ack there I saw how the banning of light bulbs has taken effect. That is so crazy...)
I thought only the high power bulbs were banned, that shouldn't make a differe..... oh wait, sorry, this is CPF.
ack there I saw how the banning of light bulbs has taken effect. That is so crazy...)
That's a bad thing to assume...
Most large flat panel monitors aren't lit by EL panels. I was surprised to draw an arc across two terminals in one, then found it was lit by two long fluorescent tubes with several hundred volts at 50kHz. Even EL panels run at 100 volts or more. The only true low voltage displays are LED displays, or ones backlit with LEDs like my modified TV at home.
I once worked on laser bar code scanners years ago - they ran on 10kV at 1ma. Yikes! Now they use 3 volt diodes...
No. Your tongue is saturated with water, and has no insulating layer. Skin is a decent insulator.Theoretically then, there should be no problem touching a 9V transistor battery to your tongue. First up to the plate?
and @PMM, I believe that the AC wave of a 120V household plug extends to 120V either direction, so it's really 240V. They call it 120 because if you used a full-wave rectifier it would come out to be 120. It goes from wire A@0V, wire B@120V to wire A@120V, wire B@0V. Only 2 wires are needed.
Volts don't pass through things, current passes through things. Volts sit across things. As it happens, if you had a billion volts sitting across you then several million amps would be flowing through you and you would be vaporized to atoms.Also, voltage will never kill you. You could have a billion volts pass through you and be fine, as long as the current is lower.
It's called 120 V because that's (approximately) what its RMS value is. The presence of 240 V AC in the United States I think comes from two phases which have a potential difference of 240 V between them. In other words, they're 180° out of phase. Using only one phase, you have a potential difference between 120 V AC and 0 V AC (ground). Using the two phases your potential difference is between 120 V AC and -120 V AC (not sure about the notation for negative AC).I believe that the AC wave of a 120V household plug extends to 120V either direction, so it's really 240V. They call it 120 because if you used a full-wave rectifier it would come out to be 120. It goes from wire A@0V, wire B@120V to wire A@120V, wire B@0V. Only 2 wires are needed.
You could have a billion volts pass through you and be fine, as long as the current is lower.
I believe that the AC wave of a 120V household plug extends to 120V either direction, so it's really 240V. They call it 120 because if you used a full-wave rectifier it would come out to be 120. It goes from wire A@0V, wire B@120V to wire A@120V, wire B@0V. Only 2 wires are needed.
Theoretically then, there should be no problem touching a 9V transistor battery to your tongue. First up to the plate?
If you're speaking of US 120V household electricity, that isn't correct. It's hard to tell since you're directing your comment to someone in the UK who never mentioned 120V domestic, and I don't know where you are located...
Volts don't pass through things, current passes through things. Volts sit across things. As it happens, if you had a billion volts sitting across you then several million amps would be flowing through you and you would be vaporized to atoms.
Likewise, the AC mains is called 120 V because if you connect it to a resistor (or person) it behaves like 120 V (not 240 V). Even though the voltage is alternating, you can never get +120 and -120 at the same time (though you can get a peak voltage of 170 V).
I was talking about a theoretical circuit-I'm aware that current will build up in something left alone.You still need to be careful. Even if the device will only generate 1 mA long term, there will always be some capacitance in the device and things it's connected to. You will get a higher current when you first touch the device until the capacitance in the circuit is discharged.
Ah, I see. Sorry about that, I thought each wire alternated. I was aware, however, that you could not get the max positive and negative voltage at the same time. And I have to do some more research on RMS, it's still fuzzy for me but thanks for the help!Common US household 120VAC wiring.
You have a "neutral" wire connected to earth ground somewhere. It is always 0V.
There is a "hot" wire.
The voltage on the hot wire goes from
0V
+170V
0V
-170V
Over a time period of 1/60 second.
If you run it through a full-wave rectifier, you will get a peak voltage of 170V. If you put a capacitor on it to get DC, you'll get 170V.
It's called "120V" because that's the effective power in terms of a resistive load like an incandescent light bulb. The 120V refers to RMS (Root Mean Square) voltage. A 120V RMS AC voltage will provide the same amount of power to an incandescent bulb as a 120 V DC supply.
The maximum voltage present on a US household circuit is 170V. Even though the voltage goes from +170 to -170, there's no way to connect yourself between the + and - parts of the waveform because they occur at different times.
The common US household 240 VAC circuit has one neutral wire and two hot wires. The hot wires are 180 degrees out of phase. When hot wire A is at +170, hot wire B is at -170 V and vice versa. A 240V load will be wired between the two hot wires and will see + and - 340V peak voltage for an effective 240 VAC RMS voltage.
If you touch one conductor of a standard US household 240 VAC circuit, you only see 120 VAC. You have to touch both hot wires to see 240 VAC.
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
I've always stopped doing it really quickly. I don't recommend the experience to anyone.
Sorry, I gave a pretty bad explanation. If you had a billion volts "sitting across" you and a trillion ohm resistor in series then the amperage flowing through you should be safe.... less than 1mA, right? 1000000000/1000000000000 or more=.001 amps or less.
999,999,999 V would be sitting across the resistor and 1V would be sitting across you.
If you're standing under a 384 KV power line, 383,999.9 volts are standing across the air between you and the powerline overhead and 0.1 V is standing between your head and your feet.
Also, when you first reach up and touch the bare terminal on the billion volt resistor, the capacitance between the wire and the ground might carry enough joules to electrocute you.
BTW, I'd like to see a billion volt 1 trillion ohm resistor. It would need to be 500 feet long or the voltage would simply arc between the terminals through the air.
That's exactly what I meant in an earlier post when I said it's really the total number of joules which kill you, not voltage or current. As a general rule, always be cautious around large capacitors, especially those charged to ~50 V or more ( although as I mentioned in my earlier post a large enough 12V capacitor can still store enough energy to kill you, given a low impedance path through your body ).This capacitance is, for instance, the reason you get a small zap when you walk across a carpet and touch a doorknob. It's lethal voltage and current, but it only lasts a tiny fraction of a second. If you have a high voltage, low current device and it gets connected to something with a lot of capacitance, it CAN kill you.
That's exactly what I meant in an earlier post when I said it's really the total number of joules which kill you, not voltage or current. As a general rule, always be cautious around large capacitors, especially those charged to ~50 V or more ( although as I mentioned in my earlier post a large enough 12V capacitor can still store enough energy to kill you, given a low impedance path through your body ).
My DMM says I'm about 18MΩ.... so 18MΩ + 1 Trillion Ω = 1000018000000, and 18000000/1000018000000=1.7999676 × 10^-5, and 1000000000V*1.7999676 × 10^-5=17999.676V. So there would still be significant voltage going through me, right? And once again, theoretical circuit... no capacitance, no dielectric breakdown. Also the resistor would have to be about 850M long in dry air, if there were dielectric breakdown.
will
Everything I can recall on the matter says it is current that kills, and maybe not very much of it. I'll side with Apollo Cree on that.I said it's really the total number of joules which kill you, not voltage or current.
It's actually sort of complicated. Your heart is like an oscillator, with waves of electricity flowing across it in a regular cycle. Think of it like a pendulum. If you push a pendulum at the right time during its swing it just swings a bit higher and carries on. But if you push a pendulum at the wrong time you can stop it dead so it's hardly swinging at all.Everything I can recall on the matter says it is current that kills, and maybe not very much of it. I'll side with Apollo Cree on that.
No. Your tongue is saturated with water, and has no insulating layer. Skin is a decent insulator.
will
Oh come one. Don't be a wuss. Apollo Cree did it, and got a free t-shirt.