Al Carrell: I really don't recommend that everybody get involved in electrical repairs, because electricity can be dangerous. However, there are a couple of little test pieces that you can get that I think are really good. One is called a circuit tester or voltage tester. And it tells you whether or not there is current. As you can see, if you wanted to test this wall outlet, you just put the probes in there. When the light comes on that means there's current going through there. And if you wanted to test to see if the outlet is grounded, you do the same thing, only you move it to the grounding hole there. And that tells you that it's grounded. The continuity tester, on the other hand, you use without any electricity to the unit at all. This tells you whether or not it's capable of carrying current. And it has it's own tester, it has a little battery in here. Now, here's an example of testing, you can test this switch. You just take the little alligator clip and clip on to that, and you put this down here, and you can see there's no current going through there. But when we flip the switch on, that indicates that current could go through there, so the switch is okay. You can also test a cord. You just put the alligator clip on there, go up to the other end, and you touch the cord, and there you can see that it does have the capability. You can test the other side and find out if the break is on that side. Now both of these pieces of equipment are very inexpensive, and if you'll follow the directions when you buy it, you're going to be able to use it safely. Probably the most important thing about electricity is, if you're going to make repairs, be sure that you go out and trip the circuit breaker switch, so there's no current that's going to zap you.
Episode 022 1995 - 96 Season
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