Hi all
I am a software engineer, new to electronics, trying to understand how things work and I am a bit confused.
I live in an apartment in europe.I have single phase AC in my home.
I am using a multimeter, set to voltage mode, to measure the wall outlets in my apartment.
I have done the following tests:
Plugging the red lead to the hot and the black to the neutral and multimeter reads around 230V.
Plugging the red lead to the hot and the black to the ground and multimeter reads around 230V.
Plugging the red lead to neutral and the black to the ground and multimeter reads around 0.5V.
Pressing the Hz button multimeter reads around 50 Hz.
Also tried with a tester screwdriver and when I plug it to the hot it lights up bright while in neutral and ground nothing happens.
So far so good that was what I expected to see.
I noticed that when I plug the red lead to the hot and the black lead is in the air far apart touching nowhere the multimeter reads a voltage value around 20-25 V.That confused me a lot in the start because I expected to see 0V in an open circuit.But from what I have read that is because the capacitance of my multimeter to Earth completes the circuit.
What I still cannot understand and cannot explain is:
When I plug the red lead to the hot and I touch the black lead to the floor or to a wall nothing changes ( still reading that 20-25V like when the black lead is in the air).
From my understanding the reason someone would get electrocuted if touches the hot wire of an AC wall outlet and their feet is in the floor (without rubber shoes or insulated floor) or touches a wall, is because the floor or the wall have a potential difference with the hot wire and not (not much at least) potential difference with the ground.So as a result electrical energy flows inside the body through the floor or the wall back to its source.So what I would expect to see is a reading around 230 V or at least over 50V.
Thanks
I am a software engineer, new to electronics, trying to understand how things work and I am a bit confused.
I live in an apartment in europe.I have single phase AC in my home.
I am using a multimeter, set to voltage mode, to measure the wall outlets in my apartment.
I have done the following tests:
Plugging the red lead to the hot and the black to the neutral and multimeter reads around 230V.
Plugging the red lead to the hot and the black to the ground and multimeter reads around 230V.
Plugging the red lead to neutral and the black to the ground and multimeter reads around 0.5V.
Pressing the Hz button multimeter reads around 50 Hz.
Also tried with a tester screwdriver and when I plug it to the hot it lights up bright while in neutral and ground nothing happens.
So far so good that was what I expected to see.
I noticed that when I plug the red lead to the hot and the black lead is in the air far apart touching nowhere the multimeter reads a voltage value around 20-25 V.That confused me a lot in the start because I expected to see 0V in an open circuit.But from what I have read that is because the capacitance of my multimeter to Earth completes the circuit.
What I still cannot understand and cannot explain is:
When I plug the red lead to the hot and I touch the black lead to the floor or to a wall nothing changes ( still reading that 20-25V like when the black lead is in the air).
From my understanding the reason someone would get electrocuted if touches the hot wire of an AC wall outlet and their feet is in the floor (without rubber shoes or insulated floor) or touches a wall, is because the floor or the wall have a potential difference with the hot wire and not (not much at least) potential difference with the ground.So as a result electrical energy flows inside the body through the floor or the wall back to its source.So what I would expect to see is a reading around 230 V or at least over 50V.
Thanks