Dumb small electric appliance question

[lordkenmore]

Earlier, I was using a small hotplate (one of those 120 volt electric burners), and got a slight shock from the pan handle. I shut the burner the down. Later, I used my multimeter, and found there was about 40 volts between the metal surround on the burner, and both the neutral and the ground connectors on the outlet. I frankly know only enough about electricity to be dangerous LOL. But am I correct in guessing that there is some electricity leaking that shouldn't be? The thing that puzzles me is that it's only 40 volts or so, and if there were a short circuit, I'd assume it would be more likely to be 120.

Before anyone says this, yes, the burner IS now taken out of service until/unless the issue is fixed. (Most likely fix: bye-bye burner!)

 

[frigilux]

Lord love a duck! Glad you didn't get a full-on shock. Also: Nice blog entry today.

 

[mixguy]

40 Volt leakage

Yes the best thing can do is just throw it away. Unless you know what you are doing when taking the hotplate apart. I had a Sunbeam Model 9 have the same problem, discovered it when touching the mixer and the stainless steel sink at the same time. Don't know enough identify what was causing the leakage of current or how to correct.

 

[kb0nes]

A multimeter / dmm cant really give you a good read on leakage by simply measuring the chassis voltage to ground. Since the leakage is likely very slight, any resistance in the meter is shunting the current to ground and this makes the voltage the meter shows read low. If the meter had no internal resistance to ground the voltage should read the line voltage. My hunch is that you weren't using a digital multimeter which has about 10 Million ohm load on the circuit, a DMM would likely read close to line voltage. A standard multimeter will probably have a 100,000 ohm load across its leads.

So how much leakage is too much? Remember that a GFI will trip at ~5 milliamps (.005 amps). You would likely get a fairly good tingle even from a tenth or hundredth of this current. I might be tempted to try to use the meter to actually read current from the chassis to ground using its amperage mode, you could determine the leakage resistance inside the element this way. The meter should be protected with a fuse though!! Start with the highest range and work down.

Another easy test would be to plug the hotplate into a GFI. Now take a wire and short from the chassis to the center ground screw on the outlet. If the GFI holds, the leakage is under 5 milliamps.

I have a few old Salton warming plates that will give me a tingle if I touch the aluminum case, but it is slight. I just use them...

 

[lordkenmore]

Thanks everyone!

GFCI idea is worth considering. I'll have to try and get access to a GFCI outlet, though. (Old construction here with 1965 wiring.)

Eugene--thanks for your kind words about my blog. I'm also glad the shock wasn't worse. I've had those, and they are more than a little scary!

 

[alr2903]

You were lucky.  As Mixguy posted.  I once had an old "Fostoria" (McGraw Edison) corn popper. Some how I touched it and the sink. I received more than a "tingle".  Frightening enough that I tossed it out.