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Re: Watts or Amperes



On Fri, 8 Nov 1996 14:46:13 +0100 (MET) said:

Why does it kills you when touching for instance
the electrode of a car battery? (12V & 30-400A)
Is it the high current the can supply or the
power? may be both thing depending on the quantity
of watts or amperes the can supply us when we touch
the battery?

My believe was that our body-cells get burned hence
power was responsible.


I've never heard of anybody getting killed with 12V. It's my understanding
that what kills you is an electric shock that messes up the system that
regulates your heart beat and that it is hard to do this even with 110V.
The danger of a car battery is that it has very low internal resistance and
so it can throw really big currents when there is a short. This makes
objects such as rings, metal watch bands, etc. very dangerous, because if they
create a short they will produce very bad burns. I've seen burns go into the
bones and it convinced me to never work on a car while wearing conductive
jewelery. The worst I'ver ever done is to drop a wrench that fell across a
hot terminal and the frame of the car, and was welded in place. Had to knock
out with a hammer, it was so firmly attached.