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Walked into a shop in Portland and saw a guy using a multimeter on a fridge compressor while it was still plugged in
I get that some old school techs swear by live testing but that was just reckless. Dude had the probes right on the start relay with the door switch bypassed. If that capacitor let go he'd be eating 120 volts for lunch. Has anyone else seen this kind of dangerous shortcut on the job?
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blakem371mo ago
Close but not quite right on the capacitor scenario. A start cap on a fridge compressor runs at something like 200-300 volts DC after the rectifier, so yeah it can mess you up. But the REAL danger there is the run cap storing that charge even after unplugging. The 120 volts AC part is wrong though because the compressor itself runs on 120 but the probe points he was hitting would be on the control side which is low voltage. Still stupid to bypass the door switch and poke around live components. If that cap held a charge and he bridged it wrong the jolt could throw his hand back into something sharp.
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nathanj561mo ago
Storing that charge even after unplugging" is the part people don't get. That's the whole reason you always short a cap out before touching it. Darwin Award material for sure.
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