07-06-2011, 07:13 PM
There's an old saying: It's the volts that jolts, the mils that kills.
I've touched 25000V EHT in a TV and it was like a sharp pinprick. There's not enough current available to do you any real harm**. The worst shock I had was 1200VDC from an oscilloscope. Rectified straight from the mains transformer with enough current available to do damage. I was lucky. My arm ached for a few days and that was all. 240V mains can easily kill, especially between the hands and if your hands are wet. i think the lowest voltage that has known to have killed is 32V. I would guess the victim was at least partly immersed in salty water to achieve that. Animals such as cows and sheep can suffer badly from quite low voltages between their legs. This can happen when fault currents flow through the ground. Electric fences will do them no harm, again because the available current is small.
**NB: This does not apply to mains derived EHT on prewar and some early post war TVs
I've touched 25000V EHT in a TV and it was like a sharp pinprick. There's not enough current available to do you any real harm**. The worst shock I had was 1200VDC from an oscilloscope. Rectified straight from the mains transformer with enough current available to do damage. I was lucky. My arm ached for a few days and that was all. 240V mains can easily kill, especially between the hands and if your hands are wet. i think the lowest voltage that has known to have killed is 32V. I would guess the victim was at least partly immersed in salty water to achieve that. Animals such as cows and sheep can suffer badly from quite low voltages between their legs. This can happen when fault currents flow through the ground. Electric fences will do them no harm, again because the available current is small.
**NB: This does not apply to mains derived EHT on prewar and some early post war TVs
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
