Hi,
I am hoping any of you guys can solve my puzzle.
If a person is touching the neutral line, the potential is already
zero
How come he still gets shocked?
If there is a ground connection on the neutral line, and with a person
who is touching it
,how come the current will pass thru his body. The resistance of the
rest of the neutral line
is obviously less than the human body. Could anyone please explain
this with a little bit of details?
Thanks a lot
Jack
There are a couple of possibilities. These are assuming your testing in an
average sized house with 120 / 240 volts AC service.
If your not familiar with electricity or house wiring, I would recommend
that you call in an electrician to check things out.
If you do know enough about electricity and houses wiring, try these tests
out:
1. Hot and Nuetral are swapped. Measure HOT(black wire) - Ground(green or
bare wire), there should be 120 volts, then measure Nuetral(white wire) -
ground, you might measure a few volts, but not 120 volts. If there is more
that a few volts measured on the Nuetral, Check the plug wiring if that is
where your touching wires, then check other plugs and juction boxes that
could be connected to the same circuit for miss wiring, check the fuse panel
for Black wires, NOT WHITE, comming off the breakers.
2. If could be a bad ground (Nuetral to Ground) connection in the breaker
panel, check the connections at the Nuetral connection bar. If could even
be connection to the ground rod or not a long enough ground rod. Make sure
all connections are tightly screwed in.
3. Check that marrettes are tightly screwed on and screws are tight.
4. There could be an appliance connected to the same circuit drawing heavy
current, which puts heavy current on the Nuetral wire. Again good
connections everywhere reduces the chances of a shock hazard.
There are cheap little circuit testers with three lights on them that detect
miss wiring, they are easy to use (you just plug them into AC recepticals).
Two of the amber lights should light up under normal conditions and not the
red light. Read the instructions though in case yours is different.
Shaun