Where I am(USA), it's about 90v. I have been zapped by a 0.1uF cap charged to 200v(in an old DMM assembled in 12-2-1981(remember those nixie tubes)). I was repairing the meter, and the problem turns out to be a shorted DC-DC converter transistor due to thermal stress(I installed a heatsink on the new one). Now that's an antique meter.
Actually, Phone lines ring at 105V... it's pulsed DC, but that just translates to square wave AC... and it'll give you a poke you'll remember, but won't really hurt you.... Unless it's on your tongue when it rings... otherwise, common "talk battery" voltage on a phone is 48VDC. As far as caps, I have been hit by a 1200V, 33mfd (Yes Mili farad) cap, and it hurt ALOT!. I wouldn't suggest it.
lol - that could be one way to speed up the toasting... I apparantly used to go round the house when I was a toddler and take apart the plugs and sockets - my parents had to go round after me putting everything back together again before I killed myself... (A modder from an early age...?!? )
Heh , reminds me of my electonics class. We always used to do stupid stuff like stick resisotrs in the electircal sockets. And then hit the reset switch to watch em blow up. One blew up in our teachers hand . This is alot of fun:Once me and my friend wired one of those 80mm 12v case fans (an old one froma 386 )into the elctrical socket. It kinda makes a half turn and then makes a nice explosion. The whole room smelt like burning plastic when the teacher walked in.
460v 3 phase..... its a f'ing mirical im alive... flew 15 feet, stoped by a cement wall.... sat there, got up.... and fell on my ass due to muscle spasm.... thats all i have to say 220v is fun!
My worst shock 19,000V from the tube of an old IBM EGA monitor (The early monitors all needed adjusting beacause the facftory did sutch a poor job of it) I could not feel my arm for hours and I still had to finish the monitor as it was on a customer site. Also the HT leads in a Car carry quite a punch
Iv had plenty of shocks at work. few that stick in my head are managed to stick the end of my uninsulated screwdriver in the windings of my auto transformer (varyac?! spelling) masive white flash and fused copper wire on the end if me driver Flash testing (insulation testing) a module at 2Kv AC high feq with a 25mA trip on, me wrist chain touched the module can,ouch and quite a few 240V AC shocks by not consentrating i.e leaveing power switched on with exposed wires forks on bench u learn tho
I know it is a bit OT but do you brits, use 460-480 for things like waterheaters, dryers, furnaces, air conditioners, and other large appliances. or do you still use your typical 240. *just wondering*
Silly goose! You should never open a monitor. They can hold power inside them for weeks even when unplugged. =O
My shocks(that I remember): experimenting with a case light, had some bare wires and got 12v, "hey, this feels kinda cool." next: Washing my pickup - was a diesel so I had to plug in the block heater, cord got muddy and I thought I could simply wipe off the mud that was in the socket - "holly crap!". I remeber a school trip to England, apparently some of the other people didn't know about the voltage differences - there were some outlets in some hotels that "american" plugs could fit in - but they didn't have 120 volts. One person tried with an electirc shaver - said they had never seen their shaver run that fast before - shaver died. Next person tried with a curling iron - the iron got red hot and competley melted it's plastic case. L J
Funny trick: 1: Bring your computer 2: Set the PSU for 240v 3: Plug it in 4: Boot it up, start a game, then say, "It it just me, or is the game running faster than it did before?"
If you're in America and set the PSU for 230 then surely the game would run at half speed. 115/230 = 0.5 It would be the other way round that the 'speed increase' would happen: 230/115 = 2 Please note this calculations do not take in to account the fact that atx power supplies explode when on the wrong voltage setting
well it's no fun if they don't explode... there should be a small amount of C4 in all PSUs just to faciliate this should someone be silly enough... or then again maybe not...
heh, i did something similar to the phone things, phone wasnt working, so i decided "hmm the contacts must be dirty" take the line outa back of phone, give it a good lick.. heh i learned my lesson, shocks feel so much different when u dont expect em!.. also got the left over juice of a capacitator from a disposable cameras flash.. not fun oh ya! also stuck a knife in an electrical outlet when i was young, dont remember but my parents tell me that it "explains alot"
Happened to me once too, only by touching the heatsinks I connected two pins on the underside of the PCB by making them touch part of the metal case. A capacitor blew and some large spark flew off
