Re: 60V DC dangerous?

Don Klipstein wrote:
In article <1151951424.793822.75550@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, lieven 'nuts' citters wrote in part:


if you want to make something for your baby, you should stay below 24V
DC. otherwise, you need to take 48V DC
Normally, AC is more dangerous then DC.


AC worse than DC is largely true.


It's not voltage that's dangerous, it is current. You can feel 2 or
4mA,


My experience tells me that 2 mA is almost always felt and 1 mA is usually felt and .5 mA is felt to a significant extent. This is with small contact area with 60 Hz AC.


10mA gives a serious chock,


I have been through a couple 5-6 mA shocks that were so bad that I would rank below drinking a mixture of 2-week-old coffee, grapefruit juice and milk even while seeing the milk curdling!


20mA will make you stick on the
conductor, 50mA will knock you onconscious and 100mA will kill you.


Sometimes less than 20 mA will make you latch onto a conductor, with 50/60 Hz doing this worse than DC, and occaisionally also freeze your breathing muscles or have slight chance of causing some fatal heart disturbance!


As a student, i tried to make an ohm-meter for persons, and i started
calculating with a current of 100mA. You need way too much voltage! :D


100 mA is the lower end of the "most deadly range"! I would measure human body resistance with some small fraction of a milliamp at most, and keep in mind that currents that have any detectable shock effect (even if less than 1 mA) could also stimulate sweat glands and lower human skin resistance!

<SNIP>

- Don Klipstein (don@xxxxxxxxx)

I was talking to a doctor friend of mine a few nights ago, and he told me that the mechanical frequency response of human muscle tissue is not too dis-similar from 50/60Hz, exacerbating the "gripping" problem.

Cheers
Terry
.