Will I die?

[PWRL]

I got zapped once from that kind of thing. You want to fix that.

 

[Door County Bass]

View attachment 4065451

That and taxes are inevitable.

 

[bassliner50]

Have you jammed with Hendrix yet?

An appointment with him not available until late April. John Lennon is booked throgh 2034.

 

[Ostie]

It looks to me as if somebody removed the ground prong from the plug, in which case the cord is probably three- wire. If so, only a replacement plug is needed. If the cord is two-wire, then it needs replacing and that’s a little more involved and should be done by a tech unless you are comfortable with electrical repairs.

 

[agedhorse]

If you were to evaluate the injury and death rate due to electrocution in countries with ungrounded power sources, especially 220-240V, it’s a “shocking” insight into why grounded electrical systems and GFCI/residual current protection are used where practical.

 

[Mushroo]

I'm pretty sure getting my tongue shocked by the microphone in my high school garage band, is the reason I'm bald today.

Scariest gig I ever played was in a big tent during a downpour. Halfway through the set I realized the tent floor was floating! It felt like being in a bouncy house. If that floor had sprung a leak, the band and audience would have been ankle deep in water. There was no raised stage and all of our amps and power cables were just sitting on the ground.

 

[cnltb]

Will I die?
Try it and get back to us.

 

[byacey]

Being an amateur repair guy, I always replace broken grounds or two prong plugs. I replace the entire cord with one that has a molded plug. I do not trust the cord replacement plugs. Plus while replacing the entire cord I often fine worn spots or old cracking plastic sheathing.

I can just envision getting to a gig plugging in then having to move my equipment and pulling the cord (instead of the plug) then staring at a frayed cable with wires sticking out whiled and the plug still firmly seated in the wall.

It is never good practice to pull a plug out of a receptacle by the line cord, even with molded plugs. On professional stages, you won't find many molded plugs because they aren't field repairable, and they don't have as good a strain relief. If you use a good Hubbell, Marinco, or other well designed replacement plug, it'll be fine. If you want to spend some money, buy a medical grade cord end plug.
Many of the hardware store offerings have very poor strain reliefs, flimsy blade contacts, etc.- avoid them.

 

[Pings Bass]

Oui awl dye.

When I worked live sound in the 80s it was the practice of the owner of the company to cut the ground plugs off all the power amps and make sure the mix desk had a good earth ground. I'm pretty sure in retrospect this wasn't the best practice. Yet ... other sound companies I worked with did it too. I still have an old BGW amp I bought out of surplus that's missing a ground plug.

My first guitar amp was an ungrounded Kustom 200 that I grounded myself after zapping myself putting a beer can on the garage floor while holding the strings of my guitar.

Anyway, grounding is good! We should all be doing it.

 

[seamonkey]

I kind of wonder how many fools pull the ground pin off to insert into an old socket, but then just shove the ground back in the plug afterwards. Looks the same.

 

[BarfanyShart]

You can play through low wattage practice amps ungrounded without too much worry (I do it all the time) - but I have gotten live current through strings before in bad live situations, and that is not fun.

 

[byacey]

My first guitar amp was an ungrounded Kustom 200 that I grounded myself after zapping myself putting a beer can on the garage floor while holding the strings of my guitar.

Anyway, grounding is good! We should all be doing it.

The problem isn't the grounded gear, it's the ungrounded gear that causes safety issues.

 

[byacey]

You can play through low wattage practice amps ungrounded without too much worry (I do it all the time) - but I have gotten live current through strings before in bad live situations, and that is not fun.

The size of the amplifier has nothing to do with being safe or not. They all use the same line voltage source, big, or small.

 

[g-dude]

Gads no. The electrician is always out working. He doesn't have time to deal with his own place.

Well, to be fair, he did splice wires and at least wrap them with electrical tape. So yeah. That was awesome.

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

Yes, we all will.

 

[g-dude]

That's one thing I learned being the son of an electrician, is that apparently safety makes everything harder, but you can't bypass it. Though, you never see a ground prong anywhere near a job site.

It won't kill you, you might get a little zap though, but you might as well just get it fixed.

We had a neighbor who was an electrician as well. When we had him change a light fixture, he checked to see if the wiring was live by touching it.

I asked him, “Isn’t that dangerous?”

His response, “No. I mean, it hurts a little bit, but it’s only 120v. The 240 will make your arm hurt all day.”

 

[g-dude]

I used to play at a church where the baptismal pool was underneath the stage. When opened up and filled with water the stage was an 18” ledge in front of the amps against the back wall. Those were some hair-raising services, inches from certain death.

I don’t have to worry about amps, but I have to navigate a large cross (or other stage decorations), a drum riser, and the open baptismal font when someone’s getting baptized. It’s like the only time I get nervous when I’m playing at church.

 

[byacey]

We had a neighbor who was an electrician as well. When we had him change a light fixture, he checked to see if the wiring was live by touching it.

I asked him, “Isn’t that dangerous?”

His response, “No. I mean, it hurts a little bit, but it’s only 120v. The 240 will make your arm hurt all day.”

The mental state of such an individual is questionable.

I've seen lots of dumb electricians on constructions sites that are little more than trained monkeys. No offense towards true professional electricians.

I've witnessed them scratching their heads troubleshooting problems that were very simple, but since they didn't have a good grounding in theory (no pun intended), they couldn't see the forest for the trees.

 

[g-dude]

I will say I would get a good cord cap but will also say that those of us here who are old enough here to have used polarity switch amps when that was all there were knew how to set the polarity switch before we got shocked. First of all always make sure you have shoes on, don't stand in any water, don't touch anything else metal after you plug it in, turn the power switch on, wait a minute or so for it to warm up, turn the standby switch off and then throw the polarity switch to whichever way has the least hum. If there is no hum either way unplug your bass and hang it over the amp so it can't touch the floor and again put the switch to whichever way has the least hum, if it doesn't change, your polarity switch is probably bad. If that is so, reverse the plug. If that doesn't change it bring it to get fixed, bring it to get it fixed anyway.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to ask someone to hold your bass, and then ask them to hand you the pick that you left on top of the amp?

 

[g-dude]

The mental state of such an individual is questionable.

I believe he may have had some issues with certain substances that one would associate with high levels of energy and tooth loss.

Perfectly friendly guy, with a wife and two kids...but thank goodness they all lived with the wife’s parents because I don’t think there was a level of stability from an economic standpoint to raise a family. This was quite some time ago, so hopefully the kids turned out ok.