eggjelly

Here is my take, please point out any holes in my thought process: You put a trico to a fire hydrant, you believe you are "grounded". Granted, it's probably pretty safe you have a solid ground, but you are not sure. Now, there is a fault in a light somewhere down the line. The hot is leaking to the housing but that current is being dissipated into the ground you created. Because of the ground, the resistance between hot and neutral is not high enough to trip the genny's main breaker (the neutral and ground are bonded together). Now if someone touches the metal housing of the light with their left hand and they touch a grip stand with their right hand, the current could travel right through their torso. Hopefully the "ground" you made is solid enough that the path of least resistance is still through said ground...but the circuit breakers would not trip and there is still a possibility of a serious shock. Now let's say you don't ground the genny and the neutral and ground are bonded to the frame. There is a fault in a light. You have made a dead short between hot and neutral with enough resistance to trip the genny's main breaker...problem solved. Now since lights and electrical equipment usually have a ground (yeah, that third prong is there for a reason) this safetly device should make a dead short between hot/neutral and trip a breaker. Granted, if someone, somehow, sticks their finger in a hot cam-lok, and they touch a stand...they are toast. But cam-lok and bates and equipment and practices are designed so that it's highly unlikely that someone would get shocked. Cam-lok are sheilded, with bates the ground engages first and breaks last, we connect ground first, neutral second, hot's last etc. Anyone have input? Anyone have any hard proof (mathematical) about a breaker not tripping due to not enough resistance? What is the mathematical relationship between not tripping a breaker but having enough ground to still not shock someone? I assume it's not all or nothing, it must be a grey area where more variables would come into play. Very confusing. Steve NYC

I had my worst day when I was a PA. In the morning I was asked to park an actors car which I did. At lunchtime I went to make a run for somthing and drove past where I thought I had parked the car, yet the car wasn't there. It had been towed and two producers had to go down to the impound lot and get it out. Not too bad a day, until... I was asked to drive the Art Dept. cube truck at the end of the same day to the next days location. I hop in and drive away. We had been shooting in Bayonne, New Jersey, just over the river from Manhattan and the next days shoot was in Brooklyn. I'm driving along back to Manhattan and marveling at the traffic leaving the city and heading to NJ (it was about 5 or 6pm). Just as I get to the Manhattan side of the Holland Tunnel my phone rings..."do you have the keys to the camera truck on you". Two hours in traffic back through the tunnel to Bayonne where someone had to wait for me to get there so they could drive the camera truck to Brooklyn. And then I broke the mirror off the truck driving down one of those narrow brooklyn streets, I knocked it into a guys truck. Just gave the guy $10 for his mirror and drove off. Then when I parked in front of the location, I heard a wooshing sound and watched as the rear tire slowly flattened. A fitting end I thought. I think as a PA you honestly become stupider than you really you are.

does anyone know where to get color corrected U-shaped tubes? They look like 4' tubes bend in half and have standard med. bi-pole ends. Thanks