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| Thread ID: 83272 | 2007-09-26 00:57:00 | Electric shocks | FoxyMX (5) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 595061 | 2007-09-26 03:27:00 | I have stuck my fingers in a light socket..........and ZAP! Felt like my arm had been hit by a sledge hammer....a number of times over. |
wmoore (6009) | ||
| 595062 | 2007-09-26 03:50:00 | Lightning may not necessarily kill you either but who wants to try it? Roy Sullivan (en.wikipedia.org) did that seven times. |
bob_doe_nz (92) | ||
| 595063 | 2007-09-26 04:13:00 | Mains power is EASILY capable of killing you, but it usually won't. I've been electrocuted by mains voltage several times, and I'm fine, but that certainly doesn't mean it's something to play with. Fingers in a light socket is usually just painful, because the current is flowing between the fingers touching the two pins, and so your heart, brain etc are not in the path of the current. On the other hand, if you were to grab, say, a live wire with one hand while being grounded with the other (resting on a sink perhaps) the current would flow straight through your heart (one arm to another) and probably screw your heartbeat up, killing you if nobody is around to do CPR. So a toaster could be VERY particularly dangerous if there was a path through your body to, say, the sink. So unplug that toaster before sticking knives in it :) |
george12 (7) | ||
| 595064 | 2007-09-26 04:48:00 | I vaguely remember something about the distance between you and the junction box being a factor in mains electric shocks. Is that true? | Deane F (8204) | ||
| 595065 | 2007-09-26 05:15:00 | Probably if you were a few hundred miles away, then yes. The higher the basic voltage, the less loss there is in the line. That's why we send 25KVA on our power grid and drop it to two legs of 120 each, for a divided total of 110 or so to the individual wall plugs. |
SurferJoe46 (51) | ||
| 595066 | 2007-09-26 05:17:00 | Cheers. You've all clarified things somewhat. :cool: | FoxyMX (5) | ||
| 595067 | 2007-09-26 06:10:00 | A toaster element would snap (so it kills the current), if you put something metallic in it. I would say this is how toasters are made, which is why you dont / wont get an electric shock. That is totally false and in fact a dangerous or misleading statement to even make. Even if the element "snapped" one side of that element is still alive. The current is not then flowing through the toaster element in total, but it would still be flowing through Foxy if she were touching the live end (rather than the neutral end). |
godfather (25) | ||
| 595068 | 2007-09-26 07:15:00 | Who cares aboput mains voltage, pissing on an electric fence hurts more and makes you wish you were dead | Morgenmuffel (187) | ||
| 595069 | 2007-09-26 08:57:00 | Who cares aboput mains voltage, pissing on an electric fence hurts more and makes you wish you were dead So why DID you do it?? PJ:lol: |
Poppa John (284) | ||
| 595070 | 2007-09-26 09:07:00 | It's the volts that jolts, the mills that kills. (mills being milliamps of current) An electric fence of several thousand volts will just hurt; much much lower voltage/higher amp will kill. Mains? As people have said, depends. Don't assume you;ll survive is a good rule of thumb. Footwear has a bearing too. I got hit, killed me up to the elbow (not permanent), point of contact was like a bad bite. Painful. Don't do it. As for the toaster - get on in there. To get a shock from a toaster you'd have to be a real Homer Simpson. To find a live current is unlikely bordering on difficult. If you're really worried, use a plastic fork or an insulated screwdriver and wear your gumboots. |
mmmork (6822) | ||
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