R
Rich.
- Jan 1, 1970
- 0
Just how stupid can someone be to be walking un top of a train bare footed
and reach up and touch a high voltage power line?
ItsASecretDummy said:We used to cook hot dogs that way back when AC power was cheap.
Also, he would have had a problem even with a lower voltage. The only
reason one can call it high voltage is because the electrical power
industry (err... the NEC) has defined "high voltage" as starting at like
600 Volts. Other standards place it at 1000 Volts.
That train was likely fed by a 400 Volt line. Not high voltage, but
you can bet that the "resistor" that a person poses to that line to
ground isn't high enough to keep the person from frying like a 1973 hot
dog in a tray on pins plugged into the wall.
Not high voltage. Certainly high enough though. The idiot was free from
it, and he touched it a second time.
Reminds me of Dilbert's manager.
I doubt that would only be 400v, much more likely 4digit power.
Rheilly P
That was a dummy load. (Not original)
Bill
From my student days, I still remember going to an AIEE lecture on
electrocution. The speaker claimed that there were few documented cases
of people dying from dc unless there was an inductive kick or actual
cooking involved.
I also remember, of reading in that great scientific
journal True magazine :=) of a broadcast tech getting hung up on a 20kV
power supply. He ended up getting thrown across the room but survived
with injury and aches.
He sure would have backed Edison if the war of currents were still going
on.
We used to cook hot dogs that way back when AC power was cheap.
Also, he would have had a problem even with a lower voltage. The only
reason one can call it high voltage is because the electrical power
industry (err... the NEC) has defined "high voltage" as starting at like
600 Volts. Other standards place it at 1000 Volts.
That train was likely fed by a 400 Volt line. Not high voltage, but
Maybe I did not make myself clear. The point is that this dc source did
not kill. Ac sources with much less total energy can kill by starting
fibrillation.
120VAC has often been deadly.
Mostly, India is same as UK, i.e. 25kV on overhead rail pantographs.
ItsASecretDummy said:India's long inter-city runs are 25kV AC.
Their local runs are 1.5kV DC.
That guy got hit with DC from what I could see.
Hard to tell.
I suspect AC- there were two distinct jolts with no arcing between and no
follow up arcing after the second jolt -when his hand was still near the
line- this is indicative of AC rather than DC.
I also suspect that the
line was cleared by a recloser and then re-energized,
cleared again and
locked out.
Again, more typically AC practice.
He deliberately touched the
line once- he was dead before the second touch or near touch.
I also
suspect 25KV as most lines outside the Mumbai area appear to be 25KV AC -
and one source indicated that this was supposed to be converted by 2002.
Salmon Egg said:I believe Popular Science showed how to stick nails in hot dog ends and
connect to the line in order to cook them. I vaguely remember commercial
products of that nature.
My question here is, what was the outcome of the guy lying dead on top of
the train after the incident? Did they leave him there to slide off later
when the train went rolling down the tracks throughthe country side?
Noticed all the public audiance ran when they saw him arc, what did they do
after the final flash.... stand there and stare at the dead body?
You remember correctly, it was the Presto Hot Dogger.
http://www.gpopc.com/catalog/item/5313687/5766786.htm
The presto shows five cooking at once. At 8 amps each that
would be 40 amps total. I need to cook another one on the
nails and look at that current again.
I have a clamp on now
maybe I can put it over the dog and see if that matches the
ampmeter on my variac.
There's a video on youtube whose title claims it's 25kV AC.
A second video says it's 26kV but was removed.
I also saw the video elsewhere with better sound and heard a 50 Hz buzz.
I listened to it again, and it's not the quality of the recording, it was
the fact I was using headphones the first time, but using my laptop's
speakers the other times. I just listened to the video again with the
headphones and there's a definite 100 Hz (not 50 Hz like I wrote) hum/buzz
with headphones, kind of like plucking a string, but without them it just
sounds like a pop.
These are el-cheapo headphones, too. It's actually a cool sound, other
than the fact someone died making it.
------ItsASecretDummy said:That is silly. The time gap was huge. Several hundredths of seconds
easily. I saw two distinct pops. an AC "flash" is usually blue, and the
AC cycles are the reason. The DC POP arc is usually the same color as
what it practically instantly vaporizes at the entry/exit site. AC also
causes reverberatory spasm responses. He stood there while the current
fried the resistor.
----------I doubt that seriously, considering the instantaneous currents required
by trains on the track. It was far more able to completely fry him and
not even wince at the loading.
-------It isn't a sub-station service feed.
-------But that is not what happened.
It was 1.5kV DC. If it was their 25kV line, it would have arced to him
before he even got to it, and would have continued to arc as he pulled
away. It was clearly DC, and it was clearly low enough voltage that the
arc remained below a couple inches, as the video demonstrates to the
trained eye. Had it been AC, he would have had an arc as he pulled away
the first time.
----------Again, there will be no breakers opening with a load as "small" as a
human on this type of feed. His entire incident used far less juice than
a train does as it pulls out from a platform. And the immediacy of the
event wouldn't "trip" anything either. A person on the wire will get
continuously fried. A BAR across the feed *would* trip an interruptor.
-------That guy fried so fast, the power source thought an engineer farted.
Nothing more. A train represents a far lower resistance load. The "slew
rate" by which his "event" made the current go up likely wouldn't cause
more than a yawn, much less a trip.
As I stated before, I read the discussions, and it was stated earlier
by a guy claiming to be there (India, not the station) that they use 25kV
for the long inter-city runs, and 1.5kV for the short run trains, which
is a different rail system. Not interconnected. Replacing all those
trains would be quite expensive.
------------I think it was the DC set from the video. Ac would have arced to him
before he got to it. Also, a big platform, there would have been no way
they would have let him up onto the train. In the smaller system, it
would be easier.
It is just conjecture by both of us though. We both observed the same
thing, and have both described plausible event chain theories.
ItsASecretDummy said:Yep. We had one, and one of my mom and dad's friends had one.
They had a lid that actuated an interlock switch.
I always thought they were a little exposed, but defeating the interlock
was not easy to do. IIRC, it was pre-polarized plug days, ala early to
mid seventies.
Agreed- we don't have any information as to where and when, nor, in