Why I write about electrical safety (rerun Dec 2022)
The day I accidentally stopped and restarted my own heart!
Everyone,
I want to share everything I know about electricity, and would love to double the number of subscribers to this newsletter in the next year. And I’m not really worried if these are free or paid subscribers. I just want my RVelectricity safety and DIY articles, videos and podcasts to reach as many RV owners as possible.
Why do I do this?
A lot of my seminar attendees ask how and why I became interested in teaching electrical safety, so here’s my story…
Well, I started experimenting and teaching myself electricity when I was 4 years old (really, I did). And by the age of 14 I was designing and building my own vacuum tube amplifiers and big speaker cabinets for my band. By the time I made it to my early 20’s I was getting pretty brazen around electricity since I had been working around live high-voltage circuits for the last decade, and rarely been shocked.
Then something went very wrong…
I was building a big vacuum tube power amplifier which had a 600 volt DC power supply with lots of storage capacitors. But, being an indestructible 22 year-old I was doing everything wrong.
I was working on a live high-voltage circuit all alone
I was most of the way through a 6-pack of beer since I didn’t want to be too tense while working on live voltage
And finally, I was leaning my bare left arm on the metal chassis of the amplifier chassis, and reaching into the live circuit with a screwdriver using my other hand
How I nearly killed myself
My hand slipped onto the screwdriver shaft and I made contact with the big capacitor bank charged up to 600 volts DC. So I took a hand-to-hand shock through my heart that blasted me backwards out of my chair. The last thing I remembered was everything going black and I was knocked out!
Don’t let this happen to you!
Sometime later I woke up in the corner of the room, and felt like I’d been kicked down a flight of stairs. That 600-volt shock made most of the muscles in my body contract at the same time and stopped my heart for a second, which caused me to black out. But lucky for me this was 600-volts DC, not AC. And DC voltage is what’s used by a defibrillator to restart a heart.
Yup, I had stopped and restarted my heart at the same time. Had this been 600-volts AC I would have died on the floor. But instead I learned a very important lesson about electric shocks.
A shock can kill you!
Oh yes, it most certainly can. And it doesn’t take 600 or 240 or even 120 volts AC. The lower threshold of death by electrocution is around 40 to 50 volts AC if your hands are wet and you get a good grip in an energized object. And AC voltage is much more dangerous than DC voltage since 60 Hz is just the right frequency to interrupt your heart rhythm.
Never work on live voltage alone!
If possible, you should never work on live voltage at all. Unfortunately, for troubleshooting circuits you often need the power to be on. But be super careful when doing so and don’t let anyone distract you.
Don’t use both hands, ever!
One of my master electrician instructors taught me to keep my unused hand in my back pocket so I don’t touch anything with it. And don’t be standing in water while plugging into shore power. You really don’t want to ground yourself.
Know your meter, and use it!
We have a saying in the live sound business that every microphone is an open microphone. And I treat every circuit as a live circuit until I can triple check it myself. In fact, there’s a procedure called a Live-Dead-Live test that I was trained on nearly 50 years ago. Basically, you need to confirm that your meter and test method is actually working. I think that topic needs its own video, so watch for it!
I’ve been writing for the RV industry since 2010
But I started this daily newsletter in November 2022, and I’ve already published 700+ RVelectricity and NoShockZone articles. And I’m now on track to post an additional 300+ articles in 2025. I write a lot, and there’s lots to write about.
This electrical knowledge can help you repair your own RV, troubleshoot pesky problems that the dealer can’t solve, and keep you alive. That’s right, always remember that electricity can kill you. I came really close 48 years ago, so learn from my mistakes.
Please Share This Newsletter
This newsletter is a labor of love and I really want to spread as much information as possible. Please invite me on your own video blog, or share one of my articles, or even contact me about teaching an online or onsite seminar for your RV group or rally.
And if you can help by joining as a paid subscriber that would be fantastic. But I really want to grow my entire subscriber base so I can save more lives. That’s my primary mission…
Let’s play safe out there - Mike Sokol
Thank you so much for writing these articles. They ARE life saving. I had similar experience of being shocked while in the Army at age 21. I was in the Signal Corps as a 31M (radio relay attendant). We were trained on radios that were all tubes, and the radios had several drawer like pull outs so that you could access the tubes inside. One day as I was troubleshooting the setup, my dog tags (around my neck) fell into the drawer. I must have been holding on to the metal case or had a screwdriver in there when this occurred. I have no idea of the DC voltage that these operated on but, I also woke up on the other side of the room. No damage done, except i was really sore all over for several days. I read almost all of your articles except the most technical as it’s over my head. In the last 5-10 years, I have encountered two occasions where we had a hot skin on the RV. One early on in my daughter’s RV which ended up being a problem with their pedestal. I had just begun to read your articles at that time and knew just enough to un plug it and call management. The second time was on my RV while checking tire pressures at home in a covered, dry shelter. I got a pretty good jolt. I got my NCVT and picked up voltage from about a foot away from the wheels. From the articles you had written, and your book which I read, knew instantly that I had a bad ground somewhere. Sure enough I had a loose ground that was connected by a screw in the inside back of my pedestal. After tightening this screw, Powered it up and checked again with NCVT and problem solved. Thank you! Thank you!! Your articles ARE life saving! I’m sharing your info as much as possible with other campers. Again, thanks!
Awesome mike