# Super random



## Texan69 (Oct 7, 2019)

I know this is super random but it blew my mind. 
My idiot friend got a taser (the civilian type) and he told me he got curious and zapped his wall outlet for a few seconds. I thought that would surely have electrocuted him or killed him. I know plastic is an i insulator and I’m assuming the taser is plastic on the handle but still, I know a taser doesn’t have enough amps to kill you as it’s mainly volts but I’ve always heard a wall outlet has enough amps to at least shock you pretty bad or even possibly kill you. He did say he fried his light. I figured he would have destroyed his wiring or possibly caught a fire. 
Curious if any electrical professional on here could explain in layman’s terms lol. 
Again I know super random. And no my idiot friend is not me, I am not that dumb. I like my wiring and my heart still pumping. I am too scared to experiment with electricity. Also trying to convince my buddy he is not mature enough for a taser haha


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## Trump (Oct 7, 2019)

Tripped breaker worst that could happen


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## Texan69 (Oct 7, 2019)

I would have he surely would have gotten shocked 
but I guess the plastic on the taser would stop it from getting him?


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## Trump (Oct 7, 2019)

Taser has to be insulated otherwise everyone you pressed it you would get zapped. Still not the brightest thing to do though your friends an idiot. Think he full of shit too to be honest, an outlet wouldn’t be on the same circuit as a light fitting 



Texan69 said:


> I would have he surely would have gotten shocked
> but I guess the plastic on the taser would stop it from getting him?


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## Bro Bundy (Oct 7, 2019)

tell him to put a fork in the socket


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## Tren4Life (Oct 7, 2019)

Trump said:


> , an outlet wouldn’t be on the same circuit as a light fitting




sure it can. 


Texan, is your buddy on meth?  Hahaha


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## Raider (Oct 7, 2019)

I agree with Trump. I don’t think it would have made it to the fixture. Typically it’ll trip the breaker or if it’s a gfi outlet it would trip right at the outlet. Both of those are basically safeties so you don’t damage anything else. But as everyone has said, not smart. Is it me or do we all have a friend or two just like this, lol you know the kind that get drunk and think it might be a good idea to use gas and light things up, lol


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## Uncle manny (Oct 7, 2019)

Reminds me of middle school when the kids used to put gum wrapper foil in the outlets and then kick them together.


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## Raider (Oct 7, 2019)

Come to think of though, if you surge enough power it can blow a fixture before that breaker trips. Thus the reason they make surge protectors I would assume, but I’m not an electrician, lol


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## Bro Bundy (Oct 7, 2019)

Uncle manny said:


> Reminds me of middle school when the kids used to put gum wrapper foil in the outlets and then kick them together.


thats some new jersey shit ..Little kids practicing to hot wire cars


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## Trump (Oct 7, 2019)

Sockets and lights are on a different circuit unless you Americans do shit wrong which wouldn’t be out the ordinary 



Raider said:


> Come to think of though, if you surge enough power it can blow a fixture before that breaker trips. Thus the reason they make surge protectors I would assume, but I’m not an electrician, lol


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## Tren4Life (Oct 7, 2019)

Trump said:


> Sockets and lights are on a different circuit unless you Americans do shit wrong which wouldn’t be out the ordinary




It sounds like we do then cuz you’re wrong.


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## Trump (Oct 7, 2019)

Im not but have it your way 




Tren4Life said:


> It sounds like we do then cuz you’re wrong.


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## Straight30weight (Oct 7, 2019)

Trump said:


> Sockets and lights are on a different circuit unless you Americans do shit wrong which wouldn’t be out the ordinary


No reason why they can’t be. It’s not against code, and what’s the difference? As long as you aren’t overloading the circuit, electricity doesn’t care what you’re powering.


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## Straight30weight (Oct 7, 2019)

Also, any power surge can hurt something on the circuit. So it’s very possible to burn up a light fixture. Breakers go by amps, it needs an amp draw larger than it’s rated for to trip. Voltage is whole other thing. Supply too many volts to a fixture that only wants 120v, then yeah you’ll fry it.


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## Tren4Life (Oct 7, 2019)

Trump said:


> Im not but have it your way


 

sure you are. Sounds like your feelings got hurt too.


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## Trump (Oct 7, 2019)

Not at all I can show you the wiring diagrams of this rig that I built to US regs and all lighting is on a separate circuit as are the sockets. You need a neutral for sockets you don’t for lighting, in theory you could add a light onto your socket circuit but it wouldn’t be the correct practice. 



Tren4Life said:


> sure you are. Sounds like your feelings got hurt too.


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## Trump (Oct 7, 2019)

V=IxR you increase V with R staying the same I increases does it not? 



Straight30weight said:


> Also, any power surge can hurt something on the circuit. So it’s very possible to burn up a light fixture. Breakers go by amps, it needs an amp draw larger than it’s rated for to trip. Voltage is whole other thing. Supply too many volts to a fixture that only wants 120v, then yeah you’ll fry it.


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## Straight30weight (Oct 7, 2019)

Trump said:


> V=IxR you increase V with R staying the same I increases does it not?


Look at you with your formulas lol

Not just a pretty face I see


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## HollyWoodCole (Oct 7, 2019)

Who in the blue fck decides to zap an electrical outlet with a taser???  Wow.


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## Trump (Oct 7, 2019)

Its my job ha ha 



Straight30weight said:


> Look at you with your formulas lol
> 
> Not just a pretty face I see


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## snake (Oct 7, 2019)

You need to pick smarter friends.


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## Iron1 (Oct 7, 2019)

GFCI outlets/breakers protect people from shocks, they are not designed to prevent fires.

