3 ms·

Take a bit of care with those... When I was a kid I was using my granddad's orbital sander - with a beautiful alloy body, when one of the brushes _finally_ wore

Take a bit of care with those... When I was a kid I was using my granddad's orbital sander - with a beautiful alloy body, when one of the brushes _finally_ wore right through, and the spring and pigtail popped out of the brush holder and put the live 240V AC conductor into the casing... (Not at all helped by the fact I was using the extension cord from the double insulated electric lawnmower, which had earth pins on the plug/sockets, but no earth conductor in the cable...) My arm waved around uncontrollably as I couldn't release the grip in my hand - until it _finally_ bashed itself into the boat I was sanding down and hammered it out of my hand. I have no idea how I came out of that unscathed...

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
A valid warning, indeed! I will admit that my drill has had the grounding pin cut out of it's once-3-pronged plug. Apparently it was common for contractors to cut it out as many of the houses they were working in didn't have grounding sockets. I've only used it a couple of times, after checking it over mechanically inside, so I'm not too worried about it. The beautiful thing about old power tools however is that replacing the power cord is as easy removing 4 easily accessed screws in the outer cover, removing the cover, then removing 3 further easily accessed screws that connect the plug to the electrical system of the drill. Which as you remind us, I should probably do sooner than later. Thanks for the story, and thankfully you still have an arm to type with!
- analog31 7y ago
  With the grounding pin absent, even a small amount of leakage can result in the enclosure of the tool being anywhere between mains and ground potential. I'm neither an electrician nor an engineer, but I suspect that the newer "double insulated" standard is a worthwhile improvement.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    Either (or both of) roper grounding or a residual current detector would have made that day of mine a lot less exciting. I'm still happy using metal-cased mains powered devices, but I'm somewhat more careful about checking those two things before I hang on to them tightly these days...

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago

A valid warning, indeed! I will admit that my drill has had the grounding pin cut out of it's once-3-pronged plug. Apparently it was common for contractors to cut it out as many of the houses they were working in didn't have grounding sockets. I've only used it a couple of times, after checking it over mechanically inside, so I'm not too worried about it. The beautiful thing about old power tools however is that replacing the power cord is as easy removing 4 easily accessed screws in the outer cover, removing the cover, then removing 3 further easily accessed screws that connect the plug to the electrical system of the drill. Which as you remind us, I should probably do sooner than later. Thanks for the story, and thankfully you still have an arm to type with!

analog31 7y ago
With the grounding pin absent, even a small amount of leakage can result in the enclosure of the tool being anywhere between mains and ground potential. I'm neither an electrician nor an engineer, but I suspect that the newer "double insulated" standard is a worthwhile improvement.
- bigiain 7y ago
  Either (or both of) roper grounding or a residual current detector would have made that day of mine a lot less exciting. I'm still happy using metal-cased mains powered devices, but I'm somewhat more careful about checking those two things before I hang on to them tightly these days...