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Originally posted by shakran
That's because you pulled an electrical stupid. You need to understand switches more before you make assumptions like that. A switch only interrupts one leg of the circuit. That means the other leg is still ready to deliver power at the light. When you changed the fixture and touched that active leg, you got zapped because YOU provided a closed circuit with the ground. This is why we tell people to turn the power off at the breaker, not the switch, when they work on a light - the breaker kills BOTH legs.
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You made me laugh with this one. A breaker in a home electrical panel cuts only ONE leg mon ami. That would be the hot wire. FYI, the hot wire is the black wire. The other wire is neutral and has the same electrical potential as the ground - 0. In fact, often times, the neutral wire and the ground wire will be ganged together at some point to ensure that they have the same electrical potential. In the 1920s, the old fuse pairs used to have a fused hot, and a fused neutral to boot. By the 30's and ever since, that has been gone.
I got zapped because I thought the light was off, when really it was just turned down to the point where the light wouldn't glow, but the power was still very much on.
Quote:
Originally posted by shakran
Half a point for effort. You're right in that NEW dimmers work like this. OLD dimmers worked with a variable resistor that did indeed lower the voltage.
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I have never ever seen a dimmer with a rheostat. You are going back before my time.
Quote:
Originally posted by shakran
The good ones have around a 2% loss. Cheap ones have more.
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Read the link I posted above.
1% is in there I believe.
Quote:
Originally posted by shakran
Argh! Please learn something about how circuits work before you try to get TFP members killed! They could turn the switch OFF entirely and still get zapped. And if the current travels from their right hand out their left leg they could get seriously injured, especially if they're hot and sweating, standing on a metal ladder, etc. If you don't have GOOD experience with electricity ("duh, i done got shocked once" is NOT good experience) then don't run around telling people what to do with it. Some people are just dumb enough to believe anything they read on the internet and might actually try it.
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I would not have thought that anyone would have taken me seriously on this.