it goes from microamps where you cant even sense it, to a tingling sensation, to pain... up to a point where it can kill you
but interestingly above that point it is survivable again up to a factor of 20 or 40 times as much current, then it becomes lethal again.
must have something to do with whether it interrupts the nerves, or the muscles in the heart and lungs. I wish I still had a copy of the graph - it must be on the internet somewhere.
BTW AC from a wall plug is more surviable than DC is, cause DC will cause your heart and chest muscles to contract and stay contracted, while AC will cause your muscles to flutter (no not at 60 hz) - I dont really understand why but it takes more AC to kill you than DC.
BTW if you grab the 110 from an outlet with one lead in each hand, and your hands are sweaty or wet with salt water, it will kill you. If you have access to an ohm meter hold the probes with each hand and just barely touch them - you will register 100,000 ohms or more, depending on how calisted your hands are. at 120V thats only 1 milliamp of current.
squeeze the probes tightly and the contact resistance goes way down. lick your fingers and it goes down further. When you get your contact resistance down to about 1000 ohms, then 120 VAC will kill you.
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04:01 PM
Cliff Pennock Administrator
Posts: 11617 From: Zandvoort, The Netherlands Registered: Jan 99
Disclaimer: Do not try this stuff at home. Everything you say can and will be used against you. Experienced stunt driver on board. No pets allowed. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Enter at your own risk. No U-turn. All rights reserved. Not for resale. Do not put in microwave. Handwash only. This side up. No solliciting. Keep away from children. Do not expose to direct sunlight. All personell must wash hands.
In short, playing with electricity can be very bad for your health. What doesn't kill one person could easily kill another.
Cliff - thanks for the condensed version - that is the point I was trying to make - almost everyone has gotten a hold of a bare wire or grabbed a plug the wrong way and gotten zapped
but under the wrong conditions it takes very little to stop your heart - not something you want to mess around with.
I hope my post about the ohm meter is not misleading - an ohm meter is powered by a 9V or AA battery - touching the leads with your hands is not dangerous, but as that poor kid discovered, sticking them in your ears can kill you.
the power from a wall plug should always be considered dangerous - dont mess with it.
Originally posted by Ken Wittlief: I hope my post about the ohm meter is not misleading - an ohm meter is powered by a 9V or AA battery - touching the leads with your hands is not dangerous, but as that poor kid discovered, sticking them in your ears can kill you.
the power from a wall plug should always be considered dangerous - dont mess with it.
do you mean place them in your ears or shove them in(the probes, I mean)
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04:35 PM
JSocha Member
Posts: 3522 From: Felton, MN, USA Registered: Apr 2001
Yes, I can see DC current versus AC killing you, such as a 12 volt car batter with 500+ cold cranking AMPS. I've heard of people getting jolted and subsequently getting knocked out, only to wake up dazed if not confused by a car battery. Don't know about somebody dying, never heard if somebody did.
Gets me to thinking...I wonder if I still have my set of jumper cables in the back of my truck...hmmmmm?
Anyways, a 9 volt battery? I just think that was a coincedence with the kid.
And people, do not grab onto any household electrical wire let alone stick your finger in a light/electrical socket while at the same time yelling "Hey guys! Watch this!"
See previous post of mine for example of what could and/or can happen. Ahhh heck...here it is:
LOL.. yeah, I can attest to some of this stuff.. I've been zapped a few times by wall current.. and once even by a flyback transformer! (just on my hand, it went numb for a while but no permanent damage that I can detect.. and that happened the day I was trying to hook up my first Nintendo, which was waay back in the late 80s/early 90s.. )
as for the electric chair, I wasn't aware that Edison didn't invent it.. but he was responsible for their coming into widespread use.. he tested them by electrocuting "stray" dogs and cats.. though actually he just hired people to gather up animals from the streets, and didn't care if they had collars or not.. his purpose for doing this was to show that AC was more dangerous than DC... this was back when Tesla & Westinghouse were building AC power plants, and Edison was still promoting his DC plants.. Earlier this year there was some footage on a documentary on TV, and it showed Edison electrocuting an elephant with AC... I didn't see that show, but one of my professors did, and he said it was horrible.. takes a long time to electrocute something that big.. and it's excruciatingly painful the whole time. DC causes muscle contractions, but AC causes palpitations and burns...
Originally posted by Ken Wittlief: BTW AC from a wall plug is more surviable than DC is, cause DC will cause your heart and chest muscles to contract and stay contracted, while AC will cause your muscles to flutter (no not at 60 hz) - I dont really understand why but it takes more AC to kill you than DC.
