ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Flamed and need reassurance

Argile,

Please do not insult our intelligence. If you have a statement to make please make it.

Using your own example where voltage is stepped down to 10mV please explain how that will harm someone. And leave out the attempts at insult to people here.

10mV applied to a person is your example.
What current will flow through them?

Bill

Yes, the current kills, but it must have some voltage present to do so. There are plenty of circumstaces that involve current but no voltage to ground> the neutral conductor for instance.

Current must also be available, for instance, electric fences do not supply enough current to kill, but plenty of voltage. Once again, you are correct in saying that it's the current that kills, but current alone, without voltage to ground, will not do anything.

The trasmission lines and transformers here would never qualify for "low voltage", I don't know what type of transmission you are referring to...

I'm not a professional debator, so forgive my lack of arguing skills.

Some questions for all to ponder:

What happens when one becomes parallel with a grounded conductor? What about in series (with a load)? How does this relate to Argile's point of view? Must there be, say, 50V present from one side to the other when the plumber removes the water meter and gets hit by the ground system?

Please, I am trying to see your point of view.



[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 11-20-2002).]

[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 11-20-2002).]

[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 11-20-2002).]

The return of DSp...?
You guys remember who.
There's no room for non-helpful, self-serving...etc. junk here.
We're here to help each other.

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 11-20-2002).]

Looks like Steve is biting his tongue.

Scott W., Dsp in spirit but not him. I won't reveal Argile's real name. I think he's from the UK, so Pauluk would be the best for convincing him.

Unfortunately, I believe Argile is firmly convinced that he understands things on an entirely different level than we do, only to be misled on some basic electrical theory.

Perhaps he understands the Tesla "free power" concept and we're just mere mortals!

Even with wet hands (1000 Ohms) it'd take 10 Volts to push 10mA through.

The CDC website Scotts mentioned says "...as low as 49 Volts." (But they say some other things I don't wholy agree with... i.e. equipment grounding attached to ground rod being the safety method, rather than the bond to the grounded conductor doing the real work to open an OCPD...)

Someone mentioned a 12V car battery causing electrocution, but that'd be some low resistance!

I would assume that even in the open grounding electrode, that some measurable voltage between the open and ground would be evident.

[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 11-20-2002).]

WOW!!!

Hey Argile,

Please allow me to make a three points.

I. When I was in sixth grade, I put together a project with an Erector Set that made use of the small 1/24 HP 120 V electric motor in the Set. Out of the Erector parts I fashioned a battery holder for 3 "D" cell 1.5 V batteries, and two hand grips. The battery holder had one extra feature. There was a hand crank that turned a gear. A sprung contact racheted against the teeth of the gear. As the gear was turned by the crank, the contact would drop from gear tooth to gear tooth, momentarily breaking the connection of the positive battery terminal. Here's the way this was set up:

First hand grip is connected with a wire to the negative battery terminal.

Positive battery terminal is connected to the contact on the gear teeth.

Gear shaft is connected with a wire to one of the 1/24 HP motor power cord plug blades, AND with a wire to the Second hand grip.

The other 1/24 HP motor power cord plug blade is connected back to the negative battery terminal.

What I'm describing is the basic "collapsing magnetic field pulse generator". It was quite effective. And, one day at recess, out on the playground, I got about 12 kids to join hands in a circle with the first and last kids holding the hand grips. I turned the crank and everyone jumped back. I got my first rush of "electrical power", even though I wasn't in the circuit.

Two things made this work with a 4.5 V DC source. One. The motor had a large magnetic core and a lot of windings that resulted in a dense magnetic field being created while the contact was resting against the gear and a small DC current flowed. Two. When the contact dropped to the next gear tooth, the current sustaining the magnetic field shut off very fast, causing the magnetic field to collapse very fast. The the magnetic field, collapsing, moves down into the wires that carried the current that sustained the field. And in moving, the collapsing magnetic field generates a voltage. The faster the collapse, the higher the voltage, BUT, the quicker the magnetic field ends, thus ending the generator effect. Right Hand Rule -- Physics 101.

The voltage created by the collapsing magnetic field is in the same polarity as the batteries. This high voltage pulse pushes current in the same direction that the DC battery current is already flowing in, except the contact, no longer touching a gear tooth, is in mid air between gear teeth, and the only path left in the circuit is through the circle of my 12 now ex-friends. Once the contact drops down to the next gear tooth, the battery circuit is re-established and the magnetic field is re-created, AND simultaneously shorts out the high voltage experience in the high resistance path through my ex-friends. Parallel circuit -- Circuit Theory 101

The energy, the Watts, delivered in the high voltage DC pulse is the "area under the curve" described by the voltage. This is a very small energy, inspite of the high voltage, and it is what saved my ex-friends from any harm. The equivalent of a static spark. While the voltage got to transmission line voltage level, no harm was done. Had these 12 kids been connected to an actual transmission line, with its huge power level, they would have been my dead ex-friends. Power = Volts x Amps -- Physics 101

II. Ohm's Law applies to all AC and DC circuits.

After learning about DC circuits, a little more math is learned. First one studies AC in purely resistive circuits, then one studies how capacitors and coils (inductors) shift current and voltage apart in time. The math allows one to reduce the complex time varying phenomena into vector calculus, and the LaPlace Transform simplifies the vector calculus to algebra. The language of math, correctly applied, allows Ohm's Law to be calculated simply as if the AC circuit were a DC circuit, all the time maintaining the vector direction information that is the complex phase relationship of any AC circuit. -- Circuit Theory 201

III. Taking a power transmission transformer, and "turning it around", that is, putting 120 V AC on its primary in order to get a AC milliVolt output of enormous Amperage, will result in the enormous amperage flowing ONLY IF THE OUTPUT IS SHORTED by a conductor of extremely low resistance. The human body is not that conductor, as its resistance is five or six orders of magnitude greater than what you envision. -- Physiology 101

Respectfully,

Al

If anyone would like to pursue this further, please start a new thread.