cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/48079645 because it was headshotted within five minutes without any explanation. :/
In the laundry room where I live, there is this machine.
The fan in the back blows air onto the heating elements that heat up the air, which in turn hits the laundry, speeding up the evaporation of the water.
I have no formal education on electricity, I’m just extremely interested and eager to learn. I think I understand that the rods heat up because enough current is “pushed” with enough voltage through this material that has enough resistance for it to heat up.
If these are the hot and neutral rods next to each other (which I visually believe I confirmed) with no insulator in between, why is there no arcing?
What are prerequisites for arcing? I guess, if arcing occurred so easily, then we would have a lot more ground faults and short circuits all over electrical installations?
Like JayleneSlide mentioned, those elements aren’t actually live as pictured, that’s the outer casing. But even if they were live, they wouldn’t arc at that distance.
A general rule of thumb for arc distance in air on earth is 1000V per 1mm. That means that each nut would have to be 0.24mm apart from each other (assuming 240v, it’d be 0.12mm or about 0.004 inches in a 120v country) to start arcing.
Once the arc starts, that distance can increase. This is because arcs will ionise the air, creating a lower conduction path for further arcing. This will continue until the hot ionised air rises away from the conduction path and gets too long to sustain the arcs.
But in any case, those nuts will never arc for a second reason; if they were live they would be dead shorted to each other anyway through the metal case that they’re bolted to.
Right! I was actually wondering why I wasn’t zapped by the outer casing or why there’s no warning sign about electrical current. Now it makes sense! :)