I think that it is the other way around. DC will stop your heart. AC will cause your heart to fillibrate. If your heart is stopped, it can spontaneously restart and/or CPR is much more effective. If you heart is fillibrating, it ususally won't restart itself and has to be stopped before it can restart (that's what they are doing with the paddles on ER, stopping the fillibrations). The reason it takes more AC voltage to kill you is that AC voltage tends to travel on the outside of the conductor (you) where DC tends to travel on the inside. Therefore, the AC current will be on your skin, not through your heart. This is why Edison was involved with the electric chair, he wanted to show how dangerous AC current was.
The previous was the opinion of me and may not be the opinion of the editors or owners of this forum.
Actually, DC is more dangerous because your muscle will contract and you cannot let go. As the DC travels thru your body and "burns" it way thru it leaves a carbon trail which reduces you resistance and burns it way thru faster. AC will "zap" you but you can let go because the current passes 0 then repels you.
For those experimenting with electricity, If you have an erector set, You cannot plug the 12 volt DC motor into an AC socket to lift a heavier object. Neighbors kid tried it and blew up the motor then set the bed on fire!
Also a 1000 volts of DC has the ability to arc across 1" of air.
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11:10 AM
PFF
System Bot
JSocha Member
Posts: 3522 From: Felton, MN, USA Registered: Apr 2001
Well then Ken, you should also include having this as part of your stickers regarding swiming ools, because in my opinion, I don't want any "P" in my swiming ool either!
hey that would be a great way to stop kids from p'ing in the pool. Pure water is not conductive, but add a little salt and it is.
put pure water in your swimming pool, and the leads from an electic fence transformer. The kids wont get a shock, until someone P's.
[ut oh - here comes cliff with the disclaimer again - Im just kidding people - I hope babelfish.com can translate this stuff correctly - hate to be responsible for a bunch of kids floating face down in a swimming pool in france]
Originally posted by Oreif: Actually, DC is more dangerous because your muscle will contract and you cannot let go... AC will "zap" you but you can let go because the current passes 0 then repels you.
Back in high school, we were experimenting with electricity. The AC voltage would keep your muscles twitching so you had no control.
quote
As the DC travels thru your body and "burns" it way thru it leaves a carbon trail which reduces you resistance and burns it way thru faster.
Yet another reason why it takes less DC voltage to kill you.
quote
Also a 1000 volts of DC has the ability to arc across 1" of air.
Wow!
To settle this, lets grab two people and test them. I try to kill... er shock one with AC, and you'll use DC.
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01:28 PM
EdsB52 Member
Posts: 850 From: Tempe, Arizona, USA Registered: Jul 2000
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock: [b]Disclaimer: Do not try this stuff at home. Everything you say can and will be used against you. Experienced stunt driver on board. No pets allowed. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Enter at your own risk. No U-turn. All rights reserved. Not for resale. Do not put in microwave. Handwash only. This side up. No solliciting. Keep away from children. Do not expose to direct sunlight. All personell must wash hands.
In short, playing with electricity can be very bad for your health. What doesn't kill one person could easily kill another.[/B]
Contents packed by weight, not volume. Some settling may have occurred during shipping. Your mileage may vary.
Disclaimer: exposing yourself to large amounts of electrical current may cause dizzyness, bleeding from the ears and eyes, spontainious vomiting and diearehha, loss of heart and lung functionality, and temporary loss of consciencness...
just like a sugar pill!
[This message has been edited by Ken Wittlief (edited 08-29-2001).]
Originally posted by Haze_Performance: Don't forget that entire choclate bar thing.
[b]"The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it."
MY GOD!!! WHAT ABOUT THOSE BIG 1 lb. BARS? Your lookin at about 2 dozen in there. NOW THATS GOOOOOOOOD EATIN :yuck:
[/B]
The chocolate bar thing doesn't bother me since the legs are all covered in chemicals and chocolate but the spider thing is alive and crawling into your mouth while you're sleeping! Uuugh, I just grossed myslef out.
------------------ Dave Gunsul N.I.F.E. member 86 GT modified 85 SE daily driver
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01:10 PM
Cliff Pennock Administrator
Posts: 11617 From: Zandvoort, The Netherlands Registered: Jan 99
The animal/insect responsible for the most human deaths worldwide is the mosquito.
In London, England, it is illegal to drive a car without sitting in the front seat.
Napoleon Bonaparte was always depicted with his hand inside his jacket because he suffered from chronic nervous itching and often scratched his stomach.
"Mageiricophobia" is the intense fear of having to cook.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber.
The average person sheds about 1 and a half pounds of skin each year.
An airplane's black box is actually orange.
Tongue prints are as unique as fingerprints.
Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath once a year.
Early models of vacuum cleaners were powered by gasoline.
There are about 3,000 hot dog vendors in metropolitan New York.
The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight.
The average life expectancy of a toilet is 50 years.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its circumference. A dime has 118.
