Pain from the PA system...

red_ice

When ever we put our pa to near 11 to compete with the gutiars i get a shock off the mic.

I sing with my lips on the mic, and raise my mouth over the mic when ever i need to get away from it for higher notes, keeping my bottom lip on the mic.. (i look like terrance n phillip when i sing)

Never the less, i get a constant shock, like im licking a 9 volt battery. I dont get the shock when i put my hand on it, only when my lips are there..

We dont have phanton power turned on, then gain is up to about 3 oclock and theres usually a touch of mid in there..

Heres what we are using

http://www.thomann.de/ie/tmix_pm184x.htm

Its hooked up to two 'THE BOX PA502' passive speakers.

Is it a fault in the PA? Or are we just trying to get too much out of it? We know its not the best setup, but it shouldnt cause a shock..

Doctor J

Are your hands on a guitar at the same time?

http://www.questronix.com.au/info/info_tingles.htm

http://www.unitechelectronics.com/sparks.htm

crosstownk

As it's a Thomann PA, are you using a proper 3 pin wall plug? If you're using the European 2 pin that shipped with the PA then you don't have a proper earth.

red_ice

yea i am holding a guitar.. But im nearly positive that i've tried it without and gotten a shock.

Arent guitar amps earthed? Could it be a problem with the amp or plug socket?

I've never had that problem with any other PA systems that i've played on (around the 8 mark), it only happens on that one.

Savman

As mentioned, it's a power issue not PA. It could be your guitar amp, could be the desk. Too general a problem to simply blame the channel gain, you have to go thru the entire signal chain til you find the problem.
Be careful whatever you do, this is electricity and it's not very forgiving if you feck around with it.

Gaspode

I had something like that recently and traced it back to a loose wire in a bass amp plug. Once that was sorted the pain went away. (Methinks I had a lucky escape).
As said before go through absolutley everything and check all connections.

red_ice

thats a ripe kick in the balls. Im useless with that sort of thing. What if we got a sparks in? Rekon that would cost much?

son.of.jimi

Hey man I had this problem a lot a while ago.

Doesn't sound like it's your gear, could be to do with the power source.

I'll explain it this way

If your PA is plugged into socket (A) you have one line of power.

If your amp is plugged into socket (B) you have another line of power.

Now when you hold your guitar and touch your mouth off the mic, your joining two different lines of power which creates a shock. This CAN be fatal depending on the amount of power that is delivered to each socket.

Best way to avoid this is to use a multi-socket adapter and run your amp and the PA off the one socket. ie socket (A) has your PA, Amp, effects all running off the same power source.

Now if this doesn't sort you problem then i'd check all the gea your usin to make sure there's nothing loose.

Hope this was of some help.

Jeanious

crosstownk wrote:

As it's a Thomann PA, are you using a proper 3 pin wall plug? If you're using the European 2 pin that shipped with the PA then you don't have a proper earth.

thats the first thing id check mate, rather than takin everythin apart, start simple!