How hard is it to accidently electrocute oneself?

[dighn]

i think i touched a 220v line when i was in first grade. it shocked me but didn't do anything else. or maybe it wasn't 220, but it sure looked like a regular line (this wasn't in north america) . also got shocked by some high voltage (but low current) sources a few times. touching a charged color tv voltage multiplier really hurts :Q

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: Eli
Wow.. I think there's been one or two people that know what they're talking about in this thread.

Where do I start?

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
I've grabbed bare 12v DC leads before. Stung for a second and blew the PSU through the roof. Can't speak as to AC though.

No you haven't. 12v isn't enough for you to feel through your skin, regardless of amperage. A car battery may have 250+A of energy inside of it, but you can hold onto the terminals all day.

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
I believe it's the amps that kill you, not the volts. A 12V car battery can kill you under the right circumstances and you don't need a bum ticker.

An electrician or engineer may chime in to verify or debunk this.

yay, finally some sense. This is correct. However, the voltage also must be sufficient enough to "push" the amperage through you.

Originally posted by: ness1469
After I decided I was fine, and after doing some moving to realize that wasn't what was happening, I decided to just do it and deal with that strangely painful yet interesting feeling... and grabbed the top, unhooked it, set it on the ground all while being electrocuted. After I felt it pulsing through me I could feel that it was electricity doing that.

No. If you were electrocuted, you would be dead. That's what "electrocuted" means.

Anyway.. It's all going to depend how grounded you are; how much current can flow through you. If you grab the hot wire of a 120v outlet in one hand, and the cold water pipe in your basement with another, you're going to fry. If you're standing on carpet with shoes on and you touch the hot lead, you'll probably only feel a tingle.

Electricity is a strange thing though, and you don't want to be playing with high amperages.

High potential voltages.. now that's another story, and can be quite fun.

I was going to chiome in but I thought I would wait for some pics.

BTW I have been shocked with over 50 thpousand volts. It knocked me down but I am still here.

 

[Looney]

Pretty damn hard. I remember back in highscool we were in biology class, and some clown decided to be funny and stick his key in the socket... he got a good zap (HUGE sparks flying out), burnt his finger and his key was all black, but he was still conscious and alive.

When i was little i stuck my finger into a live lamp that didn't have a lightbulb. Gave me a good buzz.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic
Pretty damn hard. I remember back in highscool we were in biology class, and some clown decided to be funny and stick his key in the socket... he got a good zap (HUGE sparks flying out), burnt his finger and his key was all black, but he was still conscious and alive.

what an idiot! :Q

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

fwiw, your skin has pretty high electrical resistance... something of the order of a few megaOhms. And voltage isn't what matters when you get electrocuted, it's current. More specifically current that passes through your heart. IIRC, something of the order of a few milliamps through your heart causes big problems as it can mess up your cardiac rhythm. I'd look up the exact figures, but I'm too lazy/busy

 

[gwlam12]

ive shocked myself when i was small. 6 or so. pulling out a plug from the socket, but i was pulling from the metal connectors

 

[yhelothar]

volts means nothing.. it's just the current the power runs on...

AMPS is what means anything..

It takes 10,000 volts of static electricty before you can even feel it..
and the ones you can see are 100,000 volts
read that in my A+ Certification for Dummies book

 

[Mark R]

Electrocution can have a number of effects - from mild discomfort, to fatal disruption of heart rhythm, or severe burns.

Risk of stopping the heart depends on the current magnitude and the duration. It is widely regarded that currents of less than 30mA for less than a few seconds carry a extremely low risk of stopping the heart. Above 100 mA, such discharges carry a significant risk even for exposures as brief as 10 ms. Interestingly enough, very severe shocks (> 1A) tend not to lead to the fatal heart rhythm (ventricular fibrillation) - instead they usually cause the majority of their injury through muscle damage or burns.

Current is the most important thing, but you have to remember that the body itself has a substantial resistance to current flow.

I believe it's the amps that kill you, not the volts. A 12V car battery can kill you under the right circumstances and you don't need a bum ticker.

I've seen stuff like this repeatedly on forums such as these. The first part is true, the part about the 12V is nonsense.

The resistance of the body is about 1 kOhm (in wet conditions). Simple application of ohms law means that the worst case current in the car battery case is 12 mA (very unlikely to be fatal). In dry conditions, the skin can add several hundred kOhm. Under high-voltage conditions (>400-500V) the resistance of the body actually decreases, so higher currents than expected flow.

Essentially, if you have dry skin then domestic voltages (110 and 230V) are relatively unlikely to cause a fatal shock. However, humidity and sweating as well as external sources of water can very substantially lower skin resistance leading to shocks which can easily be fatal.

For this reason the use of RCCBs (residual current circuit breakers) rated at or less than 30 mA is very strongly recommended on all circuits to which a portable appliance could be connected. It is worth pointing out that many domestic installations have a 100 mA RCCB for the whole installation - this is a fire precaution (protects against neutral-Earth short circuits) and does not provide adequate protection against electrocution.

 

[Ness]

I suck. I need to hit the edit button next time. Man do I suck.