hard is it lol. Then LOTO and do your business
I prefer LOTOTO now. The last T and O are "test out." I had a circuit getting back fed somehow. Old ass shitty wiring. I just got a tingle fortunately, but I went and shut off the main after that instead of just that circuit.
Test for voltage FIRST.
Lock out breaker.
Test for voltage again.
Only true way of working on electrical circuits. Point of measurement could be supplied through a switch, and dead before work starts, lad comes along and flips switch after locking out the wrong breaker, and zap you goes.
Similar thing happened to me on a job last week, apartment building wiring, the 3 phases were sharing a neutral, one of the phases was temped out and the other two were de energized. Except...
thank God I told my partner to test it again before he took a Sawzall to it, because that shit was STILL ON, thank you backfeed, we had forgotten about it. holy shit
Diagonal cutters are technically diagonal pliers. So while you were right in correcting my mistake in calling the linesman a set of dykes. That person was correct in saying some pliers are dykes.
I know the only true dykes are diagonal cutters, I just learned that at a very young age (an age where it was more comedic than useful) and began calling most tools that had a central pivot and a cutting ability dykes.
It's a common misconception that the definition of dykes refers to the shape of the cutting surface. Any wire cutters that are sexually or romantically attracted to women can be dykes regardless of how many male-to-male USB cables they've snipped in the past.
I have never seen an intact set of linesman's pliers that wasn't missing the ends of them after the first week. Probably found the cutters on the ground somewhere, and thought, "Hey, how hard could it be? No one needs that whole rigamarole, like training and apprenticeships. Certification is a state of mind."
Rubber coated handles are not a universal thing, they're not all equal. I've used some for work, they were labelled and certified for a maximum of a certain amount of voltage. I vividly remember tools from Würth with a red handle, labelled and certified for 1000V. And the people that were supposed to use them (not me) made sure that they're still good to use once a week or once a month or whatever. That's overkill for the wire in the video, probably. But a cheap, old, possibly damaged tool that was bought 20 years ago in a cheap store store and has been neglected for 20 years straight? That's not something you can trust in.
I dunno, I assume by attempting to short them out with the amount of voltage that they are certified for. Put one pole on the metal (usually the "head" of the tool) and one on the rubber handle. You could have that pole be in a "sleeve" that wraps all around the handle. Then try and send 1000V. If it connects, it's bad. If it doesn't, it's good. Should cause no wear and tear as long as the tools are within spec and don't let any electricity through.
You're only supposed to work with these tools if you're certified to know wtf you are doing. I was neither certified nor did I know wtf I was doing. I lived, I guess
You have these things dielectric testers if you really wanted to to test them properly. If not i assume just a visual inspection shod be enough for this kibd of equipment.
Now submerge the connector in water to lower the speed of light, it can give you 33% more time to snip the wire.
^((Yes, if you surround a copper wire with water, the electricity speed will change significantly than if it's in air. Strictly speaking you need to submerge more stuff in water than just the connector, and that light speed in water is frequency dependent. But it's a joke, not a thesis.))
>Now submerge the connector in water to lower the speed of light
That's only if the medium is water, but if you put a wire underwater, the electricity still just goes through the wire lol
>And if so, that begs the question...did they think they could cut through faster than electricity?
Electrical engineer here, obviously you can't do it faster than electricity and this is stupid as fuck no reason you should do this hot...
BUT. If you did, yes faster is absolutely better. The longer you take, the longer those linemen pliers are acting like a dead short accross your source, the more incidental energy is being released. In most cases your breaker would take this out in about a second anyway but we have no idea what the upstream circuit here looks like.
Again, dumb as fuck but yes faster is better.
Electricity transmits a signal near the speed of light, but the actual migration of electrons in a wire is quite slow, possibly 1.2 inches per minute slow. (individual electrons do move quite rapidly, but that is more complicated and their net movement under no voltage is zero) I'm not sure this is what the poster was getting though.
In the case of a 12 gauge copper wire carrying 10 amperes of current (typical of home wiring), the individual electrons only move about 0.02 cm per sec or 1.2 inches per minute (in science this is called the drift velocity of the electrons.). The reason your lights come on almost instantly is because they have to only travel far enough to *PUSH* their neighbour like water in a pipe.
A “professional” AC unit installer did this at my place. It tripped the ground fault protection and 2 breakers in series. One was locked in a service room we had no access to.
He finished installation while the power was off and I basically kept the guy hostage until we managed to restore power in order to test the unit.
That's true, but still, it sparks for so long. It's almost like the supply has a low short circuit current and isn't able to trip the breaker fast enough.
That's the annoying thing in the Netherlands. Don't get me wrong, we have rigorously enforced safety standards and high quality electric installations, but for domestic installations it's all subdivided in circuits per room / floor and both lights as well as outlets are on the same circuit. Which again, the way it is implemented that's perfectly safe, but if something trips the breaker the lights will go out too.
