zzuupp
Lifer
- Jul 6, 2008
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Excellent reminder. It doesn't take much of a millizap to disrupt your heartbeat with potentially dire consequences.
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Excellent reminder. It doesn't take much of a millizap to disrupt your heartbeat with potentially dire consequences.
NL5
Diamond Member
- Apr 28, 2003
- 3,286
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Voltage is only relevant in that it will drive more current. For the actual lethality of electricity it is only amperage that matters. It's somewhere in the 60-100 mA range that will kill you. A circuit breaker will not stop it. Also, just because the circuit is a 15 or 20 amp circuit does not mean that's how much electricity is on the circuit, and certainly won't determine how much current will flow through you.
RedRooster
Diamond Member
- Sep 14, 2000
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That was awesome, was trying to find that video again. Man, electricity is something else!
- Nov 28, 2001
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Very carefully.
Actually you can use a commonly available digital multimeter. Set it for DC at a high range or auto. Caps with resistors will show a fairly fast drop in voltage once the source (charging) is removed. An unprotected cap can retain a charge for a while. Also using the crowbar method (screwdriver across terminals, etc.) to discharge a cap isn't a guarantee that it's done on the first try! You have to do it several times a minute apart. The bleeding resistor prevents this.
I believe I tried to short it out using a screw driver.
- Nov 28, 2001
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D: It's quite common to see cavalier attitudes to very dangerous situations in poor countries.
destrekor
Lifer
- Nov 18, 2005
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Thought so. And thus, why I said dependent upon voltage and other factors.
What part of your body, the best path the electricity will follow, gender... [and more] will all play into your personal resistance variable.
Once electricity is flowing in your body and across the chest, only amperage becomes relevant.
But 50A (true load) across a few volts... I don't think you'll even feel anything, well... it'll probably burn you pretty good, but can't imagine there's so much as a shock. If the driving force of the electricity cannot even penetrate the skin, the actual current obviously doesn't matter.
And of course, it could be one of the most minimal loads on a line (or any line with a true current of some small number, like 50mA) yet with a 1000V push... if the path of least resistance even nears the chest, it could be very painful if not fatal.
CrazyAznDriver
Golden Member
- Nov 28, 2010
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http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=739_1308870088&comments=1#comments found this one too not as graphic but the outcome is worse... electricity is something to be respected. I do a lot of home improvement stuff but electrical is not one of them.
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
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Transit systems usually are DC and hundreds of amps as well as hundreds of volts. It is enough that you can short a steel section of train track across the terminals and it will weld in place permanently.
Once I had my folks' pickup camper, had it plugged into uncle's house outlet. Must not have been grounded or something. I got out in the middle of the night to take a leak and as my bare feet hit the wet grass I got a jolt. I had my hand around the doorknob and could not let go with the electricity making my hand clench. Had to yell for my wife to go unplug the camper. Felt like 10 minutes but was probably 30 seconds. As soon as the electricity got unconnected I crumpled to the ground. Was ok after a couple of minutes. No worse for the wear... hey wait a minute. Maybe that is why my heart valve went bad. Naw...that happened ten years later.
SooperDave
Senior member
- Nov 18, 2009
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Yep. I knew a swimming pool contractor that got 220 across the chest (arm to arm). He thoought he was ok. Died almost three weeks later. It screwed up his heart rhythm and he didn't know. His family said he was tired all the time and that was the only symptom.
ThatsABigOne
Diamond Member
- Nov 8, 2010
- 4,422
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I got shocked multiple of times, and all of them are from different cases. 40k volts from ignition coil of my edger trimmer test engine. 250 volts with my tongue to see if the capacitor had charge or not lol. I got shocked with a 12 volt car battery. That hurt.
- Nov 28, 2001
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Not even install light fixtures, sockets and switches? Home electrical is actually pretty easy once you know how and what precautions to take.
- Nov 28, 2001
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That would be enough of a symptom for me to be VERY worried after an accident like that!
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CrazyAznDriver
Golden Member
- Nov 28, 2010
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Haven't had a need to do any of that yet. I don't mind having the electrician out for most things though, there is a large portion of knob and tube in our house and im not going near that shit.
- Nov 28, 2001
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Not familiar with K&T, just googled it. Umm ok yeah that's different. As far as things like installing light fixtures and the like though, no way I'd want to pay an electrician $50-100 just to do that! Not trying to insult you or anything but it really is extremely easy, and satisfying, to do! Installing new lines, new electrical boxes, and new breakers on the panel yeah that I can understand getting an electrician for.
Hell after reading this thread you guys got me scared to install another ceiling fan. 
Is it good enough to test the wires with a MM before you proceed?
Is it good enough to test the wires with a MM before you proceed?
HamburgerBoy
Lifer
- Apr 12, 2004
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Not sure. In a general physics II lab (basic optics, electric forces and potential, circuits, etc) I unplugged an oscilloscope (or something) from a heavy-duty-looking dangling power outlet, and in the process I felt a huge jolt that wasn't exactly painful but caused my arm to immediately spasm away and feel tingly for a few minutes.
- Nov 28, 2001
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Why would this happen?
