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Old 02-02-2002, 02:20 PM
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Default Rid-Volt Grounding Pole

Hello,

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr> Nope. The squirrel will be fine. He hasn't grounded himself to allow current flow. Unless he touched multiple HOT lines at once. But that is my take on hydro stuff.

Now if that same squirrel was to touch a power line then touch say a trolley cable line(which have different voltages) at the same time you will see a puff of fur. Potential difference is created and Mr. Squirrel becomes charcoal.
<hr></blockquote>

I meant in "Imagine 2" that little squirrel is touching 2 sets of lines. Usually there are 3 lines running in between the hydro poles. The white one is neutral (usually middle) and the top and bottom one are the live ones. So if Mr. Squirrel was running on the middle (the neutral) and decides to place 2 out of 4 of his feets on either the top or bottom one. Then we see Mr. Zeus' lighting at work here.

Aside from that, Darren has a valid point in that GFCI trips so fast that nothing bad should be happening. But since this is the case, then why bother with a ground probe? Let's just use GFCI only and if some equipment failed and exposed its live components to the tank water, then let the tank floats. Afterall, we won't have to worry about getting electro-cuted since we have GFCI to trip if we are going to put our hands in there. This allows the tank to keep functioning in case we went away for a few days.
But bear in mind that I've heard cases when GFCI do not trip. So...... I guess we have to juggle between 1) allowing the tank to keep running by not using the ground probe to trip the GFCI when the owner is away, or 2) risk electro-killing yourself [img]images/smiles/icon_mad.gif[/img]
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