They are conducting "load testing" on what sounds like a fairly large, 3-phase generator using water to simulate a load. Each phase has it's own conductor attached to those pieces of copper (I assume copper). Air makes an excellent insulator, so when the conductors are in the air, no current passes between them. Placing that device into the water allows current to pass between the three conductors as the water acts as a resistor, or a load. Probably a safe assumption that the water is actually salt water, as that conducts electricity more readily than fresh water (also boils at a higher temperature... not sure which one they were caring about more, probably both).
The yellow device he's holding is a clamp on ammeter, measuring the amperage in one of the conductors. Looks like it gets up to around 12 or 13 amps. Fair amount of amperage there. Enough that, even as a former industrial electrician, there is absolutely no fucking way you could pay me enough to do that.
As the fatal amperage is measured in milliamps and I assume the human body wouldn't cause much load before death, I would assume that it would kill anyone who touched that water. The maximum number of idiots killed would depend not on the total amperage, but the ability of idiots to learn from the misfortune of others.
It's like saying tripping and falling can kill you. It's true, but most people just graze their skin or maybe break something.
Domestic electricians would have a far higher fatality rate if that were the case. I live in a first world country with really strong work safety laws and most of the residential electricians I know have accidentally booted themselves with mains power at least once in their career. (240v 10amp is the standard outlet here)
I don't have the data to back this up but I'd say you'd be at more risk by several orders of magnitude driving to work than by getting a momentary boot from 0.6 milliamps.
Considering Tens machines operate in the 1-120 milliamp range and these are a clinical tool.
TENS machines usually have some very clear verbiage to not have the leads span the heart. Basically the point is to use the skin/muscle/nerves to transmit the current back to the TENS unit, and the electrical signal never passes through your heart or CNS.
people just dont understand electricity, because you dont really need to understand it unless you work with it.
A lightning strike is like tens of thousands amps at millions of volts, but theres zero frequency and it only lasts for miliseconds so you have a high chance all of that just travels along your body and burns you a bit (or a lot)
you need the right (wrong) combination of amps, voltage, time and frequency to kys with electricity.
and even if none of those are zero, some of them being super high can also be safe. like if the frequency is huge to your bodies signals that mostly work on chemical gradients its the same as if it were zero.
Yeah. I was a Navy electrician. I've take hits on everything from 28V (window wipers on the bridge) to when my hands were inside a 30A 440V 3-phase motor controller (that I trusted to be locked out/tagged out). AANnNnDdd I caAAmmEe oUut jUsssT finNneEE!
I have seen heating water being used to simulate a load during (big - MW sized) generator testing before, in the UK. ( They had a bank of 14 metal containers, with about 1m3 of water in each, and big conductors in each.) Same principle but no one was allowed anywhere near them while the tests were taking place.
I have seen people do this with 120v wall current to boil around 3 gallons of water. No salt added to the water but the minerals out of the tap made it plenty conductive.
Probably a safe assumption that the water is actually salt water,
I wondered that too. I reckon though if it was salt water the chlorine produced would prevent anyone standing next to it. They'd be coughting their guts out.
12-13A per phase sounds pretty low for a generator like that, no? Could be 120-130A. Not a diesel tech but that engine is hauling ass. Probably about 80kW total @ 220/380V with a little napkin math. Would explain the cable thickness and all
218
u/OllieN94 Sep 12 '26
Can someone please explain this to me as an everyday person and not a professional sparky?