Dylan. Yes I've done it on purpose when I was a little kid (literally..not like last week). Put a piece of wire across a battery to watch the sparks and burned f!ck out of my hand. Also put my finger in a light socket at 240v AC. Don't try that one , it's savage! If I'd been better earthed it would have killed me. Had a couple more 240v shocks when I used to install alarms too. We used to hook into the power with it still live. Health and safety not such a big deal back then.

Red eye. Was the beer still ok? . Hmmm beer, hmmm Friday .

 

It was . . . electrifying!

 

Hi Trout,

I'm going to invest in one of these when the bike goes back on the road this side of Crimbo.

http://www.exo2.co.uk/exo2.html#stormrider

The theory behind worming your torso instead of your extremities seems pretty sound. If your blood is heated before it goes off to the arms, legs, fingers and toes you shouldn't need to heat the far extremities of your circulation.
As for silk, oh yeah. I always wear a silk scarf when the temp drops. There's nothing else like it.
How cold does it get in your neck of the woods anyway?

 

Henry, that looks pretty cool. Rechargeable, eh? Interesting.
The tourmaster is actually machine washable... which I thought was pretty interesting. You're right, the theory seemed sound to me, too. It keeps your blood temp up in your torso... which should carry to your extremities. Makes sense, and people say it works well.

As far as temps here, it can get pretty dam cold. We'll see single digits in Dec/Jan/Feb at some point, possibly negative. (-10 to -20C a few days)
December's average temp here last year was 20F (-6.6C)

Dave/Steve, I've been shocked many times, too. We have a lot of 460V here at work and thank god I've never mad a mistake with it, but I've been bitten by 110/220 a few times. Not too fun.. lol..
One time I was laying drywall and didn't cut power. I was holding the sheet by the power cutout, and pushed my finger right into an electrical box. Woke me up!

 

I had to back pedal a bit there to find out what all this talk of electrocution was about but now I'm laughing.
When I was a kid I tried to fix my Mum's hair dryer. Would have been a good idea to unplug it first but no, I steamed on in there, grabbed hold of the heating element and booooooooof!!!!!! I was still wearing my PJs too. After I'd calmed down I couldn't help but notice my hair doing a good Beethoven impersonation. Decided not to do that again.
Took apart an old valve radio not long after..... remembered to unplug it, took the back off. put my hand on the circuit board and nealry blew myself through the wall. Bloody capacitors. Another lesson learned..... the hard way. That really did hurt too.

I've just been checking out a bit of info on Pennsylvania. Seems like you guys get a raw deal in the weather dept. Not exactly predictable there is it.
Hang on...... what am I saying. I live in frigging England where the weather is as predictable as Florida....... te he..... not!!!

We'll compare notes on heated jackets, washing powder and getting zapped in due course I'm sure. 77 degrees C? are you sure? That's hotter than a Turkish steam bath turned up to 11. Nice thought though.....
Red..... How the hell do you manage to put a beer keg on a battery? Already had a few eh?

 

Haha! Nice, Henry...
Capacitors will light you up for sure. I've done that a couple times, too. More often than not, though, my tools would take the most of it..
I was just talking to an ac/heat guy that blew up a thick screwdriver on 480V.
The dam shaft in the disconnect snapped and left one of the blades in place!!! I've never even heard of that happening before. It wasn't a cheapo disconnect, either. It was a square d. Pieces of burning screwdriver actually burned his neck and he was blinded (luckily only temporarily). Melted that screwdriver so fast it just popped. That will teach him not to check power on ALL legs of 3ph, no matter what you THINK you know.
I double check everything and test it. I had a good buddy who got a little pissy with me because I double checked his lock out one time..... and it turned out he had locked out the wrong disconnect. Boy, he felt like an *** after that.

As far as the tourmaster jacket, the manual says that low is 52C, medium is 66C, and high is 75C. For you US folks, that's 126F, 151F, 167F. Seems pretty dam warm to me...
I liked the fact that this one came with a heat controller. Most of the other ones (like the one you mentioned) have "optional" controllers.
The one you are looking at would break me, too. It's a lot more expensive once I convert over to $US. (the jacket and controller together are about $360US plush shipping vs. $160 shipped for the Tourmaster)
Huge difference.

Henry, you're right about the unpredictable weather here. That it definitely is. And it will change year to year, too. Some years we'll get pounded with snow, other years none. Some years it's relatively mild (30sF) and some years it's fricken' horrible (negs). Just never know.

 

Sorry to go off the subject of the thread again but I zapped myself a good one once. Putting an alarm system in a shop, the cash register stopped working with a shop full of people. The girl was hot so I thought I'd help . Dodgy connection in an extension lead was to blame so I fixed it for her..bloody near fixed myself too ! Couldn't be ar5ed to get my insulated screwdriver, my hand slipped down off the screw driver handle and I gripped the metal part full strength while tightening the live wire! Luckily the shock knocked me on my **** and threw my arm right back. I yelled F#CK at the top of my voice and the screwdriver got hurled across the shop abut a hundred miles an hour. I fixed the cash register though . I just didn't give a crap about safety back then, just though I was invincible..rode the same.

 

No worries about going off-topic. Getting shocked is funny....as long as nobody gets seriously hurt..
Did the cashier girl give you a little something for your trouble?
She should have...

I knew a guy who was working on top of a building on some huge AC units. He was in a small panel room putting a panel door back on a hot panel and hit a wire. A very big wire...

All my other buddy heard was a loud "boom!". The explosion blew the guy across the room and through the wall. He was ok. Pretty dam shaken up, though.

A couple months ago, I had a 460V 90Amp breaker explode in one of my panels. I'm still not sure what happened. I hit the dam floor and the windows were rattling.
I picked myself up and grabbed a fire extinguisher. It blew the corner of the panel out a good 2 inches and charred the hell out of all kinds of stuff. My ears were ringing for a while...

 

Up here in January it can get down to a balmy -18F sometimes = -27.7 C

don't think the Tourmaster will do chit for me when that happens Dylan
have to plug motors in overnight just to get them to start in the morning
(note to self anti freeze check)

Asa kid I got a jolt of 220dc from a wet 3 prong euro plug .........
never forget it my arm went numb for 1/2 hour ...bloody painful