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Old, two wire corded variacs are (CAN) be killers.
Please correct me if I am wrong in identifying what can possibly
happen or not happen.
1) I suppose that the grounded input wire is connected to the
body of the variac only and that the remaining four wires (input
and output) are floating. In fact, one of the output wires is always
at the same low potential as one of the input wires. Another output
wire is at a higher potential, as chosen, for example, between 10
and 150 V.
2) Suppose the variac is used to control light from a metallic lamp.
I always want to do some fiddling with the output.
A Variac can be made safer to use by connecting it to an isolation
transformer (1:1) which, in turn, is connected to the mains.
I did arcweld a nice hole in the grounding
lug of a signal generator