Electrifying experience tonight with an old lyman pot

[leeggen]

Dale that 277 sure does get your attention, let alone the hurting. 1500 and servived but sure won't do it again even by accident.
CD

[Dale in Louisiana]

Dale that 277 sure does get your attention, let alone the hurting. 1500 and servived but sure won't do it again even by accident.
CD

The only time i deliberately brought myself into contact with a known voltage sourse was wehn playing some games with the little power supply from my tank's infrared sight in the army. The power supply was the size of a 'C' cell and output 15,000 volts at some microamp level. I could charge my entire body with it and then shake hands.

I used to use a Jacob's Ladder in safety training at work. There's nothing like a loud arc and the smell of ozone in the air to reinforce training. I don't do it any more because the safety department almost had kittens over it. I used 15,000 volts for the ladder and demonstrated my 'hot gloves', rated at 20,000 volts.

dale in Louisiana

[starmac]

There are valid uses for some appliances that shock you depending on which way they are plugged in. Back in my partying days I was on a long job down at orange Texas and kept a fridge full of beer under the awning of my travel trailer. If you tried to open the fridge without turning the plug around it would knock fire from you. My friends didn't catch on,to how come I wouldn't get shocked, so would not get a beer themselves. lol No telling how much that defective fridge saved me. lol

[WyrTwister]

Experience is what you got when you did not get what you wanted !

277 VAC not only hurts , it burns .

God bless
Wyr

[sfcairborne]

Thanks, gents. I havent had a chance to look at the pot yet, once I got her drained, I moved her to cool off and fired up the old Saeco pot and drove on. I looked at the plug in wire and it is an two prong type, but there was a burn hole in it and Im thinking the bare wire was tuoching the metal. Gonna dig into her this weekend. I hope I can get her figured out. I kinda like this old pot, prior to this I took the base, upright supports, the metering handle to a friend and he powder coated all the supports, arm and mold guide satin black and the base plate hunter orange. He even bead blasted the inside of the pot for me, just to make sure all the bad stuff was out. My brother inlaw even retappered the metering valve, no dripps and pours great. Now to rewire, check the thermostat and heating coil. Dont want to get sparked again thats for sure.

[Tazza]

Sounds like it looks the part.

Even if the element is found to be bad, i'm sure you can find something to replace it with to get it going again. Looking forward to hearing a good ending to this story.

[sfcairborne]

Will do

[chboats]

I did not read the thread in detail, but the heating can be shorting inside the element. I have had more than one heating element that would trip a GFI. They appeared to work fine but something had to be wrong to trip the GFI.

[dikman]

Sounds like you're nearly there (there's not really too much to go wrong with them). Bare wires are NOT a good thing to have on mains voltage.

[burrkiss]

You already attempted to fix it. If you cant, toss it and buy another.

[enfieldphile]

Not addressing the issue of a defective element or thermostat, but....

Any 2-prong appliance should be grounded! Either replace the power cord w/ a 3-prong cord, or simply runa separate ground wire from the metal case to a good ground.

[Tazza]

That is one thing that did surprise me with american power cords and outlets was the lack of an earth. all aussie power outlets have a ground. Only double insulated appliances do not have an earth pin on them. We have double the voltage but your power kills just as well as ours.