AFCI outlets/breakers are designed to prevent fires caused by arc faults.

A GFCI shouldn't blow in this scenario because the ground was still maintained. They only blow when the difference between load and neutral grows indicating current leaving the circuit via ground. 

If he had an AFCI installed properly on that circuit, it would have tripped and prevented the fixture from popping. Assuming it was installed correctly. They work by detecting the sine wave frequency that errant electricity makes when it's arcing and trips the breaker.

ACFI's are not GFCI's and GFCI's are not AFCI's. They protect for different things using different methods. 

NEC code (as of 2014) is starting to mandate AFCI's go in new construction breaker boxes to prevent fires instead of just preventing ground faults.

If you want, you can buy/install GFCI/AFCI breakers for your box but make sure you know how to do the work properly and safely else hire out the work.

On that topic; I want to add this. You can install AFCI outlets on any circuit that *may* get overloaded from time to time. Any outlet down stream from the AFCI outlet will become protected. Things like power strips and electric space heaters can draw a ton of current that can overload the circuit. Most of us are probably living in older homes with patch work DIY wiring of questionable quality. Circuit breaker in the basement may say 20A but the wiring may be sized for 15a. As the current draw increases, so does heat. The wire expands and now suddenly the wire nutted junction isn't making good contact and has started arcing.  

What I'm getting at is you can install an AFCI OUTLET if you think that circuit at some point may become even slightly overloaded. An AFCI outlet is like $25 from Home Depot. It's a helluva lot cheaper than a house fire. I dunno about you guys but when it comes to the safety of me and my family, redundancy in safety is a good thing.

I'll usemy example; I have an electric fireplace insert for my TV stand that we use occasionally to break the chill. While the circuit itself is perfectly within it's load range when the fireplace is off, it exceeds the 80% margin of safety when it's on. I installed an ACFI outlet that handles the circuit in that room so that in the event that unforeseen high-draw things are plugged into the wall when that fireplace is running, the room is still protected. Would the breaker in the basement trip if there was a problem? Maybe, but that's making the assumption that the breaker in the basement matches the wire gauge in the wall. $25 helps me sleep easier.


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## Texan69 (Oct 8, 2019)

Bro Bundy said:


> tell him to put a fork in the socket


Lol probably make the world a better place


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## Texan69 (Oct 8, 2019)

Tren4Life said:


> sure it can.
> 
> 
> Texan, is your buddy on meth?  Hahaha



No just edibles haha


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## Texan69 (Oct 8, 2019)

Trump said:


> Taser has to be insulated otherwise everyone you pressed it you would get zapped. Still not the brightest thing to do though your friends an idiot. Think he full of shit too to be honest, an outlet wouldn’t be on the same circuit as a light fitting




thats  a good point I didn’t think about


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## Texan69 (Oct 8, 2019)

Damn not only knowledge about fitness here, seems like we got a some smart ass electricians here also...good to know


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## Texan69 (Oct 8, 2019)

snake said:


> You need to pick smarter friends.



He’s one of those guys I’ve known forever and I feel obligated to be his friend 
kind of like a **** up kid, it hurts to see the dumb shit they do but you still love em


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## HH (Oct 8, 2019)

Ah, Darwinism at play.


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## Raider (Oct 8, 2019)

First of all , as stated before we all sure have some dumb friends and second, what iron said, cuz I manage a construction company, but my man obviously completely is in the know in his trade, lol. Nice work to a number of smart cats!!


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## Boogieman (Oct 8, 2019)

Who in their right mind tazes an outlet? Thats some stupid shit right there...


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## Flyingdragon (Oct 8, 2019)

For extra fun on a slow Friday nite, I put my pink taser in the microwave for 2 minutes....


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## ToolSteel (Oct 8, 2019)

Clipped a live extension cord with snips once. That was fun.


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## BRICKS (Oct 8, 2019)

ToolSteel said:


> Clipped a live extension cord with snips once. That was fun.



My favorite is nailing your extension cord with the circular saw....pretty colors (and a load of shit in your pants).


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## stonetag (Oct 8, 2019)

BRICKS said:


> My favorite is nailing your extension cord with the circular saw....pretty colors (and a load of shit in your pants).


Yeah, I've heard of that happening to people...….cough, cough.


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## Texan69 (Oct 8, 2019)

Dumbest thing I’ve ever done was stick a paper clip in the outlet (7 years old) and I got shocked a bit. 
Feel like I get a little bit of an excuse for being a young boy when I did it but still ****ing stupid cause I’m pretty sure that can kill you.


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## CJ (Oct 8, 2019)

Raider said:


> Is it me or do we all have a friend or two just like this, lol you know the kind that get drunk and think it might be a good idea to use gas and light things up, lol




SON OF A BITCH! 

It's ME!! :32 (9):


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## Texan69 (Oct 8, 2019)

Someone go taser some gasoline and tell me how it goes lmfao...


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## Jeef (Oct 26, 2019)

Your friend sounds hilarious


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## notsoswoleCPA (Oct 26, 2019)

This reminds me of the 90s when my uncle had a stun gun and tested it out on a cow.  The cow falling over nearly crushed him.  He also tried it on a cat, that didn't end so well for him.

As for my house, I have those stupid arc-fault circuit interrupters where even using something with an electric motor will trip the breaker.  Turn on the vacuum, bam, no more juice.  Using any power tool is akin to playing Russian Roulette with the breaker and whether it will trip or not.  I'm sure my outlets would see the taser as an arc and trip those stupid circuit breakers.


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