How many Volts is my microwave leaking?
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Plus
10
Ṁ2144
Jan 17
72%
220-240 volts
21%
100-219 volts
11%
20-99 volt
35%
>240 volts
9%
0-20 volts
9%
Nothing

My microwave is ungrounded because the EU is terrible at standardising plugs and sockets. The microwave would be grounded if it was plugged into a schuko socket (CEE 7/3), but instead it's plugged into a socket with no earthing clips. The microwave is leaking current though the shell, and gives you quite a shock when you touching a ground (I.e. the sink). It feels akin to a static shock, but continuous.

Tomorrow I'll buy a volt meter (and a new microwave) and test how much current is leaking.

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@ElliotDavies can you resolve this question?

It will read the same as the voltage in your house if the only thing grounding it is the multimeter because the multimeter hardly lets any current through. Measure the voltage while you ground the microwave with your body to see how many volts you were feeling. Buy a multimeter with current functionality to measure the amount of current leaking. Buy a new microwave to avoid dying if there's a more severe short inside

@IsaacLinn what is the definition of a severe short? My guess is its only small since it's not causing a trip

@ElliotDavies If you touch 240 V and ground at the same time with no resistance besides yourself, I'm pretty sure that'll mess you up, and I'd define that as a severe short. My experience with shorts has exclusively been where there was some water that connected power to a metal case, and I touched the metal case.. which is less of a problem because there's resistance in the part of the circuit made of water. I don't really know how emf works in transferring charge, I never took any EE classes, so I don't know if that could be causing your problem, but if it continuously shocks you, I don't think that would be it. Does it only shock you when it's running, or is it all the time?

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