shop vac no ground in plug?

Advertise with us
SpartanEpoxies
Shop deals on ebay
House Repair Talk

Help Support House Repair Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
J

Jungle

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 9, 2013
Messages
339
Reaction score
29
I was wondering if the shop vacs as are meant for wet and dry why do they have only 2 prongs on the plug? I thought the things close to water are suppose to have ground?
 
Jungle said:
I was wondering if the shop vacs as are meant for wet and dry why do they have only 2 prongs on the plug? I thought the things close to water are suppose to have ground?
Click to expand...
Doubly insulated.
Apparently UL has signed off on this.
I think between this method, grounding pins, GFCIs (UL spec 943) and common sense, as long as less than 2000 people die each year in the US no more resources should be devoted to this but
http://www.nema.org/pages/default.aspx
may think otherwise.
IIRC, the US elec. code wants GFCIs in car washes even though there has never been an incident.

A lot more lives could be saved by not having cigarettes.
 
Last edited:
If it is plastic vacuum like many of them, what exactly do you expect the ground pin to ground. It is only for exposed metal parts.
 
With double insulated tools it is important that the plug has one knife blade bigger that the other. This to make sure the power is going in the right direction. Not rated for use in the rain so keep it dry.
Power leaking to ground will still kick a gfci. In wet conditions with a saw or drill running the power that goes thru your hand and back to nuetral will not kick a gfci.:p
 
nealtw said:
the power that goes thru your hand and back to nuetral will not kick a gfci.:p
Click to expand...
And current through your hand is much better than current through your chest unless you are getting defibrillated.
 
Wuzzat? said:
And current through your hand is much better than current through your chest unless you are getting defibrillated.
Click to expand...
In that case you are sharing the power with the motor so I don't know how much you get but it is exciting.:confused:
 
Well, that's one way to put it.
Between this and waterboarding I think I'd choose the shock.

If you can feel it it's >1 mA. I think the GFCI people have declared that 1/4 A is the most you can get with 120v but I lost that graph and hardly anyone gets this much.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top