Odd problem - hiting strip registers touch (foil!)

[ejemyr]

This weekend, I encountered an odd thing.

My kid was fencing foil and was hooked up so that when he did hit his opponent's valid target the green light lit up.

Mid bout the ref noticed something strange with the conductive piste and we started testing. When my son depressed the tip on the strip, once in every 5 or 10 times, the apparatus went off with a green light!?!. White, I would have no problem understanding, but green??

What could have caused this? A-C or A-B short on his opponens side? Anything on my kids side?

Just curious..

[telkanuru]

Normally the wire that grounds the piste goes to the box separately from the body wire, so I would guess at an internal box problem, unless there was somehow a short between the lame and the floor. Was the orange grounding light on?

Also, encourage your kid to try foot touches

[ejemyr]

Normally the wire that grounds the piste goes to the box separately from the body wire, so I would guess at an internal box problem, unless there was somehow a short between the lame and the floor. Was the orange grounding light on?

Also, encourage your kid to try foot touches

As far as I recall, no orange grounding light. Piste connected to the box through one or both reels.

[Barry Paul]

You should with modern apparatuses earth the strip directly to the apparatus not through the reels.

[Rockstar44]

Also, encourage your kid to try foot touches

My kid was fencing foil.....

.....

[oiuyt]

.....

*WHOOOOOOOSH*

*Rockstar looks up wondering where the A380 came from*

[Mac A. Bee]

...conductive piste...depressed the tip on the strip...the apparatus went off with a green light...A-C or A-B short on his opponens side?

I defer to a qualified armorer to respond, but in the interim, conductive pistes grounded via both reels have exhibited phantom circuit behavior, e.g. as you described or fencers being electrically shocked.

[GypsyScot]

Depending on the box make and model it sounds like an internal short. Unless there's something I don't know about the independent scoring machine companies, a pist is grounded by a grounding wire running from a clip that plugs directly into the box (as is the way with both Favero or Saint George) or its just simply metallic and not grounded at the time.

[Mac A. Bee]

...a pist is grounded by a grounding wire running from a clip that plugs directly into the box...

See reels' fourth socket.

[brtech]

which is probably why it's having this behavior. It's probably a floor cord problem, but it could be the reel. You can verify that it is by temporarily disconnecting the ground and replace it with some simple wire from the piste to the grounding jack on the machine.

If you have a test box with red and green lights, try unplugging the fencer and the machine and plug the test box into the floor cord at the machine end. Wiggle wires on the floor cord and the reel and see if you see a light flash, indicating a short.