Reminds me of something that happened to me in High School. I was taking a basic electronic house in HS and we were using soldering pens with coil stands. I put my soldering iron back into the stand and somehow didn't notice that the power cord had got caught in the stand as well. It melted the cord and fused the wires. I got a little fireworks show right in front of my eyes. Good thing I was wearing glasses at the time, I remember sparks flying towards me.
- Nov 28, 2001
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Hell after reading this thread you guys got me scared to install another ceiling fan.
You can get wire testers that beep when brought up to live wires, I know the pros usually use these. Are you installing a new electrical box for the fan or is going into an existing box? If it's going into an existing box what's wired up there right now?
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Ya, but how many amps?
"How many amps" implies a misconception. In a household circuit, just because the circuit breaker says "20 amps" doesn't mean that there are 20 amps of current in that circuit. It means that the circuit is *limited* to 20 amps. Lethal currents are FAR less than 20 amps. In fact, they're far less than 1 ampere. Circuit breakers aren't there to prevent electrocution - circuit breakers are there to prevent your house from burning down. GFIs are there to prevent electrocution.
See above. If you touch a bare electrical wire, it's quite unlikely that you'll experience anything remotely close to 15A. There are some differences between men and women, and some differences between AC and DC. But, to give a rough idea, you can sense a current with your fingers at about 1 milliamp. MILLIAMP. 1 thousandth of an amp. That's one twenty-thousandth of the current before your circuit breaker trips. But that's okay, because 1 milliamp won't likely kill you. 9 milliamps is painful, but you'll still maintain muscle control. At 16 milliamps (a poster in this thread pointed out a time he was unable to let go) you will be unable to let go. If a little more than 16 milliamps are affecting your diaphragm and no one is able to help you, then you get to ponder for a few moments before you suffocate how much it's going to suck being dead. 100 milliamps for a couple of seconds (2 or 3) is enough for heart fibrillation. Bye-bye. That's less than 1 percent of the current needed to trip your circuit breaker.
Can be deadly? 120 volts kills more people than any other voltage. It's true though that most unpleasant experiences aren't fatal. In fact, a lot of older electricians don't use a circuit tester - they check with their fingers. "Owwwwch! Yep, that's live." When I was a kid, I was tricked by one into experiencing that bite. That's something I'd never do to my own kids.
Heh heh heh, however, I didn't tell my son that I had turned the electric fence back on. If my wire were 20 miles long, 20 miles from here, it would have knocked him on his ass. Which coincidentally is the part of his body that accidentally made contact with the electric wire. Amazingly, he was going out of his way to be extra helpful and accomplish a task that I gave up on the night before due to high winds. (The garage in a box that was covering my boat ended up across the road due to high winds; I put it back together sans the canopy covering. It's positioned about 8 inches from my fence.)
And, son #2 recently discovered induction. While putting up power lines, he was working on disconnected lines. A few miles of heavy gauge wire, running parallel a hundred yards or so from other high voltage lines was more than enough to give him a good shock. (He was warned, but didn't think it would be that bad; probably about the same as the cattle fence.)
And, charged capacitor? I have a plastic garbage can lid in my classroom. One day, I had kids standing on it to help insulate them while playing with the van de graaff generator. I noticed that when I put the lid back on the garbage can, I got a pretty healthy shock when my arm gathered a lot of the accumulated charge on the surface. I realized, "hey, this could be fun!" Some aluminum foil taped to one side, some aluminum foil taped to the other side, and you DO NOT want to touch both sides when it's charged! To give you a rough idea, when the van de graaff generator is putting out 6" sparks, I'm not afraid to stick my tongue out and take a shot to the tongue. I'll hold my forearm over the vdg as long as I feel like, so kids can see my muscles twitch to close my hand each time I get a shock. Doesn't bother me at all. *I'M* not going to touch that garbage can lid.
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- Nov 28, 2001
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That's statistics. 120V is by FAR the most common voltage people work on on a daily basis. And I wasn't trying to say it's not dangerous.
Have I. nope.
I've made nice globules of copper though from accidentally shorting 120V though...
That stuff sprays everywhere.
I have used a hand cranked generator attached an arm I think though in a physics class.(might have been held in a hand)
Was not a comfortable experience.
Also had to prevent a professor of mine from getting ~100Vdc sent across him since he thought it would be a good idea to work on a live circuit.
Though now that I got some small caps rated for ~1kV(and a few diodes rated at 6 amps to rectify it) I could go see what wall volt feels like.
But I don't have my cool cut open cable for that.
I've made nice globules of copper though from accidentally shorting 120V though...
That stuff sprays everywhere.
I have used a hand cranked generator attached an arm I think though in a physics class.(might have been held in a hand)
Was not a comfortable experience.
Also had to prevent a professor of mine from getting ~100Vdc sent across him since he thought it would be a good idea to work on a live circuit.
Though now that I got some small caps rated for ~1kV(and a few diodes rated at 6 amps to rectify it) I could go see what wall volt feels like.
But I don't have my cool cut open cable for that.
thescreensavers
Diamond Member
- Aug 3, 2005
- 9,916
- 2
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I was young and stupid, anyhow my finger turned black, but I washed it off wtf is that black stuff lol
Did not hurt just shocking
Did not hurt just shocking
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