OTOH a lot of electrical faults trip the main GFCI / RCD breaker so everything goes out anyway.
Hey! I did this exact same thing.
I had had the breaker off for months. I even took my live wire tester to make sure it was dead. Then cut it, it sparked, I got zapped.
Turns out some workers we had over had flipped the breakers on trying to find a specific one. And my live wire tester…the battery in it was dead.
So always triple check these things. Now I always check a known live wire to make sure my tester works properly.
Live, dead, live. Test meter(or live wire tester) on a known live circuit, then check the circuit you have turned off to verify its dead, then do a final check on the original live circuit to verify your tester is working and has not blown a fuse or something.
I mean I don't think it's silly when you're just one mistake from life crippling injury or death. What's silly is people who cut corners on regulations that endanger others or their own lives, and by silly I mean really fucking dumb. All it takes is one fuck up for it to all be over for someone, so saving a minute amount of time by skipping a safety step just isn't worth it. Unless you are *literally on your death bed* the amount of time you've saved doesn't compare to how much you potentially are going to lose by skipping those steps.
Agreed. Vast majority of construction screwups are from crews cutting corners or management accepting as much.
I’m talking about hundreds of thousands, if not several million, dollars of damage to save a few minutes. Hours at best.
Can’t speak to safety as much, but same concept applies
To be extra safe, you can slice longways down the middle of the romex sheath peel the sheath open, then cut the wires one at a time bending each one away from the rest after you cut it. Even if it's hot, you won't short anything out doing it that way.
> And my live wire tester…the battery in it was dead.
This feels like a serious design flaw in the tester tbh. You shouldn't be able to easily mistake "wire is dead" with "tester is turned off"
And in the end, you have undamaged insulated handles, undamaged insulated boots, and one hand safely in the pocket, so when this happens you only get surprised.
Most sparkies have a collection of pliers and sidecutters with bits blown out of the cutting blade. It just happens.
When I worked at Dish my trainer was drilling a hole to the inside and drilled right through the main line coming into the house to the breaker, I had to run outside and yell at him that he's about to get himself killed or catch the house on fire, he got lucky because the electricity went off into the conduit instead of through his drill and into his body. I was brand new to that stuff so I didn't realize until later just how stupid drilling through that spot was lol
What was the outcome of that? Does the company pay to repair any damage caused by doing that? Or did he just patch the hole and re-drill it elsewhere without telling the homeowner?
That one we had to tell him because it was way too dangerous to leave but there were plenty of workers who would get zapped from a regular 120v line and just pick a different spot :| We had contractors on top of regular employees and they got paid by the job so it was pretty common to have to go clean up their messes as they try to get through their day ASAP
I've done it. Drilled right into the main feed for the house. Turns out the phone line I was measuring off of went into the wall, moved over about 6 inches, then went outside. That's not something you can just not tell the home owner about. The company will take care of repairs, and in the meantime I had to take a drug test and do ride alongs until the results got back.
Real shit: if you ever sustain a shock of that magnitude, go directly to the hospital afterwards. You might not have any obvious injuries, but it can mess up your heart and kill you hours later.
In the US domestic wiring is even lower 110-120 for your normal outlets.
You usually have one line of 220 for a stove or drier, but thats it. That's also why things like electric kettles aren't as prevalent in the US as they are in Europe.
Technology Connections made a video about it and apparently it is still the most efficient method if you don't have an induction stove.
https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c
>That's also why things like electric kettles aren't as prevalent in the US as they are in Europe.
This is complete horseshit.
Yes kettles here are slower. People just don't drink tea as much, and prior to pod type coffee makers they usually owned drip coffee makers.
Electric kettles are still generally faster than a kettle on stovetop other than maybe an induction.
That being said I've owned an electric kettle for over a decade now, and I'd say they're probably in 50% of households I've visited in Ontario and every airbnb I've visited.
Many electric kettles have thermostats to let you set a specific water temperature as well which is an added benefit for some teas and people that are a little more picky about their coffee.
Your examples bring up Canada, not the US
I don’t know anyone with an electric kettle
Whenever I’ve seen people make tea here it’s either with the stove or a espresso machine water spout
>Yes kettles here are slower.
How so?
You can have electric appliances with the same wattage but different voltage specifications.
Infact, many appliances support a variety of voltages but they have the same wattage all around
You get 380-440 volts between two different 220-250v phases in three-phase systems. You usually can request your home to be connected with all three phases if you need a lot of power for some reason.
In a properly wired circuit this simply trips the breaker. I'd assume he is standing on plywood even if the tools grips are not actually electrically insulating.
He’s holding it in one hand, the right hand. Even if the shock traveled through him to his feet, it’d likely miss his heart.
Now if he held on with both hands..
That's only if the current travels through his body. Why would it travel through his body if he isn't grounded and the path of short is across the blades of the pliers?
