"Ralph Mowery" wrote in
m:


"Larry Fishel" wrote in message
..
. On Jan 27, 12:32 pm, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:

Ever seen anyone shocked with the deliberator ?

I've never seen a deliberator cause much damage.

But a defibrillator works largely because the paddles/electrodes are
placed on opposite sides of the heart. Tough to do with the average
cap without attaching some cables, in which case it would probably
work better out of the tub...

When used as designed, they don't normally cause any damage, because
the heart is either stopped or not pumping correctly. They are
designed so they will not discharge on a normally working heart. At
least without an override code that only the doctors are suppose to
use.

Fire one off on someone that has a normal working heart and it may
stop. Large currents of DC will often just clamp the heart muscle and
stop it. When I mention large, it is relative. Much less than one amp
will do it. If inside the body, very small amounts of current will
affect the heart.

milliamps can do it. even 100's of microamps.
BUT,you have to have enough voltage to break down skin resistance,or use
substances to lower the skin resistance. dry skin has a high resistance.
Those defib paddles are usually coated with a silver comppound.
ever notice the user rubbing the paddles together before applying them to
the patient? they are distributing the silver compound over the paddle's
surface.it also prevents skin burns.

While I doubt that a large capacitor just dropped in a tub will cause
any problems with the person in it, the whole point is that a large
capacitor charged to a high voltage is just as dangerous as the
electricity in the wall socket.




the current path for a charged cap dropped in a tub will not go through the
person. the charges that kill people travel through their extremities into
and through their torso,affecting the heart muscles. Plus their current and
duration are much higher than the caps you can generally find can store.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com