Ever gotten a shock from standard US house voltage, 120V? How bad?

[bobdole369]

I used to get nailed all the time. Luckily I practice the one-hand rule and its only ever been in a hand or arm and not through the body (heart) or brain. It makes you jump, drop whatever you have, sort of takes over your muscles, and hurts like a bitch. 120V/60hz that is.

I got hit with 400V of RF once off the top of a set of final vacuum tubes on a ham radio I was fixing once. That threw me off the tech bench - even with 1 hand rule. It was in class and teacher figured someone had just charged up the giant caps to 70V or so DC that the retards in the class used to do to shock each other. I was fine, got up got back in seat and brushed it off.

 

[hanoverphist]

do tasers count? ive taken a few hits, from 25k to 80k. on purpose, too. i did some work on the original air taser design, the guys from air taser brought samples of the working models and did demonstrations.


more times than i can remember ive been shocked by house power. it tickles. ive been hit once by 220 at work (UL508 shop), and it sucked. makes the heart beat a lot, breathing got faster. took about an hour to calm down. im a lot more meticulous about making sure there is no power present when inside cabinets now. the house wiring tho, ive been getting shocked since i was a kid while doing "experiments" that caught my attention.

 

[William Gaatjes]

110VAC will kill you , anyone telling you otherwise is an idiot.
Turn off power if at all possible.
Never work on live wiring with both hands, keep one hand in your pocket to keep from accidentally grabbing something and making a complete circuit across the heart.
Always assume wires are live even if you have turned them off.

The majority of deaths from shock are not from the electricity but by the actions related to the physical reaction of the shock. On a ladder changing a light bulb, man gets shocked, startles him, he jerks back and falls off ladder. Working on a machine and shocked jerks arm and into a gear or pointed object.

I have been shocked many times and the worst was from DC current, not AC. 300VDC hurts like nothing else.

Indeed. Also fibrillation of the heart especially with AC 50Hz or 60Hz.

I experienced 230Volts AC, 380V AC. and 25kV DC discharge (luckily) from a crt tube and leakage form a high voltage flyback transformer in a crt monitor. I have come to understand that i do not like 25kV at all.

 

[DrPizza]

I'm going to bet that most who experienced 220-240 volts actually experienced only 110-120 volts. To experience 220 volts, you'd have to touch both hot legs of the circuit. In all likelihood, you simply grounded one of the 120V legs. It would be very difficult to simultaneously hit both sides; and it would just about have to be simultaneous, because as soon as you contacted one, you'd jump (and say "wow, I got zapped by 240" when in reality it was only 120V)

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I got shocked while installing a light socket. The breaker tripped so it was more annoying than painful.

 

[irishScott]

Depends on the length of contact. I was messing around with a lab kit once that used a 120V socket, thing had a master switch and a fuse. I thought the fuse was between the switch and the board, boy was I wrong. Went to remove the fuse, had an instant of contact that caused my arms to jerk back and spasm for a second or so. Took me a few more seconds to figure out what had just happened.

The danger is such a shock causing your muscles to contact in a way that perpetuates contact (ie: squeezing the handle of a fork). Brief contact won't do much of anything.

 

[Joseph F]

I used to get nailed all the time. Luckily I practice the one-hand rule and its only ever been in a hand or arm and not through the body (heart) or brain. It makes you jump, drop whatever you have, sort of takes over your muscles, and hurts like a bitch. 120V/60hz that is.

I got hit with 400V of RF once off the top of a set of final vacuum tubes on a ham radio I was fixing once. That threw me off the tech bench - even with 1 hand rule. It was in class and teacher figured someone had just charged up the giant caps to 70V or so DC that the retards in the class used to do to shock each other. I was fine, got up got back in seat and brushed it off.

How do you know that it was RF? IIRC, You can't feel any electricity that has a frequency above ~20KHz. Look at people touching massive arcs off of Tesla coils, for example.

Indeed. Also fibrillation of the heart especially with AC 50Hz or 60Hz.

I experienced 230Volts AC, 380V AC. and 25kV DC discharge (luckily) from a crt tube and leakage form a high voltage flyback transformer in a crt monitor. I have come to understand that i do not like 25kV at all.

That's happened to me as well, except that it was the tube itself that was holding the charge. What happened was, I picked up the tube which I didn't think had a charge and about halfway to the trash bag where I was going to throw it away, I touched the wrong part of it and nearly dropped all 30 pounds of it on my damn foot.

 

[Rubycon]

I'm going to bet that most who experienced 220-240 volts actually experienced only 110-120 volts. To experience 220 volts, you'd have to touch both hot legs of the circuit. In all likelihood, you simply grounded one of the 120V legs. It would be very difficult to simultaneously hit both sides; and it would just about have to be simultaneous, because as soon as you contacted one, you'd jump (and say "wow, I got zapped by 240" when in reality it was only 120V)

The same would be true for 480V which in this case would be 277V. Electricians working on lighting systems would feel the same since 277V for lighting ballasts is derived from phase to ground on 480V three phase systems.

How do you know that it was RF? IIRC, You can't feel any electricity that has a frequency above ~20KHz. Look at people touching massive arcs off of Tesla coils, for example.

That's skin effect at work but still very dangerous and NEVER recommended unless you know what you're doing or have been instructed to do exactly as one who does - to do. A D'Arsonval type discharge back to the primary, for example would connect you to the lethal spark gap side sending possibly amps of flow through your body.