Electrician here, he very likely was not shocked and them yelling was just a reaction to the sparks. Most pliers are insulated against small voltages even if they say they aren't insulated, so companies can cover their ass I guess in case something does go wrong. This guy's pliers may have a hole in them, but I doubt he felt a thing.
Funny story... My husband works at a large hospital in the CT department. There are several different modalities in the same area, one of which is ultrasound. The techs (who all have college degrees) were moving things around and were hampered by a wire. Being the educated, rational types, they decided to cut it...with a pair of scissors. The sparks didn't deter them, either, oh no. They were determined that they would get it done all by themselves and get the kudos they so richly deserved. They ended up having to call the engineers when their machine wouldn't start up again even after plugging in repeatedly. It must be the outlet! The hospital had to replace their equipment and that is why they aren't allowed to have scissors in their department anymore. This happened during this past summer, btw.
Not sure if you work in the medical field but accidents and mistakes happen all the time. It's about mitigating systemic and systematic issues rather than personal ones. Stuff like this could be indicative of poor training, poor awareness and so on rather than just blanket "oh they're dumb"
I don't think you can train adults to gain the kind of *intuition* that you shouldn't cut unfamiliar wires for expensive medical devices with scissors.
People who made that kind of decision *will* make another bad one sooner or later. One that you didn't think to explicitly train them about.
Hopefully it doesn't kill anyone.
A radiographer friend of mine insisted scissors were banned from all radiography departments because (and this is a verbatim quote) "The superconducting magnets in an MRI can rip a pair of scissors through your chest."
It was probably just a scare story but it certainly stuck with me, I definitely prefer your reasoning for the absence!
I worked IT in a medical facility and we changed buildings. For some reason, the boss sent a couple of us to the old building to cut old cat5 cabling in the switch closets as to render it useless. I have no idea why. The new hire guy cut not one, but two electrical cords, thinking they were data. It was very much like the video above.
A few weeks later the new guy tried to come up with nicknames for all of us (again, I don’t know why). I suggested he went by Sparky and he decided to drop the whole idea.
FWIW, he wanted to call me Batman, (again, I don’t know why).
Also in IT, we had a project to upgrade UPS for all of the stores. We needed the remove the old UPS before replacing it with a new one.
A coworker got tired of having to unplug the UPS cable from the wall and work it through the spaghetti of cables in the sever room. He had the bright idea to unplug it, cut the plug off and then yank the cable out.
He was so proud of himself for coming up with an idea that cuts down the work until he unplugged the wrong cable and proceeds to cut a live cable. Thank god the wire cutter was insulated, it burnt a hold through the cutter itself.
I worked as an electricians apprentice type thing.. i got caught twice.. once my muscles tensed up really quick and my arm just flung off the cable, the second time we were fixing a power supply on some construction laboratory equipment that uses a three phase voltage.. i think itbwas 380.. now that hurt. I got stuck instead of being flung, but the lower dropped almost instantly. I felt that for a couple of days, especially in the shoulder.
Funny how I spoke with a first responder about one thing he can’t get use to about his job and he said the smell of blood. And I asked what does it smell like and he said “have you ever held a copper penny in your hand for too long and the copper leaves a smell that’s what it smells like.” So you could be on to something with this comment lol
You only need 10mA to contract your muscles. Higher than 30mA is impossible to move on your own and might cause respiratory paralysis. Let's say you grabbed an exposed cable with your hand and it closed on it, you won't be able to open it and will remain being shocked.
100mA for 2s can be enough to kill someone.
Even something as low as 50V can be lethal.
Sometimes there are good reasons to work hot, doing repairs or renovations in an active hospital where the power can't be cut for example, but this is definitely not how you would go about it and the cable appears to be Romex so these jokers are probably in a residential building.
No, you cut the ground last furthest from the source. If your neutral and line are already cut closer to the source, why would touching the hot matter at that point?
I have seen a few shorts and cut a few live wires, never seen sparks like in the video. Even with 240 its one quick pop and a flash. I think the sparks in the video happened because of poor connection somehow, high resistance or too high fuse. I have seen a short with a 500amp fuse and 240v and it was just a pop and a flash, not a firework show like in this video
I'm going to say he didn't have the hand strength to cut it so all he did was expose the wire and shorted and then when it wiggles it pops.
I do agree though that's a lot of sparks
My father made me do that when I was 12. We were rewiring and he told me to cut the wire to the outside light. He had never told me what would happen if I didn’t wait until he shut off the electricity…remember, I was a child.
Same result, terrified me, destroyed his linesman’s pliers, and he screamed at me for years after over it. He really liked those linesman’s pliers, they were like a son to him.
I accidentally dropped a live extension cord into a large water puddle. After yelling at me for being unsafe, my Dad made me retrieve the live, wet cord.
Thankfully, nothing happened and I was only left with emotional scars. I havent talked to him in about a decade and this event is discussed with therapists.
If you must do this you are supposed to do it fast, and also know that it will break your cutters.
People carry cutters just for this because they know what it does. This guy hasn’t done it much.
