Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

----- Original Message -----
From: Adam Schabtach <adam@...>
Is there any truth to the story that 110V is more likely to kill you than
really big voltages?

No, wives tale. BUT, what is true is that low secondary voltage cause most
of the electrocutions statistically. That is because of frequency of
contact. While, I do not have any data to give you (nor does it likely
exist), I can say that fatality from 120 volts is not the norm from contact.
We assume that many 120 volt contacts go unreported. Anyone here ever shock
themselves?

However, contact with what we call primary voltages (2400 VAC and above) are
always reported because someone is going to the hospital. The most common
distribution voltage used in the US varies around 13 KV phase to phase and
7500 volts phase to ground. What what I have seen over 28 years of
following such things is that well over 50% of contacts are fatal. Those
that are not fatal usually result in severe disability (loss of body parts
at the entrance and exit points for the current). Severe burns are the
normal in all cases.

Larry Hendry




The story goes that if you bridge a large potential
with some part of your body, the physiological reaction is likely to blow
you right out of the circuit fairly quickly; whereas if you insert yourself
as a conductor of 110V, you'll twitch around a bit but will stay in the
circuit long enough for your heart to fibrillate and shut down, your flesh
start to cook, etc.?

--Adam
(who really doesn't like messing with AC, and kept the AC wiring in his
cabinet as simple as possible: two wires between the power supply and an
integrated switch/fuse/AC power cord receptacle, mounted on the rear. Big
wires, nicely shrink-wrapped.)






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