Love this thread, makes me feel more 'normal'. However, from an earlier post...
-----Original Message----- "... In power supplies the mains voltage is absolutely deadly." The father in me yearns to leave this alone, but the physics teacher in me requires me to set this record straight. Except in pretty extreme circumstances, mains voltages (in the US where the mains run around 117 VAC) are not generally considered fatal. As we all (should) know, it ain't the voltage that does ya in, its the current. While it only takes about 24 volts to push a fatal current, it all boils down to Ohm's Law. A typically healthy person has a normal body resistance of about 100,000 ohms (a pretty low estimate), and across a 117 volt line, that's only about 0.0012 amps, a bit more than one milliamp, which is not a fatal current. It should take 50 times that much (for a second or longer if through the heart or brain) to do a person in, although you can certainly feel 1 milliamp! Even considering that 117 is RMS, and the actual voltage can be as high as 170, you should still be safe. Now, all bets are off if you're standing in a pool of water or are drenched from rain, or do everything else wrong. Best advice I ever got was from an old navy chief (when I was a young radioman), to wit: "One hand for the Navy, one hand for yourself". IOW, when working on anything that could possibly have live current, keep one hand behind your back. Completing a circuit with both hands puts your pumper in the circuit which is powered by electricity. Tom _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
