Luke,

thanks for posting the outcome and I hope it was a lesson to some of
the trolls.

Mark

On 7 Apr 2005 12:18:29 -0700, "Mark" wrote:

thanks for posting the outcome and I hope it was a lesson to some of
the trolls.

Thanks to you and other calmer heads who suggested the meter as the
likely culprit or who thought it just didn't make sense and was likely
not a wiring fault. The suggestion, albeit hysterical in tone, to call
an electrician, considering the info I gave and that it is in the end
my decision, was not of itself a bad suggestion. And it is Usenet -
one gets what one pays for ;-).

Just between you and me g, I don't know whether they should be
called trolls or flamers. In any case I suspect they have otherwise
empty lives.

--
Luke

One reason why an analog meter would report different
numbers for different ranges - the meter is not a high
impedance input. The meter puts a different load on the
'leakage' with each selector change and why I suspected is was
a small (milliamp) leakage. Just another reason why a $20 3.5
digit multimeter is preferred over a $10 analog meter.

In the meantime, how to identify the problematic appliance.
Connect the appliance (using a long three wire extension cord)
to a GFCIed kitchen or bathroom receptacle. Excessive leakage
in the TV, et al may trip the GFCI. Now you know which
appliance to have repaired.

It could be that the leakage is from your neighbor's TV via
your cable. Just another possibility. This should not happen
if your cable is properly earthed before entering the
building.

You know there is leakage. You know the electrician sees
good safety grounding. You now have a tool (that GFCI) to
help locate the 'leaking' appliance.

Luke wrote:
As some of you suspected it's my analog volt meter. If I had
understood the meter could give false voltage readings, I would have
mentioned which meter I was using in my first post, though I did
mention it later. The electrician checked the house wiring and there's
nothing wrong. The only suspect is possibly the TV tuner, so the next
step is to maybe contact a TV repair. One positive thing out of this
is I found a very good electrician, after one guy never returned the
phone call and another one failed to show when promised.

Anyway, thanks, and as the late great Emily Litella said: Nevermind!

Cheers!

--
Luke

William W. Plummer posted for all of us...

Tekkie=AE wrote:
=20
William W. Plummer posted for all of us...
=20
=20
Tekkie=AE wrote:


William W. Plummer posted for all of us...



Aside from all the other suggestions, don't forget that the cable sys=
tem=20
gets its power from the cable itself. That's on the order of 75 vol=
ts=20
send down the large center conductor of the cable. You might need a=
=20
visit from the Cable Guy to check it out.


i wasn't gonna get involved butttt WTF do you mean?

All the amplifiers in a community cable distribution system get their=
=20
power from the cable itself. It is 60 Hz whereas the cable signals=
=20
are 50+ MHz and higher.

=20
Well, I'm dubious about this too... but 75 Volts?? Nah & now you are ta=
lking=20
frequency. So let us know what you are asserting here... volt amps=20
frequency pick one then stick with it.=20
TROLL
=20
Yes, I guess YOU are. It's confirmed because you made a statement then whe=
n=20
called on it change the subject. YOU said 75 volts is sent down the center=
=20
conductor, then you change to frequency. Bozzie read YOUR posting above. I=
=20
didn't check but are you on webtv?
--=20

Tekkie

Luke posted for all of us...

As some of you suspected it's my analog volt meter. If I had
understood the meter could give false voltage readings, I would have
mentioned which meter I was using in my first post, though I did
mention it later. The electrician checked the house wiring and there's
nothing wrong. The only suspect is possibly the TV tuner, so the next
step is to maybe contact a TV repair. One positive thing out of this
is I found a very good electrician, after one guy never returned the
phone call and another one failed to show when promised.

Anyway, thanks, and as the late great Emily Litella said: Nevermind!

Cheers!


Did you get a shock off the mixer? If so; everything is NOT okee doakey.
--

Tekkie

On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 20:57:29 -0400, Tekkie® wrote:

Luke posted for all of us...

As some of you suspected it's my analog volt meter. If I had
understood the meter could give false voltage readings, I would have
mentioned which meter I was using in my first post, though I did
mention it later. The electrician checked the house wiring and there's
nothing wrong. The only suspect is possibly the TV tuner, so the next
step is to maybe contact a TV repair. One positive thing out of this
is I found a very good electrician, after one guy never returned the
phone call and another one failed to show when promised.

Anyway, thanks, and as the late great Emily Litella said: Nevermind!

Cheers!


Did you get a shock off the mixer? If so; everything is NOT okee doakey.

No, nothing from the mixer with the wet fingers test, even in bare
feet on the floor. Guess I could try dumping water on the floor or
standing in a metal bucket filled with water, but I think that'd just
make a mess for no good reason ;-)

--
Luke

On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 20:25:56 -0400, w_tom wrote:

One reason why an analog meter would report different
numbers for different ranges - the meter is not a high
impedance input. The meter puts a different load on the
'leakage' with each selector change and why I suspected is was
a small (milliamp) leakage. Just another reason why a $20 3.5
digit multimeter is preferred over a $10 analog meter.

In the meantime, how to identify the problematic appliance.
Connect the appliance (using a long three wire extension cord)
to a GFCIed kitchen or bathroom receptacle. Excessive leakage
in the TV, et al may trip the GFCI. Now you know which
appliance to have repaired.

It could be that the leakage is from your neighbor's TV via
your cable. Just another possibility. This should not happen
if your cable is properly earthed before entering the
building.

