Aluminum Foil Tape Conducting Electricity
Hi All,
Just wanted to share a video I made that shows why aluminum foil tape is unsafe to use because it does conduct electricity - if you use aluminum frame as your rack it will become completely live if it comes in contact with a live circuit.
I have my plug wires stripped and connected to thermal rings. The lamp that I used is also applied the same way. The wires and rings are not touching. electricity is passing through the aluminum foil tape.
I know a lot of you use it on your racks and may want to think twice about using it. I am guilty of doing this with my earlier racks, but have removed it all since finding this out.
http://youtu.be/pjjIffmbxu4
Re: Aluminum Foil Tape Conducting Electricity
The aluminum tape acts like a wire. I don't think having it on pvc will change the conductive properties of the aluminum tape. Melamine is a non conductive material as well so I don't see how this will change for PVC
Re: Aluminum Foil Tape Conducting Electricity
Quote:
Originally Posted by
The Serpent Merchant
Here is a new test that will prove my point. Using the same 4 wires in your video tape them all on their own seperate piece of tape. The only way for the light to go on is if power is sent through the melamine to the other wire. (keep the positive connected to each other and seperate the negative).
if the insulation on the tape and flex watt breaks that's where the problem is. Why risk it?
if the wire is on all separate pieces of tape it will not conduct electricity to the light (obviously) and the electricity will not pass through the wood.
Re: Aluminum Foil Tape Conducting Electricity
Mikelopez you are exactly right. It's NOT about whether you can get shocked, and everyone probably already knows that PVC, wood, melamine, etc won't conduct electricity. That is obvious. The real point of the matter is a fire hazard.
Serpentmerchant, you are right, there is less of a fire hazard with PVC, but the fire risk of hooking up a conducting material (the aluminum tape) to a live circuit (the flexwatt) is still an issue. And you definitely CAN short out flexwatt!!! You can short out ANY circuit by bypassing the load. The load in this case is the heating element, which heats up as current passes through it. All you would need to have happen to create a fire is for aluminum tape to bypass the load and create a live circuit.
For example, if you are using 4 inch flexwatt, and a 4 inch piece of aluminum tape to secure a probe, there's a chance (over time) of the aluminum piercing through the plastic insulation on both edges of the flexwatt (maybe after bumping it with the edge of the tub hundreds of times. And then you have a live circuit and a SERIOUS fire risk.
The chances of this happening are pretty low, but as mikelopez said, why risk it??? Just look at the horror and destruction of the Pro Exotics fire that was caused by an electrical short.
Conclusion: use duct tape, or some other method of securing the probe to the heating element.
And if anybody doubts that flexwatt can short out, see link below about urine burning through flexwatt and creating a short:
http://burmjunkies.com/showthread.php?7107-Be-careful