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Electric shocks at gigs


police squad

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I sorted out an original USA Sunn Model T for a mate once who said when he played it his fingers were tingling. It was running on a 120V stepdown transformer and had US 2 conductor mains wire. The chassis of the amp and the therefore the strings of anything plugged into the font end were sitting at 120V. 

 

That was a failure of a "death cap" which is usually between the incoming mains and the chassis of old amps. Occasionally they fail and in some cases fully short circuit (which would ideally blow a fuse) or in others fail enough to leak the mains on the chassis without blowing a fuse... or someone swapped the fuse for a nail or something. Some people don't believe this is possible, but it absolutely is! 

 

I also had a whack from a practice room amp once which knocked me clean across the room when I touched my strings. Got a free practice out of it. Good old Enterprise Studios. RIP. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Waddo Soqable said:

Returning to shocks on stage for a moment, wasn't Alex Harvey's brother fatally electrocuted by a shock between mic and guitar as I recall..? 

Les Harvey - guitarist for Vinegar Joe (Elkie Brooks and Robert Palmer in the band as well). Tragic stuff. 😢

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