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#175970 03/16/08 12:44 PM
Joined: Jul 2004
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I had a strange thing today. My wife said she turned off the kitchen light and got shocked. I tried it and got the same thing. This is a Decora set in a stainless back splash. After verifying the bonding of the counter/back splash, GEC system and everything else I could think of I found out the "hot" part was the plastic paddle itself. HUH?

When the switch opens I get a tingle voltage on the white plastic. How can that be? My guess is somebody sprayed it with some conductive liquid but I am replacing the switch.
This is down stream of a functioning GFCI so it is a low current fault. It is still enough to get your attention.

Anyone seen anything like this?


Greg Fretwell
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 853
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Originally Posted by gfretwell
I had a strange thing today. My wife said she turned off the kitchen light and got shocked. .

Anyone seen anything like this?


This happend to me a few years ago, only different. My wife was shocked I actualy completed the lighting project!!!!:)

Seriously: Most likely a faulty switch, carrying thru the metal trim (frame) of the switch.
I would be more concerned with the GFI rec.Triple check all your bonding/GEC. Somthings amiss.

Not to go off topic but this is a good example of the ALL GFCI in commercial kitchens.

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twh Offline
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I've seen that sort of problem, in a different setting though.

It may have been the cleaner used on the back splash, or something that was on the back splash and was washed into the switch by the cleaner.

Grain dust is really conductive and will blow fuses when it gets on a circuit board. Have you been baking bread or making muffins?

twh #176063 03/19/08 07:13 AM
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I was shocked thrice from a cheaply made delta 10" table saw. I couldn't figure it out- the shell was plastic, the switch was plastic, even the protective enclosure over the wiring was plastic. I was stumped! ...until I took it apart, that is. And discovered the screw holding the switch to the saw had somehow been driven straight through the black wire, piercing it but not breaking it, and I was inadvertantly brushing it as I flipped the switch. Delta sent me a new cord, but seemed otherwise unworried that a customer had recieved multiple shocks due to a manufacturing defect.

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I broke the Decora switch apart and I am still baffled. The metal parts are nowhere near the plastic paddle but that is definitely where the shock was coming from.
I am still stuck with the idea that someone sprayed a conductive liquid on the switch. I guess that's why they call it a backSPLASH.


Greg Fretwell
Joined: Oct 2007
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...Or we could all be missing the most logical possibility. Maybe the laws of physics are changing, perhaps due to some cosmic alignment and plastics are becoming conductive? Beware your hair dryers and electric razors!


Shawn.

Joined: Jul 2002
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Originally Posted by SP4RX
...Or we could all be missing the most logical possibility. Maybe the laws of physics are changing, perhaps due to some cosmic alignment and plastics are becoming conductive? Beware your hair dryers and electric razors!
Shawn.


It's a Chinese Goverment Plot- add uranium 235 to the plastic mold when producing decora switches to be sold to the Yankee devils. Uranium, being metallic will conduct and therefore not only shock us devils into submission, but give us radiation poisoning while doing so smile I'd get the Geiger counter out and test that switch......

Last edited by macmikeman; 03/21/08 03:51 AM.

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