Comment on Prototype of RTX 5090 Appears With Four 16-Pin Power Connectors, Capable of Delivering 2,400W
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago110 is probably better in terms of general safety
Eh, not really. There is no significant difference in safety between 110vac and 230vac. Voltage is not the (most) dangerous part, it’s the amps that kill if you’re electrocuted.
InverseParallax@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Amps are voltage over resistance (I = V/R), volts absolutely matter, the human body has a decent resistance and the higher voltage helps burn through that.
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
There’s a reason we talk about lethal current and not lethal voltage…30mA can kill you, even at something ridiculously low as 9V, but 5-10kV will not necessarily kill you, e.g. fences for horses will not kill you if you’re electrocuted by them because there’s basically no amperage. Voltage is not the determining factor in lethalness.
mriguy@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
In most household shocks, you touch a conductor, and you are the resistor to ground. Your resistance is independent of the drive voltage, so if you touch a 110V wire, the current will be half of what you get with a 220V wire. So the voltage determines the current, and this the lethality.
There’s lots of other factors that go into the effective resistance like the amount of moisture on your skin, what shoes you’re wearing, and what the floor is made of, etc, but in all cases twice as much voltage will cause twice as much current.
It’s a bad idea either to go touching live wires either way, but the rule of thumb I heard was was that a 110V shock usually won’t kill you and 220V shock usually will.
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
That’s completely incorrect though. I’ve been shocked by 230VAC at least a dozen times, if not more. And the fuse for the circuit absolutely should not be the limiter, the RCCB should trip WAY before the main fuse.
InverseParallax@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
There is no current without voltage, what you’re saying makes no sense.
Current is voltage over resistance, you get as much current as you have voltage, unless there’s an artificial effect limiting voltage, like a voltage regulator or zener diode or just fet.
When you say ‘it’s the current’, that electric fense has x volts before you touch it, and the fact that it doesn’t kill you means either the voltage is too low to produce a decent current in your body, or, there’s a voltage regulator/limiter that means when you touch it the voltage drops to some lower level, which I could calculate using the nominal resistance of the human body and the voltage of the fence.
In a way, the output impedance of whatever is driving the fence determines how much the voltage drops under load.