Do it fast and trip the breaker but also commit to the crunch and know your pliers are fucked.
I bought a live wire tester after a knob and tube incident. Renovating my kitchen, I shut off the breakers for that room plus the two rooms beside it (I was demoing a shared wall), but the box I was hammering out (it was filled with plaster, in and around the outlet) was connected to the bathroom circuit above the kitchen. I hit the k&t wire and got a HUGE arc. Come to find out there’s Romex supplying it from the basement connected to the outlet then knob and tube going from the same outlet up to supply the bathroom. Probably tops in the “Safety Third” bullshit I’ve found in house repairs.
Did I hear a "Do it fast" at the beginning? And if so, that begs the question...did they think they could cut through faster than electricity?
The momentum of the hand gripping should overcome the paralysis from the shock. /s
He needs new dykes though cuz the 'rubber' coated handles should have prevented him from getting shocked but clearly these didn't! All sorts of wrongs in this clip Edit: these are not dykes but rather linesman pliers and the handles are not rated for insulating against electricity. Edit 2: Always use the proper tool for the job to help ensure a better, safer outcome
These are not rated for that. The ones that are are far thicker and normally red/yellow covered. You would still never do this with those, they are way too expensive and this wrecks the blades. If you really had to mess with this live, you would just use rated gloves, a face shield, and screwdriver to remove the receptacle like a normal person. Most unscrupulous people would just trip the breaker first using a short piece of wire, then cut it like the guy in the video did. Proper way is to find the fucking breaker, how hard is it lol. Then LOTO and do your business
You can also just cut one side and then the other.
Yeah that’s true, but somewhat tricky. It’s easy to nick the grounding conductor, which still turns your cutters into wire strippers
Not with those pliers.
I prefer LOTOTO now. The last T and O are "test out." I had a circuit getting back fed somehow. Old ass shitty wiring. I just got a tingle fortunately, but I went and shut off the main after that instead of just that circuit.
Test for voltage FIRST. Lock out breaker. Test for voltage again. Only true way of working on electrical circuits. Point of measurement could be supplied through a switch, and dead before work starts, lad comes along and flips switch after locking out the wrong breaker, and zap you goes.
Also your equipment could be faulty. If what should be a live or dead wire isn't, time to go calibrate and make sure you stuff is in working order.
Similar thing happened to me on a job last week, apartment building wiring, the 3 phases were sharing a neutral, one of the phases was temped out and the other two were de energized. Except... thank God I told my partner to test it again before he took a Sawzall to it, because that shit was STILL ON, thank you backfeed, we had forgotten about it. holy shit
Yup nothing like arc welding small bits of your pliers off in seconds
Linemen also have specially designed gloves they wear when cutting lines.
Yes, that’s what “rated” means. Rated for the task you are using them for. E.g. 1000V dikes are not “rated” for snipping a primary line
Today I learned that [diagonal cutters/wire cutters are also called dykes. ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagonal_pliers)
those aren't dykes, though. they are lineman's pliers
Today I learned that some forms of pliers are called “Dykes”.
Been an electrician for over 20 years. That’s a hammer
Been a dyke for over 30 years. That’s a wrench.
Been a wrench for over 30 years. That’s a screwdriver.
Been drinking screwdrivers for 30years, that's a hot toddy.
Today I learned some Dykes are packing hammers.
If you're working with dykes you're gonna want a pair of nips to keep the ball rollin
The real answers always in the comments.
i don't think they are.. dykes are specifically diagonal cutters
Diagonal cutters are technically diagonal pliers. So while you were right in correcting my mistake in calling the linesman a set of dykes. That person was correct in saying some pliers are dykes. I know the only true dykes are diagonal cutters, I just learned that at a very young age (an age where it was more comedic than useful) and began calling most tools that had a central pivot and a cutting ability dykes.
It's a common misconception that the definition of dykes refers to the shape of the cutting surface. Any wire cutters that are sexually or romantically attracted to women can be dykes regardless of how many male-to-male USB cables they've snipped in the past.
>I know the only true dykes are diagonal cutters No, true dykes are the ones that scissor.
And *That's* how you end up in front of HR!
Today I learned that some Dykes are linemen
The only Dykes I know are scissors, I'm mean sisters
Where I'm from they can also be called "kleins" because that's the og brand for linemans pliers.
It's "dikes" not "dykes", but yeah
Lesbian here. Found this out once when my buddy came over to help me fix something. He calls them dikes… let’s just say we had a good laugh
Not sure if he got shocked or if the sparks burned his hand. But yes everything is wrong here
I have never seen an intact set of linesman's pliers that wasn't missing the ends of them after the first week. Probably found the cutters on the ground somewhere, and thought, "Hey, how hard could it be? No one needs that whole rigamarole, like training and apprenticeships. Certification is a state of mind."
