2.2 Understand and identify the hazards of electricity including frayed cables, long cables, damaged plugs, water around sockets, and pushing metal objects into sockets

Frayed cables - this leaves live wires exposed as the insulation has been ripped open. This can lead to electrocution when a human hand comes in contact with this. It can also start electrical fires.

Long cables - cables that are too long are easy to trip over and damage. This can lead to them becoming frayed and dysfunctional. If broken, the circuit would be incomplete and the component(s) would not be able to function. They would take a lot of work to fix and it's troublesome as they are important parts of circuits.

Water around sockets - water is a conductor and lowers the resistance of objects, so it can cause the current from a socket to flow through the water so there is a risk of electrocution and it can cause a fire.

Metal objects in sockets - like water, metals are conductors and will conduct the electricity from the socket to whatever is holding the metal object, including a human hand. This can cause electrocution.

Damaged plugs - if a plug is damaged, safety features may be broken (eg a fuse* may no longer be functional)  and can fry the component(s) it is/are connected to and/or cause electrocution.

If you don't know what a fuse is or how it works, see below.



*About fuses
Fuses are made to control the amount of current allowed through.This is to protect devices/components from electrical surges. For example, if a component needs 2 amps of current and there's a thunderstorm outside and 5 amps go through, the component will fry itself and no longer function (and, if it's something like a laptop, they will be incredibly expensive to fix or replace). To prevent this, a fuse is present in the plug. 

Fuses usually come as 3A, 5A and 13A (unless I'm mistaken!). It has a wire inside that will melt if the limit is reached (eg a 3A fuse will melt if 3A go through it). This leaves the circuit incomplete and so it cannot work. It's good because, although the component will not work, it won't be fried. If a component works with 3A, one should choose a 5A fuse, otherwise, as soon as it is turned on, the fuse will melt (what's the point of that?!)

If you want a Quizlet to review this information, see the 'other pages' and click the 'Quizlet 2.2 to 2.8' link