3 ms·

Grab some Arduinos, LEDs and buttons/switches and you'll learn about electricity pretty quickly with no real risk. It'll get you to a point where you should be

Grab some Arduinos, LEDs and buttons/switches and you'll learn about electricity pretty quickly with no real risk. It'll get you to a point where you should be comfortable enough working on mains electricity because you'll understand what's dangerous and what isn't. And if you're in the US and a healthy adult, you're probably not going to kill yourself if you take a zap at 120V/15A.

mindslight 3y ago
Everything after "Grab some Arduinos, LEDs and buttons/switches and you'll learn" is terrible advice. Wiring mains circuits is about craftsmanship and the ability to repeatably follow technical rules for low probability events that were nevertheless "written in blood". Tinkering with electronic circuits is not going to get you the engineering rigor you need to come at mains circuits from first principles. You certainly can learn DIY house wiring safely as its own thing! The point is that they are just completely different skillsets, and you shouldn't be extrapolating confidence from low voltage circuits into mains wiring. Also no, while 170 volt mains voltage (US residential peak voltage) is not likely to "kill" you, the actual risks are things like house fires from short circuits and intermittent connections. If you're doing anything where you're worried about getting "zapped", you're doing things horribly wrong in the first place.
- mech987987 3y ago
  I disagree regarding how much overlap there is between low voltage skill sets and high voltage skill sets. Even though the consequences are different, understanding when the circuit is energized and not is important, understanding the path of current flow is important, and lots of other concepts intuitively overlap. For most household wiring tasks, turning off the circuit at the breaker box is the main safety provision. Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    There is overlap for design/analysis. The problem is that overlap is insufficient to do mains wiring safely. Engineers doing their own work is an inspector cliche for a reason. > Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself. This ties right into my point though. Low power circuits generally don't use wire nuts, and even when they might, they don't use thicker solid wires generally used for mains wiring. So you most likely learned wire nuts as their own separate skill, rather than from low voltage circuit work. My point is you've got to learn all those mains details in their own right, rather than thinking it's just like low voltage/power wiring. (I totally agree about trusting yourself versus a rushed contractor! Emphatically yes - please do learn to DIY! My point is about the learning path to get there)
BluePen7 3y ago
Oh I'm comfortable with DC, and am unafraid of low voltage tinkering. For mains it's not the 120V zap I'm particularly worried about, it's the possible fire that occurs months later while I'm asleep because of some rookie mistake I made (connection that gets loose and starts to spark or something), that endangers anyone in the structure. If I could have all the danger upfront and while I'm actively working on it (like woodworking), and limited to just myself, I'd be much more comfortable.

mindslight 3y ago

Everything after "Grab some Arduinos, LEDs and buttons/switches and you'll learn" is terrible advice. Wiring mains circuits is about craftsmanship and the ability to repeatably follow technical rules for low probability events that were nevertheless "written in blood". Tinkering with electronic circuits is not going to get you the engineering rigor you need to come at mains circuits from first principles. You certainly can learn DIY house wiring safely as its own thing! The point is that they are just completely different skillsets, and you shouldn't be extrapolating confidence from low voltage circuits into mains wiring. Also no, while 170 volt mains voltage (US residential peak voltage) is not likely to "kill" you, the actual risks are things like house fires from short circuits and intermittent connections. If you're doing anything where you're worried about getting "zapped", you're doing things horribly wrong in the first place.

mech987987 3y ago
I disagree regarding how much overlap there is between low voltage skill sets and high voltage skill sets. Even though the consequences are different, understanding when the circuit is energized and not is important, understanding the path of current flow is important, and lots of other concepts intuitively overlap. For most household wiring tasks, turning off the circuit at the breaker box is the main safety provision. Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself.
- mindslight 3y ago
  There is overlap for design/analysis. The problem is that overlap is insufficient to do mains wiring safely. Engineers doing their own work is an inspector cliche for a reason. > Using a wire nut properly is a bit tricky but not the worst thing in the world, and I don't trust a rushed contractor to tighten a wire nut any better than myself. This ties right into my point though. Low power circuits generally don't use wire nuts, and even when they might, they don't use thicker solid wires generally used for mains wiring. So you most likely learned wire nuts as their own separate skill, rather than from low voltage circuit work. My point is you've got to learn all those mains details in their own right, rather than thinking it's just like low voltage/power wiring. (I totally agree about trusting yourself versus a rushed contractor! Emphatically yes - please do learn to DIY! My point is about the learning path to get there)

BluePen7 3y ago

Oh I'm comfortable with DC, and am unafraid of low voltage tinkering. For mains it's not the 120V zap I'm particularly worried about, it's the possible fire that occurs months later while I'm asleep because of some rookie mistake I made (connection that gets loose and starts to spark or something), that endangers anyone in the structure. If I could have all the danger upfront and while I'm actively working on it (like woodworking), and limited to just myself, I'd be much more comfortable.