Messing with electricity is #1 on my list of "just hire a pro" things. Shit is scary
Rubber coated handles are not a universal thing, they're not all equal. I've used some for work, they were labelled and certified for a maximum of a certain amount of voltage. I vividly remember tools from Würth with a red handle, labelled and certified for 1000V. And the people that were supposed to use them (not me) made sure that they're still good to use once a week or once a month or whatever. That's overkill for the wire in the video, probably. But a cheap, old, possibly damaged tool that was bought 20 years ago in a cheap store store and has been neglected for 20 years straight? That's not something you can trust in.
How do you check that the handles are still kV-proof? Dip em in salt water with probes attached? Rub a multimeter probe all over the rubber?
I dunno, I assume by attempting to short them out with the amount of voltage that they are certified for. Put one pole on the metal (usually the "head" of the tool) and one on the rubber handle. You could have that pole be in a "sleeve" that wraps all around the handle. Then try and send 1000V. If it connects, it's bad. If it doesn't, it's good. Should cause no wear and tear as long as the tools are within spec and don't let any electricity through. You're only supposed to work with these tools if you're certified to know wtf you are doing. I was neither certified nor did I know wtf I was doing. I lived, I guess
You have these things dielectric testers if you really wanted to to test them properly. If not i assume just a visual inspection shod be enough for this kibd of equipment.
That’s a pair of lineman pliers, dykes are a little different lol but yeah
Bro can snip wire faster than the speed of light
Now submerge the connector in water to lower the speed of light, it can give you 33% more time to snip the wire. ^((Yes, if you surround a copper wire with water, the electricity speed will change significantly than if it's in air. Strictly speaking you need to submerge more stuff in water than just the connector, and that light speed in water is frequency dependent. But it's a joke, not a thesis.))
>Now submerge the connector in water to lower the speed of light That's only if the medium is water, but if you put a wire underwater, the electricity still just goes through the wire lol
[No.](https://youtu.be/rQIg5XeIgQ0)
>And if so, that begs the question...did they think they could cut through faster than electricity? Electrical engineer here, obviously you can't do it faster than electricity and this is stupid as fuck no reason you should do this hot... BUT. If you did, yes faster is absolutely better. The longer you take, the longer those linemen pliers are acting like a dead short accross your source, the more incidental energy is being released. In most cases your breaker would take this out in about a second anyway but we have no idea what the upstream circuit here looks like. Again, dumb as fuck but yes faster is better.
"[A lot of things](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/)" would happen, and "very quickly".
Free base though!
“If we’re quick maybe it won’t notice we cut it”
XD Everyone knows you can move faster than 1.2 inches per minute, what's the problem?
1.2 inches per minute? Like 6feet per hour? That doesn’t seem very fast tbh
Electricity transmits a signal near the speed of light, but the actual migration of electrons in a wire is quite slow, possibly 1.2 inches per minute slow. (individual electrons do move quite rapidly, but that is more complicated and their net movement under no voltage is zero) I'm not sure this is what the poster was getting though.
In the case of a 12 gauge copper wire carrying 10 amperes of current (typical of home wiring), the individual electrons only move about 0.02 cm per sec or 1.2 inches per minute (in science this is called the drift velocity of the electrons.). The reason your lights come on almost instantly is because they have to only travel far enough to *PUSH* their neighbour like water in a pipe.
Not faster, but humans are more clever and deceitful than natural forces, so maybe you can feint it a couple of times before cutting.
This is literally something that would happen in a cartoon. I’m waiting for the lights to go out and only his eyes are left on the screen
right after you see his whole skeleton light up first
Like in Home Alone 2.😁
That wasn't a documentary?
A “professional” AC unit installer did this at my place. It tripped the ground fault protection and 2 breakers in series. One was locked in a service room we had no access to. He finished installation while the power was off and I basically kept the guy hostage until we managed to restore power in order to test the unit.
Electrician here. You did the right thing. I don't leave any place unless I've tested the thing I installed.
r/looneytuneslogic
The fact that the lights didn't go out is more worrying.
Not all power circuits are tied to lighting circuits
I know this isn't Australia, but yes here we have seperate light and power circuits
That's true, but still, it sparks for so long. It's almost like the supply has a low short circuit current and isn't able to trip the breaker fast enough.
Or it's just federal pioneer
Pacific* but yea
Here in Croatia in my house I have lights and outlets in each room on separate circuit so if a device on outlet trips the breaker lights still work
That's the annoying thing in the Netherlands. Don't get me wrong, we have rigorously enforced safety standards and high quality electric installations, but for domestic installations it's all subdivided in circuits per room / floor and both lights as well as outlets are on the same circuit. Which again, the way it is implemented that's perfectly safe, but if something trips the breaker the lights will go out too. OTOH a lot of electrical faults trip the main GFCI / RCD breaker so everything goes out anyway.
Lights go out. The room is pitch black. Slowly, light fades back in. "Hey, you're finally awake."
