5 ms·
Current flowing through your body is what kills you. But it doesn't flow through you just because it is a high-current supply (think car battery for example). I
by throwaway9870 4y ago
Current flowing through your body is what kills you. But it doesn't flow through you just because it is a high-current supply (think car battery for example). It flows through you because the source voltage divided by your impedance is what controls how much current flows through you. Impedance is the general concept for resistance and basically indicates how current and voltage are related. The higher the impedance, the less current flows. Wearing rubber gloves would increase your impedance from hand to hand significantly.
So while high current does kill you, what causes it is high voltage. What is considered high? Depends on your impedance (ex. are your hands sweaty or dry?).
When dealing with high-current systems, there are safety procedures and concerns, but they are generally different than high-voltage. The systems I have dealt with are more about burns than electrocution. For example accidentally shorting out a fork lift battery can be spectacular in a bad way.
- iso1631 4y agoThere's no particular safety concerned when you're playing with hundreds of kilovolts in a typical school. You need it when the thing you're messing with has the capability of delivering a lot of amps.
- timpattinson 4y ago415 volts on a 30A breaker, like you might find in an undergraduate electrical engineering lab, is very lethal. I'd hazard a guess that's what the OP is talking about.
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago415 volts on a 5A breaker is equally lethal, and not high-current. 1,000 Amps and 5 volts is dangerous (sort of), but not in an electrocution sense.
- throwaway9870 4y agoWhat you care about is how much charge is at that high voltage potential because current is charge/sec. Charge due to stray capacitance can be quite dangerous because if you don't know what you are doing, the amount of stray capacitance can be higher than you expect. I would be very careful doing anything with kilo-volts using a circuit, as opposed to a static charge device, such as Van de Graaff generator.
- planede 4y agoWhen you get shocked by a Van de Graaff generator, you do get high voltage, as well as high currents. The missing ingredient is time. The shock takes a very small time, so the energy delivered by the shock is very small. Skin-effect also helps.
- kragen 4y agoRelevantly in the case of microwave oven transformers, your impedance depends on the voltage because a high enough voltage can and will arc right through your skin into your soft, low-impedance innards. You can do this safely with a commonplace Tesla-coil-driven consumer plasma globe by putting just enough aluminum foil on top of it to arc through your skin, leaving cute little black charred spots, but in short enough bursts that it won't stop your heart.
- elif 4y agoYou haven't explained anything unsaid in this thread, including by me, but merely completely ignored my argument that there are far more hazards with electronics than merely fatal electrocution.