Hi Mike and Realtarded,sunnydaze wrote:The nearest water pipes are a few rooms away, might be tough to measure, unless I tried drilling through the walls.... Wife would love that....Zippy wrote:[quote=
A test of that would be to measure resistance between your window frame and your water pipes. In a good many buildings, window frames are floating in the wall with no electrical connection to earth.
I'd run my local artificial ground to the water supply.:
The window frame I'm using is butted up against one of the apartment support columns. I can measure AC from the outlet by metering one leg of AC the outlet and the attaching the other meter lead to the metal window frame. If I try that on a different metal window frame in the apartment, am not able to get a reading. Makes me think the zero volts window is floating and the other may be attached to ground somehow. But I'm not fully convinced. Note, I reversed the test leads in both tests and only one resulted in an AC measurement.
Ha ha. Taipei is actually a large modern metropolis. Just has primitive wiring in most of the older building. Most of the newest buildings have three prong properly grounded systems. But....there are an awful lot of older buildings.Zippy wrote:[quote=
Do the bars you play in have bathrooms?I have to wonder about the look on some guy's face when he notices a thick copper wire terminating on the urinal...
I would recommend reading the following: http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/ele ... /index.php
Read the whole page, every word, and check out the outlet checker. (although it is only available in a three prong version in the US: and equivalent should be available in Taiwan).
They reference this page, too: http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php
Specifically:
"Why a 400V Capacitor?
I've had a few people ask why I specify a 400V capacitor when guitar circuits usually only have a few millivolts on them. The reason is simple, that capacitor is what stands between you (via the grounded strings) and your amplifier. Some vintage tube amps could fail such that they put a potentially lethal DC voltage on the "ground" side of the jack. This type of failure is extremely rare, but why take the chance? The 400V capacitor won't break down like a 35V capacitor would in the admittedly extremely unusual case where you might plug into a "killer" amp. A 250V capacitor is also acceptable as it will probably stand up to 300V or so for at least several seconds. Note that the OEMs don't seem all that worried, most guitars have the strings grounded directly without any isolation. On most guitars, the jack is a non-insulating type which means that the jack plate will be directly connected to the negative side of the jack even after this modification. Metal control knobs may also still be directly connected to the negative side of the jack even with the isolation capacitor in place. Finally, even with the capacitor, a high DC potential failure will give you a nasty "bite" while the capacitor charges – but the capacitor serves to limit the duration and severity of the shock.
You can omit the capacitor entirely (replacing it with a piece of wire) if you're confident you'll never plug into a malfunctioning vintage amp and if you check the house wiring religiously everywhere you play.
Note that the .33uf capacitor recommended here is really intended for protection from DC from a malfunctioning vintage amp. It will only provide minimal protection (though more than most stock guitars provide) from an AC shock caused by improper house wiring. See the very important article on electrical shock.
The .33uf designation is not critical. You could easily get away with a 0.47 or 0.22uf capacitor. The larger the value the better, up to a point (except that larger values will provide less protection from AC shock). If your control cavity is tighter than normal, you might want to go with a 0.1uf 400V because it will be physically smaller. I wouldn't go much lower than that though or you will start suffering noise. "
Both of you gentleman be aware of the above, but it doesn't hurt to review it.
Remember the Yardbird's lead singer Keith Relf? He was electrocuted when he touched his guitar after plugging into his amp.
Best Regards,
Steve