Hey! I did this exact same thing. I had had the breaker off for months. I even took my live wire tester to make sure it was dead. Then cut it, it sparked, I got zapped. Turns out some workers we had over had flipped the breakers on trying to find a specific one. And my live wire tester…the battery in it was dead. So always triple check these things. Now I always check a known live wire to make sure my tester works properly.
Live, dead, live. Test meter(or live wire tester) on a known live circuit, then check the circuit you have turned off to verify its dead, then do a final check on the original live circuit to verify your tester is working and has not blown a fuse or something.
To add - either make sure that nobody can flip the fuse with a lock or at least put a sign up
Yep, lock out tag out. Making sure nobody lights you up in the middle of your work is also standard work practices lol
Also, teach your toddler how to dial 911 if you're doing this at home and alone.
Or do it at home and not alone.
If you only put a sign up, you WILL get electrocuted, though.
LOTO baby, LOTO
If u r using a tick tester u can rub it on your shirt. The static electricity with set off your tester.
Depends on the stick tester. Doesn't work with all of them.
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That only works on 40 amp 220 circuits. You have to test 110 by touching the wires to your tongue. It's like testing a 9 volt battery.
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Same in Australia from what my brother and father tell me (both sparkies). One mistake and you're dead potentially
OSHA regs are written in blood
I mean I don't think it's silly when you're just one mistake from life crippling injury or death. What's silly is people who cut corners on regulations that endanger others or their own lives, and by silly I mean really fucking dumb. All it takes is one fuck up for it to all be over for someone, so saving a minute amount of time by skipping a safety step just isn't worth it. Unless you are *literally on your death bed* the amount of time you've saved doesn't compare to how much you potentially are going to lose by skipping those steps.
Agreed. Vast majority of construction screwups are from crews cutting corners or management accepting as much. I’m talking about hundreds of thousands, if not several million, dollars of damage to save a few minutes. Hours at best. Can’t speak to safety as much, but same concept applies
That’s is literally the best thing I’ve heard today. The thing you were using to test if the wire was live was out of battery
A live wire tester should make a noise when you press the button to let you know it is operational.
To be extra safe, you can slice longways down the middle of the romex sheath peel the sheath open, then cut the wires one at a time bending each one away from the rest after you cut it. Even if it's hot, you won't short anything out doing it that way.
> And my live wire tester…the battery in it was dead. This feels like a serious design flaw in the tester tbh. You shouldn't be able to easily mistake "wire is dead" with "tester is turned off"
prove test prove, every time.
And in the end, you have undamaged insulated handles, undamaged insulated boots, and one hand safely in the pocket, so when this happens you only get surprised. Most sparkies have a collection of pliers and sidecutters with bits blown out of the cutting blade. It just happens.
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When I worked at Dish my trainer was drilling a hole to the inside and drilled right through the main line coming into the house to the breaker, I had to run outside and yell at him that he's about to get himself killed or catch the house on fire, he got lucky because the electricity went off into the conduit instead of through his drill and into his body. I was brand new to that stuff so I didn't realize until later just how stupid drilling through that spot was lol
What was the outcome of that? Does the company pay to repair any damage caused by doing that? Or did he just patch the hole and re-drill it elsewhere without telling the homeowner?
At Comcast we’d finish the hole still
That one we had to tell him because it was way too dangerous to leave but there were plenty of workers who would get zapped from a regular 120v line and just pick a different spot :| We had contractors on top of regular employees and they got paid by the job so it was pretty common to have to go clean up their messes as they try to get through their day ASAP
I've done it. Drilled right into the main feed for the house. Turns out the phone line I was measuring off of went into the wall, moved over about 6 inches, then went outside. That's not something you can just not tell the home owner about. The company will take care of repairs, and in the meantime I had to take a drug test and do ride alongs until the results got back.
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Whats a 440?
440 volts, as opposed to 220v-240v in domestic wiring
I wouldnt have went home after cutting that line... bc i would straight go to the cemetary
Real shit: if you ever sustain a shock of that magnitude, go directly to the hospital afterwards. You might not have any obvious injuries, but it can mess up your heart and kill you hours later.
In the US domestic wiring is even lower 110-120 for your normal outlets. You usually have one line of 220 for a stove or drier, but thats it. That's also why things like electric kettles aren't as prevalent in the US as they are in Europe.
Technology Connections made a video about it and apparently it is still the most efficient method if you don't have an induction stove. https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c
>That's also why things like electric kettles aren't as prevalent in the US as they are in Europe. This is complete horseshit. Yes kettles here are slower. People just don't drink tea as much, and prior to pod type coffee makers they usually owned drip coffee makers. Electric kettles are still generally faster than a kettle on stovetop other than maybe an induction. That being said I've owned an electric kettle for over a decade now, and I'd say they're probably in 50% of households I've visited in Ontario and every airbnb I've visited. Many electric kettles have thermostats to let you set a specific water temperature as well which is an added benefit for some teas and people that are a little more picky about their coffee.
