AnotherWorld

I have received tingly feelings in my fingers from microwaves and washing machines before. I get it now with my microwave when Im not wearing thongs or shoes and brush against any metallic external or internal parts. Whats up with that?

MacScot

Could be static electricity (from Wiki):

"Static electricity refers to the buildup of electric charge on the surface of objects. The static charges remains on an object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_electricity

Roadking

Could be the thongs. Try proper y-fronts or boxers, less creep and much more comfort.

AnotherWorld

Sorry, forgot this was BRITISHexpats again :P

Kim67

Don't worry, some of us know that real thongs go on your feet not your backside!

pj44

Apparently many women have experienced a tingling sensation while sitting on a washing machine - but a microwave is a different kind of nukee altogether

StublueKPL

An appliance should be earthed unless it is double insulated (in the UK you will see a square within a square design on the equipment and im pretty sure much of the equipment out in DXB is the same) Or if its low voltage (which in your case is irrelevant).

The micro should be earthed as it is steel (so from the plug, there should be a green/yellow cable to ground it)

Check all connections, cable etc to look for obvious flaws. If in doubt, unplug it and get it checked out. Could just be a loose wire inside but better safe than sorry

If you are getting a 220v shock you will know about it, its not like a static discharge you can get.

Dry as Dust

I have had this problem. All appliances in our kitchen went live - so any metallic surfaces gave a low voltage shock - tingly sensation as you describe. Eventually one of the sockets blew - and after it was repaired the problem went away. No earth leakage trips here - so I think what had happened was a faulty connection in the bad socket was making all earths on that circuit live. The voltage was definitely not 220v but was enough to light the neon in a mains testing screwdriver. Suggest for safety's sake you get an electrician to look at it.

Millsyisland

Does anyone know of any reason why the stupid two-pin plugs that come on most appliances bought here can't be swapped for a standard three-pin plug, to avoid having to use one of the adaptors to fit it in the socket?

Of course there would be no earth to wire in, but not being an electrician I don't want to start fiddling with it in case there's some fundamental reason why I shouldn't?

StublueKPL

You can go ahead and change them onto the 3-pin.

The equipment without and earth wire is double insulated so requires no earth.

it wont do any harm using a 3 pin and not connecting the earth pin if there are only 2 cores.

PS- im a sparkie

Millsyisland

Great - thanks.

Would I just put a standard 13amp fuse in the plug?

StublueKPL

Well a normal person would just say yes, go ahead

but becuase im a sparkie, you should put the fuse closest to the rating of the equipment.

for example - an appliance may be rated at 4.5 amps - you should put in a 5 amp fuse.

DVD's/T.V/Hi fi/etc etc etc all take low current so normally a 3 - 5 amp fuse is more than enough

Not many people actually do it though so you can just put in a 13 amp but an electrician didnt tell u! Remember, the european and american types dont have any internal fuse in the plug so the UK fuse in the plug is just added protection.

Millsyisland

Thanks again and please excuse my ignorance, amps and volts etc are far from my strong point!

As an aside, do you know why most electrical equipment here comes with the 2-pin plugs when the sockets are 3-pin?

Is it just where they import the stuff from, i.e. Carrefour I guess gets its stuff from France etc? Maybe the 2-pin stuff is cheaper.

Millsyisland

Sorry - another question, how do I know what ampage the appliance is? Would it be in the manual or is it standard ampage for particular appliances??

commander

Listen, the majority of houses here are not earthed correctly. That's the problem.

You can add an earth connection to your plugs until your blue in the face, however half the sockets that you are plugging into are not bonded like in UK. You must have a full earth circuit that is bonded to earth for it to be any good.

I used to get a belt off my dishwasher in the meadows and trust me it wasn't a static discharge. I ran an external cable direct to earth.

Ps I'm a spark also...lol