Re: SHOCKING!

[timm@xxxxxxxxxx (Tim Moody)]

:worry about electrocution?  I wasn't getting any jolts from the mike the 
:entire night, but when I was holding it, I reached over to the guitarist 
:to get his attention, accidently made contact with a tuning knob, and 
:zap!  Got a blast.  So is there a difference in electricity flowing 
:through a guitarist and a harpist, or is it the transferrance of 
:electricity from the amp to the mike?  I checked the mike to see if there 
:were any exposed wires hitting the casing, but couldn't see any 
:directly.  

Damn straight you better worry about electrocution. More than one musician
has been killed this way. The problem lays in the grounds on the different
equipment. It called a difference of potential and can be very dangerous.
Most people laugh it off as getting shocked but there is an old saying in
electronics, "It's the volts that jolts and the mills that kills". Meaning
it is current flow that kills you, not voltage. The current flow can be
lethal passing thru you chest cavity(your left hand on your mic, your right
hand on the guitar, etc.) at 200 mA. that's .2 amps and not much current.
Most newer amp have a "ground switch" that flops the polarity of the AC
coming into the amp trying to eleminate the difference. Another common one
for harp players is to be blasting away with your setup and lean over to
sing into the mic and WHAMO. You make contact with the mic and about fry
yourself. I got shocked so bad one night I swore there was blues flames
coming off of my face, but everybody said no, I must have been what I saw
when I was going down. We need to be careful. 

PS REPLACE THAT GROUND PLUG.

Tim