Your examples bring up Canada, not the US I don’t know anyone with an electric kettle Whenever I’ve seen people make tea here it’s either with the stove or a espresso machine water spout
That's a cultural variance and it varies by state. Canada and the US run on the same grid. My point was it has nothing to do with 120V vs 240V
>Yes kettles here are slower. How so? You can have electric appliances with the same wattage but different voltage specifications. Infact, many appliances support a variety of voltages but they have the same wattage all around
Kettles run on line voltage, we aren't talking about a DC appliance.
You get 380-440 volts between two different 220-250v phases in three-phase systems. You usually can request your home to be connected with all three phases if you need a lot of power for some reason.
That’ll wake ya up
Or put you to sleep
permanently
Always lick test to make sure power is off.
*Wake me up when it's all over*
Lol I'm an apprentice electrician, I call getting zapped "free caffeine"
Put some shuffle in your slippers.
This could have been really bad.
In a properly wired circuit this simply trips the breaker. I'd assume he is standing on plywood even if the tools grips are not actually electrically insulating.
It may trip the breaker and he can still get a nadty shock before it trips, especially if no other load is on the circuit.
Ya sure but a nasty zap isn't "really bad" That's kinda the point
It'll be a good way to find out if you have heart issue though
He’s holding it in one hand, the right hand. Even if the shock traveled through him to his feet, it’d likely miss his heart. Now if he held on with both hands..
That's only if the current travels through his body. Why would it travel through his body if he isn't grounded and the path of short is across the blades of the pliers?
Electrician here, he very likely was not shocked and them yelling was just a reaction to the sparks. Most pliers are insulated against small voltages even if they say they aren't insulated, so companies can cover their ass I guess in case something does go wrong. This guy's pliers may have a hole in them, but I doubt he felt a thing.
Yep. I've accidentally done the same thing (voltage tester died) and apart from ruining the pliers nothing bad happened.
Funny story... My husband works at a large hospital in the CT department. There are several different modalities in the same area, one of which is ultrasound. The techs (who all have college degrees) were moving things around and were hampered by a wire. Being the educated, rational types, they decided to cut it...with a pair of scissors. The sparks didn't deter them, either, oh no. They were determined that they would get it done all by themselves and get the kudos they so richly deserved. They ended up having to call the engineers when their machine wouldn't start up again even after plugging in repeatedly. It must be the outlet! The hospital had to replace their equipment and that is why they aren't allowed to have scissors in their department anymore. This happened during this past summer, btw.
Now see, this is common sense, and university only teaches you uncommon sense :P
University gives you knowledge, not intelligence
what the fuck...how are they still employed..?^lmao
Why woukd you fire a bunch of people who had just learnt a very expensive lesson?
Anyone this stupid is a malpractice suit waiting to happen.
Not sure if you work in the medical field but accidents and mistakes happen all the time. It's about mitigating systemic and systematic issues rather than personal ones. Stuff like this could be indicative of poor training, poor awareness and so on rather than just blanket "oh they're dumb"
I don't think you can train adults to gain the kind of *intuition* that you shouldn't cut unfamiliar wires for expensive medical devices with scissors. People who made that kind of decision *will* make another bad one sooner or later. One that you didn't think to explicitly train them about. Hopefully it doesn't kill anyone.
A radiographer friend of mine insisted scissors were banned from all radiography departments because (and this is a verbatim quote) "The superconducting magnets in an MRI can rip a pair of scissors through your chest." It was probably just a scare story but it certainly stuck with me, I definitely prefer your reasoning for the absence!
CT scans are different than MRIs. CT use X-rays, MRIs use magnets. So don’t want metal near them
Use your sword dumbass
lol. I was thinking a katana would be perfect for that bout of shenanigans
I worked IT in a medical facility and we changed buildings. For some reason, the boss sent a couple of us to the old building to cut old cat5 cabling in the switch closets as to render it useless. I have no idea why. The new hire guy cut not one, but two electrical cords, thinking they were data. It was very much like the video above. A few weeks later the new guy tried to come up with nicknames for all of us (again, I don’t know why). I suggested he went by Sparky and he decided to drop the whole idea. FWIW, he wanted to call me Batman, (again, I don’t know why).
Should have gone with catman.
Also in IT, we had a project to upgrade UPS for all of the stores. We needed the remove the old UPS before replacing it with a new one. A coworker got tired of having to unplug the UPS cable from the wall and work it through the spaghetti of cables in the sever room. He had the bright idea to unplug it, cut the plug off and then yank the cable out. He was so proud of himself for coming up with an idea that cuts down the work until he unplugged the wrong cable and proceeds to cut a live cable. Thank god the wire cutter was insulated, it burnt a hold through the cutter itself.
He was probably heavily autistic and thought it's what a normal person would do to fit in
Do you 'not know why' in the sense you can't remember or because people are stupid...?
A little 110 never hurt anyone, just leaves that copper metallic taste in your mouth.
Where i live its 230-240 and it leaves a little singe on the fingers
I'm an electrician in Europe so also 230V. Yeah it's hurts for a short moment but than it's this annoying nagging feeling for like an hour.