You know there is leakage. You know the electrician sees
good safety grounding. You now have a tool (that GFCI) to
help locate the 'leaking' appliance.
[snip bottom quote]

The TV, VCR, DVD player, and mixer all have two prong plugs. So,
unless I'm missing something, I don't see how connecting them to a
three prong extension cord to a GFCI outlet does anything, and it
didn't :-). The mixer, in the kitchen, is plugged into a GFCI circuit,
and I also tested it in the first-in-line GFCI kitchen outlet.

We have a rooftop antenna, no cable or satellite.

Yeah, I could use a good digital voltmeter and an amp meter, but with
a 12 year old house filthy with grounded outlets, switches, and new
fixture boxes there's no wiring for me to do, frustrating in a way
after living many years in 80-100 year old houses g, so except for
this very odd occurrence it's difficult to justify even that expense.

We still have intermittent TV reception problems. I suspect the TV
tuner, or something with the TV. I've gotten a recommend for a TV
repair person and will pursue that. Thanks!

--
Luke

don't blame the meter, if you had a new digital meter, you would have
similar results, maybe even worse.

A volt meter is designed to measure voltage and is designed to be very
sensitve in the sense that it takes very little current. So even some
very small leakage CURRENT can register as a high voltage. Like when
you get a shock from a dry carpet, that is actually several thousand
volts, but the current is very low. so in the appliacne you are
measuring the AC line volage trhough the leakage path which is a very
weak high resistance path so very little current can flow but it is
enough to register on a volt meter. Actually the better the
voltmeter, the higher it will register. Voltmeters need more current
on the lower scale so when you switch to a lower scale it actually
drops the voltage more and you get a lower reading.

What you really need is an AC current meter to measure leakage. A
current of a few mA (thats milliamps = 1/1000 Amps) can give you a bad
shock. 100 mA = 0.1 Amps can easily kill you.

Most cheap meters unfortuntly cannot measure AC current. They can
measure DC current and DC or AC voltage. If you really want to
measure AC current, go to radio shack and buy a 1000 Ohm resistor.
Connect the resistor across your AC voltmeter leads. Now the AC
voltage reading will be about equal to the AC current. 3 volts will be
about 3 mA. Note that a ground fault interupter is set to trigger at
6 mA (I think I have that right, I'm sure someone will correct me if
it's worng)

Your TV antenna lead is probably grounded somewhere as it should be.
Your TV has a fair amount (but probably normal amount) of leakage that
you measure and feel. Your mixer has a smaller amount of leakage that
you can measure but not feel.

So now you can use your meter and if something measures like you mixer,
it is OK, If it measures like your TV, it is OK but has a higher
leakage that is in the range that you can feel. If something measures
much higher than you TV, I would become concerned.

have fun

( in any case I wouldn't grab onto your mixer or anything else electric
while standing in a puddle of water) :-)

Mark

On 7 Apr 2005 12:18:29 -0700, "Mark" wrote:

Luke,

thanks for posting the outcome and I hope it was a lesson to some of
the trolls.

Mark

Yes - those who say 'If you get repeatedly shocked by
electrical devices in your home, and read voltages all over, it's OK,
it's probably nothing, don't worry about it' have probably learned
their lesson :

Get it checked out, and be sure, and be safe !


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http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/

Paul ( pjm @ pobox . com ) - remove spaces to email me
'Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.'

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On 7 Apr 2005 19:39:25 -0700, "Mark" wrote:

don't blame the meter, if you had a new digital meter, you would have
similar results, maybe even worse.
[snippage]

Mark, thanks much for taking the time to write a cogent explanation,
about what the electrician said, though you gave more detail. You
would know this of course, but I've now taken my meter to friends'
houses and gotten similar results. Could be a good party trick for the
uninformed ;-).

Cheers!

--
Luke

Test at your friend's house should have been done with
same resistors (resistors that would have made so many other
posts irrelevant). To obtain a useful number, this was posted
previously.:
For example, if the meter measures microamps, well that
typically is not enough to be a danger but would also not
cause 'wet finger tingle'. Milliamps or (real bad) amps of
AC current tell you more. Based upon what that meter is
doing, the current leakage is probably in the milliamp range.

... Therefore put a 100 or 1000 ohm resistor between those
meter probes and measure AC voltage again ... With Ohm's
law, leakage current is calculated.

Your meter reported different voltage numbers on different
selector (range) settings. Of course. Apparently was a low
impedance meter. A digital multimeter would have reported a
more consistent voltage on every range - leaving you less
confused. Either way, using those $0.25 resistors would have
provided useful numbers that eliminated those so many
speculation posts.

Feeling a tingle when touching any appliance is
unacceptable. Is it dangerous? Probably not. The tingle
suggests one of the required layers of safety is not working
properly. If other safety layers fail, then that tingle could
become more serious. But again, we have neither useful
numbers nor understand why that unacceptable tingle exists.

Luke wrote:
On 7 Apr 2005 19:39:25 -0700, "Mark" wrote:
don't blame the meter, if you had a new digital meter, you would
have similar results, maybe even worse.
[snippage]

Mark, thanks much for taking the time to write a cogent explanation,
about what the electrician said, though you gave more detail. You
would know this of course, but I've now taken my meter to friends'
houses and gotten similar results. Could be a good party trick for the
uninformed ;-).

Cheers!

--
Luke

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
John Willis wrote:

On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 02:37:46 GMT,
scribbled this interesting note:

There ain't on arguing about it. It's the facts. You can
argue / guess all you want about the possible causes, but you're not
supposed to get an electrical shock from anything in your residence,
ever, and that's just the way it is.

Not even static shock from the carpet on cold, dry days???

NO! NEVER! UNSAFE! DANGEROUS! CALL THE MASTER ELECTRICIAN!

IGNORANCE ABOUNDS! Troll: don't feed it.