Re: burning smell
On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 03:06:39PM +1200, Mike Beattie wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 01:24:19AM +0100, Pigeon wrote:
> > It's said to be possible to receive a lethal shock from a car battery
> > if you use two buckets of salt water to make contact. I haven't made
> > any experiments with this arrangement yet.
>
> Very possible. you realise the current drain lead acid batteries can take,
> right?
Yeah, several hundred amps for a car type - they're good for
demonstrating the magnetic force between two parallel current-carrying
conductors (eg. the feed and return to the starter motor on a siezed
engine). Skin contact resistance is usually a few hundred k which
swamps the resistance of the body itself. To get a lethal current from
a car battery would require the total circuit resistance to be a few
hundred ohms or less. The buckets of salt water would lower the skin
contact resistance considerably, but the resistance of the body itself
would begin to become significant. I think it would be a borderline
case, I can't say for sure without doing some measurements (with a
suitable current limiting resistor in the setup).
Pigeon
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