The average American sees and hears 560 advertisements a day.
Most lipsticks contain fish scales.
In Breton, Alabama, there is a law on the town's books against riding down the street in a motorboat.
On the Chinese written language, the ideograph that stands for "trouble" represents two women under one roof.
In 1980, the Yellow Pages accidentally listed a Texas funeral home under frozen foods.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
Ten books on a shelf can be arranged in 3,628,800 different ways.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
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03:05 PM
Jaygee79 Member
Posts: 4259 From: Dartmouth, MA Registered: Mar 2000
Originally posted by 1FST2M6: a Finnish scientist discovered in 1993.
You can breathe through a Pringle. (the yummie curved chips in a tube)
So, that means I can have "potato chip breath," without having to endure the task of eating them? Wow - how did we ever get by, before 1993?! Life must have been tough back then...
I'm sending off a list of "101 better things to work on" to Finland right away.
[This message has been edited by StuGood (edited 08-30-2001).]
"In Breton, Alabama, there is a law on the town's books against riding down the street in a motorboat."
I'm guessing that means that you can't be in the boat while it's being towed. Then again, there was a foot of water flowing through the main street of my town (NOT Breton, Alabama) during the last storm.
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11:05 PM
Sep 1st, 2001
artherd Member
Posts: 4159 From: Petaluma, CA. USA Registered: Apr 2001
Ok everyone, there are at least three seperate ways to "electrocute" yourself...
The first mechanism is the bundle of nerves that comprised your "autonomic" (think 'automatic, breathiakes very little current and voltave, but in the right place. ie, current has to *flow* through the right spot. (current will go through your body much like a lightning bolt, in a very fine line along the path of least resistance.
The second mechanism is tied in with the first, in damaging or severely inturupting the consious or near-consious parts of the brain, and secondarily the autonomic processes.
The third mechanism is much worse, actual electrical burning to the degree that death occurs from other causes (shock, heart *muscle* damage, etc.) this takes a huge ammount of power.
OK, so we're back to the electronics of the human body, which vary greatly. Disclaimer as usual, don't touch *anything* electronic because I said so!!!
Every human being's resistance will vary not just person-to-person, but by several orders of magnitude every day, and as quickly as a factor of ten in half a second... (and there is skin and internal resistance, but the internal resistance due mostly to NaCl content is for our purposes very low, almost zero.)
Think of electric power as a hose (full of cotton), high high voltage means lots of water pressure.
resistance is the size of the pipe.
amperage is how much water per second is flowing.
WATTS are how easy it is to knock someone down by spraying them with this hose :)
in the end, it is watts that kills, but in a given location. you have to get the hose to the right place. It's like trying to sandblast an engine block after being *burried* in a sandstorm...
(this analogy works, but it's poor, the real physics of electricity don't even involve electron *flow* at all, despite what you've been told!! It's more of a potential passing amoungst stationary fields, but that's for later ;)
Car batteries themselves, at 12Volts, just don't have enough pressure to produce significant flow through the cotton filled human body. At least they shouldn't...
Household AC will kill you before you even feel it, if you form a complete circuit with your body as a component. If you just grab one wire, the whole circuit involves the AIR and any moisture in it...
and THAT's what tingles like an insane monkey with an ice-pick....
~48volts DC is what is generally considered to be the UPWARD limit for survivability by a typical 20-30 year old male *in the peak of health*.....
Best! Ben.
quote
Originally posted by JSocha: Yes, I can see DC current versus AC killing you, such as a 12 volt car batter with 500+ cold cranking AMPS. I've heard of people getting jolted and subsequently getting knocked out, only to wake up dazed if not confused by a car battery. Don't know about somebody dying, never heard if somebody did.
Gets me to thinking...I wonder if I still have my set of jumper cables in the back of my truck...hmmmmm?
Anyways, a 9 volt battery? I just think that was a coincedence with the kid.
And people, do not grab onto any household electrical wire let alone stick your finger in a light/electrical socket while at the same time yelling "Hey guys! Watch this!"
See previous post of mine for example of what could and/or can happen. Ahhh heck...here it is:
[b]Phhhyyyyyyzzzaaaaatttttt!
[/B]
------------------ Ben Cannon 88 Formula, T-top Metalic Red 88 Formula, Silver 87 Coupe, Metalic Red "Every Man Dies, not every man really Lives" -Mel Gibson, "Braveheart"
Gets me to thinking...I wonder if I still have my set of jumper cables in the back of my truck...hmmmmm? 
And people, do not grab onto any household electrical wire let alone stick your finger in a light/electrical socket while at the same time yelling "Hey guys! Watch this!"
Not that....I would know...from....personal.....experience....or anything...like that. 
Uuugh, I just grossed myslef out.
