Article View: sci.electronics
Article #1114Re: Touching a "hot" connector
From: Bill Brown
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1989 20:10
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1989 20:10
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2756 bytes
In article <498@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>I'd like to thank all those kind people who have expressed concern for
>my continued existence, given my habit of touching live wires to see if
>they are live.
> ...
>Well, as I promised, I tested my resistance. As I said I have dry skin.
>With a light touch. such as I use for testing mains, my resistance is
>>10MOhm. If I dampen my fingers by breathing on them, and grab the test
>prods painfully firmly, I can bring it down to around 10KOhm. That's
>still an order of magnitude under the lethal current. So you all kind
>folks can stop worrying about me!
>
As best I can remember, (it was a long time ago - longer than I like to
contemplate!!!) CG-165 , "U.S.Coast Guard Electronics Manual", quoted
50 ma as being enough to stop the heart, or in the case of A.C. (60 Hz)
put it into fribulation(sp?). Aw what the heck, 1/2 order of magnitude
is plenty! Like gee whiz, a factor of two ought to be ok! Especially
since al theses values are so exact. An inch is as good as a mile!
I vaguely recall a line from something called "The 10 Electro-Commandments"
that went something like this:
"Tary not among those fools who engage in intentional shocks, as
they are surely unbeleivers and are not long for this world."
There was also a line to the effect that:
"... electric cooking is a slothful process and one may
simmer in ones' juices for hours before the Maker sees fit
to drag thee from this vale of tears."
>Does anyone know what would happen if one inadvertently, one rainy
>night, with wet feet, pissed onto an electric fence?
>--
The exercise is left to the foolish as an experiment.
>Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.edai 031 667 1011 x2550
>Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AHA!!!!!!
>5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
-bill
wlbrown@lbl.gov
Disclaimer: These opinions are my own and have nothing to do with the
official policy or management of L.B.L, who probably couldn't care
less about employees who play with trains.
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!ames!pasteur!helios.ee.lbl.gov!beva.bev.lbl.gov!wbrown From: wbrown@beva.bev.lbl.gov (Bill Brown) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Touching a "hot" connector Keywords: touch, sensation, live, shock Message-ID: <3517@helios.ee.lbl.gov> Date: 7 Aug 89 20:10:31 GMT References: <89Jun8.160452edt.10877@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> <814@corpane.UUCP> <427@edai.ed.ac.uk> <1528@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> <498@edai.ed.ac.uk> Sender: usenet@helios.ee.lbl.gov Reply-To: wlbrown@lbl.gov (Bill Brown) Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley Lines: 45