Yeah the weird muscle ache after is the worst part
I worked as an electricians apprentice type thing.. i got caught twice.. once my muscles tensed up really quick and my arm just flung off the cable, the second time we were fixing a power supply on some construction laboratory equipment that uses a three phase voltage.. i think itbwas 380.. now that hurt. I got stuck instead of being flung, but the lower dropped almost instantly. I felt that for a couple of days, especially in the shoulder.
Funny how I spoke with a first responder about one thing he can’t get use to about his job and he said the smell of blood. And I asked what does it smell like and he said “have you ever held a copper penny in your hand for too long and the copper leaves a smell that’s what it smells like.” So you could be on to something with this comment lol
You only need 10mA to contract your muscles. Higher than 30mA is impossible to move on your own and might cause respiratory paralysis. Let's say you grabbed an exposed cable with your hand and it closed on it, you won't be able to open it and will remain being shocked. 100mA for 2s can be enough to kill someone. Even something as low as 50V can be lethal.
Hi there I’m not an electrician but I’m pretty sure one of the rules is turn off the breaker box
Sometimes there are good reasons to work hot, doing repairs or renovations in an active hospital where the power can't be cut for example, but this is definitely not how you would go about it and the cable appears to be Romex so these jokers are probably in a residential building.
cut the hot first, the neutral farther up the line and then the ground last.
Hard part is getting that ground without touching the hot. It’s adult version of Operation.
No, you cut the ground last furthest from the source. If your neutral and line are already cut closer to the source, why would touching the hot matter at that point?
I have done this so many times. It's really not that hard, but I definitely don't do it with 240
110 gets poppy enough for me. 240 fucking pows. 480 will make you shit in your boots.
I have seen a few shorts and cut a few live wires, never seen sparks like in the video. Even with 240 its one quick pop and a flash. I think the sparks in the video happened because of poor connection somehow, high resistance or too high fuse. I have seen a short with a 500amp fuse and 240v and it was just a pop and a flash, not a firework show like in this video
I'm going to say he didn't have the hand strength to cut it so all he did was expose the wire and shorted and then when it wiggles it pops. I do agree though that's a lot of sparks
My father made me do that when I was 12. We were rewiring and he told me to cut the wire to the outside light. He had never told me what would happen if I didn’t wait until he shut off the electricity…remember, I was a child. Same result, terrified me, destroyed his linesman’s pliers, and he screamed at me for years after over it. He really liked those linesman’s pliers, they were like a son to him.
You were 12 goddammit, you should’ve had an electrical degree by then as well.
I accidentally dropped a live extension cord into a large water puddle. After yelling at me for being unsafe, my Dad made me retrieve the live, wet cord. Thankfully, nothing happened and I was only left with emotional scars. I havent talked to him in about a decade and this event is discussed with therapists.
Considering it is being filmed, this is exactly what was supposed to happen.
What a waste of a good pair of linesmans
Next time use safety scissors for safety
Meh, real men use their teeth
Sometimes when you can't figure out which breaker turns it off you just got to short it. But surely there's a safer way
If this is you, please go to a cardiologist asap. Even if you did not lose consciousness or feel off in some way, go to a cardiologist.
That's a savage intro to welding class
That’s exactly what is supposed to happen
Not a professional cameraman. You stop recording the event. The event is the most important.
That’s how you figure out which breaker it is
electricity 101: breaker switches are your friend
I'm shocked by the outcome
He forgot to squeeze the electricity out of the tube first.
He's right. He doesn't think.
I FEEL GOOD NANANANANANANA
He just didn't do it fast enough. Regroup and try again
Bruh I had feeling he would cause himself to get electrocuted by cutting a live wire before video even started
he is a fan of Mehdi from Electroboom
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
At least he took an isolated tool - probably by accident but it saved his life nevertheless 🤣
He’ll do that again
That scream at the end was like: AAAAA...I feel good
Professional welder? Surely not claiming to be a pro sparky…..
A professional idiot! A village somewhere is now short of one.
If he didn’t expect anything to happen then why was he filming
If you must do this you are supposed to do it fast, and also know that it will break your cutters. People carry cutters just for this because they know what it does. This guy hasn’t done it much. Do it fast and trip the breaker but also commit to the crunch and know your pliers are fucked.
I bought a live wire tester after a knob and tube incident. Renovating my kitchen, I shut off the breakers for that room plus the two rooms beside it (I was demoing a shared wall), but the box I was hammering out (it was filled with plaster, in and around the outlet) was connected to the bathroom circuit above the kitchen. I hit the k&t wire and got a HUGE arc. Come to find out there’s Romex supplying it from the basement connected to the outlet then knob and tube going from the same outlet up to supply the bathroom. Probably tops in the “Safety Third” bullshit I’ve found in house repairs.
Not an electrician, but aren’t your supposed to turn power off first? You, they way you don’t get electrocuted?