I know that this is a little off subject but i also know there are a lot of brilliant minds out there who might be able to answer my question but when i was a kid i used to collect night crawlers and sell them to the stores. I used a warm shocker which was just a metal rod with and electrical cord attached to it, and only one wire was hooked to the rod i cant seem to figure out how the thing works with only one wire working there doesn’t seem to be anywhere for the electricity to go any help would be appreciated.
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Worm, rather than “warm”, shockers work just as any electrical circuit does when completed. It uses the earth as it’s ground, just that simple, nothing more.
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Properly installed electric circuits have the neutral wire connected to earth ground at the panel. The shocker you describe uses the actual earth as a return line. At one time, one of my relatives lived in a mobile home that was along an ungrounded 220v line to the pump house. So, they had tapped off one side of the line for 110, and drove a copper rod into the ground for the return line. The principle is similar to a subway, except, the earth becomes the return. Not only is this unsafe, but it’s illegal
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A worm shocker is a metal rod attached to the hot pole of an outlet with the current delivered to the ground. They are quite dangerous and I wouldn’t mess with them if I were you. http://www.texastriallawyer.com/news/news_page.php?ArticleID=345 used to collect lots of worms by finding the worm hole by looking for the dirt plug that they push up. I would then pour hot mustard water down the hole and in a few minutes, the worms would exit their dwelling.