"CJT" wrote in message
...
w_tom wrote:

a few points ... (there may be others)

snipThe best power strip is about $3+ dollars
from Walmart, Lowes, or Home Depot; has the all so critical 15
amp circuit breaker (for human protectionsnip
... from fires, but which does nothing about electrocution).

Don't make assumptions about that three light tester. It
can detect failures BUT it cannot fully prove a receptacle is
wired correctly. It can detect a wiring problem but cannot
prove wiring as correct. What tester does report suggests
receptacle polarity reversal is not a problem. It does not
say, for example, that necessary safety ground from breaker
box to earth is installed or exists.

... but it does indicate that the neutral and ground are at
(approximately) the same potential, and that said potential is
greater than about 65V away from the "hot." Unless the ground
and neutral are connected together at the receptacle or upstream
(but before the breaker box, where they _should_ be), that _does_
say something about the presence of a ground.

For that failure - one
possible reason for the problem - you must visually inspect
then entire connection from breaker box to earth ground.

snip

One would, of course, hope that an inspector had already done that
before the circuit was energized, but humans are admittedly frail.

IMHO, your best point was that multiple protective measures should
be in place (the inspector being one I think you missed).

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

Hmm...sorry but I understood about 20% of the above post - got a bit too
technical for me... I am the OP here is the original post:

I got a good quality one to four video splitter so tonight I got up to the
attic and disconnected the old splitter. Nothing unusual.

Then I connect the new cable IN, then one by one I connect the cable OUT.
When I get to the last one I felt a strong tinkling on my finger, you know
when you rub your shoe on the carpet a few times and go touch a metal
railing? Yes that feeling...I dropped the splitter. Is it static? I don't
know. So I touched the splitter, which at that time has the one IN cable
and three OUT cables connected, and nothing, it's OK. Then I let go of the
splitter and touch the last coax cable connector - nothing...so I touched
the splitter with my left hand and the remaining cable connector with my
right hand, yes I feel it again. What is going on?

I then left the attic and when to the other end of that cable, which was at
the time plugged into a VCR, which in turn was connected to the TV and they
were running. I unplugged the connector on this end, went back to the attic
and no more problem. So I hooked the last connector up.

Then I came back down and put the cable connector back to the VCR.

What caused this? Does this mean I have an electrical problem with that TV
or VCR?

Here are some additional tests I did afterwards:

Well that does not compute either. Because I have the cable feed coming in
from the outside and into the splitter. If I hold onto the outside cable
and splitter, I do not feel this mild voltage spike. Now this splitter
splits into four cables which connects to four TVs. Let's say we have cable
A, B, C, D.

I take cable A, and connect to splitter. Nothing, no voltage. Repeat for
cable B, nothing. Repeat for cable C, nothing. Now I go grab the last
cable, cable D, and I feel the voltage. I only feel it when I have outside
cable + splitter in one hand and cable D in another. I let go of cable D,
nothing. I let go of the splitter and only hold cable D, nothing either.

Does this mean it might not be the outside cable grounding since cable A, B,
C do not have this problem?

Now I go to the other end of cable D which is connected to the VCR which
then feeds to the TV. I disconnected that end. Go back to the attic.
Touch both the splitter and cable D. Nothing. Then I went back down and
connect cable D directly to the TV bypassing the VCR player, then back to
the attic and try again, nothing. Then I wired it back to the VCR, repeat -
yes I feel the voltage.

Does this experiment conclude the problem is VCR player?

MC


MC