On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 9:21:20 AM UTC-5, Mr Macaw wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2016 14:13:40 -0000, trader_4 wrote:

On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 9:02:12 AM UTC-5, Mr Macaw wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2016 13:33:46 -0000, trader_4 wrote:

On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 6:54:16 AM UTC-5, Mr Macaw wrote:
On Sun, 06 Mar 2016 17:12:14 -0000, trader_4 wrote:

On Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 10:00:21 AM UTC-5, Mr Macaw wrote:
On Sun, 06 Mar 2016 07:25:01 -0000, Micky wrote:

On Sat, 05 Mar 2016 14:50:19 -0500, wrote:


Over here in the colonies we take that 240v and center tap the
transformer so both ungrounded legs are 120v above ground. That still
gives us the ability to use 240v equipment but most ends up being
120v. I suppose we can blame Thomas Edison for that. He started a fear
campaign against Nick Tesla over AC current, Edison wanted DC and he
said AC was more deadly, to the point of electrocuting an elephant
along with more than a few condemned prisoners ... all with AC.
When he lost the war, the deadly part still stuck and the belief was
that 120 would be safer, still leaving the option of having 240v
equipment.

I thought 240 was indeed more deadly than 120 and that more people
died of shocks, per capita, in the UK than here. How could 240 not
be more deadly than 120?

Isn't it the case that if either of them goes through your heart it can kill you? Anything over 80 volts or something like that is all the same.

The only difference is that much higher voltages can burn your skin, or jump across gaps where you least expect it. But that's kV.

--
Take notice: when this sign is under water, this road is impassable.

It's the current that kills. Not sure on the numbers, but maybe on
the order of 30ma and above can effect the heart rhythm. The human
body has some resistance, X. If you put 240V across that, you're going
to get 2x the current as you do with 120V. But.... That's really a
red herring the way the system works here. To get 240V you'd have to
be across both hot wires, which is extremely unlikely. Most common
is for you to connect between one hot wire and ground, like standing
in water, touching an appliance case, faucet, etc. In that case
you'd still only get 120V. Between each hot and ground you have 120V.
Not sure how it works over there.

My point was 30mA could be achieved just as easily with 120V. Making it higher than enough to kill you doesn't matter.


30ma can't be achieved just as easily with 120V as with 240V. The
human body has resistance, tap water has resistance, etc. Under the
same conditions where 30ma is going through you at 240V, you'd only
have about half that at 120V.

I disagree. The resistance isn't enough to get anything like as low as 30mA with either voltage. Why do you think circuit breakers manage to trip when you touch live and earth? They need 30mA to trip.

IDK what you're talking about now. For starters, circuit breakers
don't trip when you touch live and earth, unless it is a GFCI breaker,
which are the less common type and only required in certain applications.

Of course that's the type I'm talking about, hence me referring to 30mA, not 15A. In the UK, the whole house is protected by such things, why wouldn't it be? This is why I use fuses.


If you're using fuses, why are you talking about GFCI? Of all the
circuit breakers in the world, only a small fraction are GFCI.




Second, per Ohms law, the higher the voltage in a given circuit,
the higher the current. A human body, together with the rest of
the circuit that completes it, has some resistance value. With a
higher voltage, you will have higher current flowing, ergo it's
easier to get to your 30ma.

My point is both voltages will easily exceed 30mA.

As stated previously, it depends on the resistance of the entire
circuit, including human body. Will it exceed 30ma in most cases,
whether it's 120V or 240V, probably. But that doesn't change the
fact that more current will flow at 240V than at 120V. Where with
one you could have 30ma, with the other you could have 60ma and
the higher it is, the worse it is. Capiche?


If they didn't, those GFCI breakers would never trip. Killing you with 120mA is no worse than killing you with 60mA.

Why do you keep going back to GFCI all the time?



I just measured my resistance from hand to hand (the most likely path to get through the heart). 50kohm with wet hands, 500kohm with dry hands. At 120V, that's 2mA wet and 0.2mA dry. At 240V, that's 5mA wet and 0.5mA dry.. No wonder I've never stopped my heart. It's impossible. The body has way more resistance than I thought. And I was squeezing as hard as I could for a good contact.


Following that faulty logic, no one would ever be electrocuted by
120V, 240V, etc. There would be no need for GFCI. Yet it happens all
the time.