 

[Fayd]

at least several thousand volts. van de graf generator.

...

120v ac is enough to kill.

 

[Rubycon]

at least several thousand volts. van de graf generator.

...

120v ac is enough to kill.

VDGs can develop hundreds of kV, larger ones several MV.

Those and Leyden jars make great companions. The dreaded Leyden battery (essentially a bank of LJs in parallel) can store sufficient power to do serious damage. The spark can easily split a plank in two, for example.

One interesting fact of a Leyden jar is if you (carefully) take apart a fully charged jar and set the parts aside for a few minutes, then (again, carefully) put it back together again you will find it nearly fully charged! Checking the charge on the individual parts while disassembled you will find no charge.

 

[Modelworks]

On the subject of getting shocked I just got a copy of the new 2011 NEC rules . There are quite a few changes.

All outlets now have to be arc fault and outlets within 6ft of any wet area also have to be gfci . Ground rods have to be 20 ohms or less to ground and will now be enforced for that measurement. Metal water pipes inside the home have to be added to the grounding system even if they are not used as the primary ground source. Any outlet below 5.5 ft in height from floor has to be child proof or tamper resistant.


Just a few of the changes.

 

[Instan00dles]

Was working at a metal plating shop and I had to swap out a broken heater with an old spare one they had laying around, operated at 440v. I was wearing thick rubber gloves that were soaked and so were my hands, guessing that there was a rip in the gloves somewhere but when I plugged in the new heater I got shocked really good. Went through my hands and out my lower back where I was leaning against the metal tank. It was intense but the gloves were really big and after a few seconds my hand slipped out of the glove but I had no control of anything and my back still bothers me exactly where the current left from.

 

[HeXen]

Try getting shocked outside while its raining out, even by just 110v. Actually i got shocked today. it was raining and i was trying to start a water pump. the spark plug wire has a short inside it and i tried to adjust the wire so it would connect internally. done this many times before but never in the rain, another guy pulled the crank and despite the plug wire sheath and me wearing gloves, it lit me up good

 

[DrPizza]

*Unless you're in Europe or other countries where household wiring actually is 240 volts, not 120 volts.

 

[Fayd]

VDGs can develop hundreds of kV, larger ones several MV.

Those and Leyden jars make great companions. The dreaded Leyden battery (essentially a bank of LJs in parallel) can store sufficient power to do serious damage. The spark can easily split a plank in two, for example.

One interesting fact of a Leyden jar is if you (carefully) take apart a fully charged jar and set the parts aside for a few minutes, then (again, carefully) put it back together again you will find it nearly fully charged! Checking the charge on the individual parts while disassembled you will find no charge.

well, i did preface it with "at least".

in other news, it's over 9000.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Can Degraafs are a lot of fun. I remember we had one in high school and people used to call me insane. I was really the only one brave enough to play with that thing. One time we were doing a class experiment where we were all holding hands. I was the person on the end, and people hated me when I grasped the faucet. Fun times. I need to build one some day, though a tesla coil would be equally as fun. Just need to build a faraday cage around the servers...

 

[Buddyd]

In high school I fell off a ladder onto an open 220 volt residential panel I was probably stuck to the panel for about 3-5 seconds before my dad knocked me off it with a piece of 2x. Don't really remember anything between the ladder racking and then getting up off the floor.

I had an electrical burn the size of the panel from my shoulder to about the middle of my back for about a week and a half.

Me and electricity do not get along.

 

[Locut0s]

...it tickles. ive been hit once by 220 at work (UL508 shop), and it sucked. makes the heart beat a lot, breathing got faster. took about an hour to calm down....

I hope you saw a doctor after that! I certainly would . Irregular heart beat caused by something like that is nothing to laugh at!

 

[Leros]

It can't be that bad. I've seen several seasoned electricians touch wires to test if they're live.

 

[Locut0s]

It can't be that bad. I've seen several seasoned electricians touch wires to test if they're live.

They know what they are doing though. I'm not arguing it's safe, it can KILL you if you don't know what you are doing.

 

[irishScott]

It can't be that bad. I've seen several seasoned electricians touch wires to test if they're live.

See my experience with the fuse. The only way to be injured by a 120V socket is sustained contact. When shocked the muscles contract. So long as they contract away from the current source and don't sustain contact, you're good. Thus you can tap a live wire with your finger tip and be fine. Not recommended, but doable.

 

[Fayd]

According to my parents, I once did stick the proverbial fork into an outlet when I was a little kid (preschool is my guess since I have no recollection of this). Looks like I survived.

might explain a few things tho.

 

[alfa147x]

shocked my 220v during my trip though india

 

[Locut0s]

shocked my 220v during my trip though india

How? I can imagine the Jerry rigged wiring in some places in India must be nuts.

 

[alfa147x]

How? I can imagine the Jerry rigged wiring in some places in India must be nuts.

lol no. I had an adapter on my laptop charger. I yanked the charger cord to unplug it. It broke the adapter in two halves (Snapped back together)
Half of it was still on the wall socket with two metal prongs exposed. Nothing thinking due to being in a rush I grabbed the two prongs trying to pull it out.

Yup a good shock. That was fun.

The second time I was on the covered portion of the terrace of my grandparents house. My grandmother asked me to run across the terrace to the other side to turn off a light. It was raining pretty hard. I ran across grabbed the inline switch. Another fun shocking . Fucking hell she had used an indoor light outdoor.