Touching a "hot" connector

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Article #21694

#21694

From: Gregory Dudek
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 1989 20:04

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    I noticed long ago that if you (accidentally) touch a live
conductor, there is an odd sensation reminicent of a rough surface.
For example, I've noticed a short to a wall-switch faceplate recently
by observing that if you touched the faceplate it had that
"rough-ish" feel instead of feeling smooth (the feeling is kind
of line a high-freq. vibration -- 60Hz?).  You have to run your
finger along to conductor to notice the sensation.  This feeling goes away
when you cut the power, so it's not due to a real change in the
surface of the conductor.

  Does anybody have a good explanation for this phenomenon?

  Greg Dudek
-- 
Dept. of Computer Science (vision group)    University of Toronto
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu!dudek
From: dudek@ai.toronto.edu (Gregory Dudek)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Touching a "hot" connector
Summary: Funny feeling when you touch a hot conductor
Keywords: touch, sensation, live, shock
Message-ID: <89Jun8.160452edt.10877@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu>
Date: 8 Jun 89 20:04:50 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Lines: 20