Darwin award: How to kill yourself with a 9V battery

[Sigmoid]

I recently found this (old) Darwin award, where a young soldier managed to get himself killed using little more than a 9V battery.
I think it teaches a very important lesson in work safety, so I think all beginners should read it. There are lots of stories around about the dangers of high voltage - it's important to remember that low voltage can kill you just as well, if you're reckless.

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html

[Phaedrus]

I manage to work around 400V off-line power supplies with not even a burn mark, and this duff goes and offs himself with a 9V battery. I'm not even mad. That's impressive.

[jeremy0203]

I am in the Navy. This is nothing but an urban legend passed along in the schools where electronics or electrical things are taught.

[Len]

Yeah, note how this Darwin Award (like many others) is listed as "unconfirmed". As a rule, if there's no name & date attached to it, it never happened.

[mcinque]

Yeah, note how this Darwin Award (like many others) is listed as "unconfirmed". As a rule, if there's no name & date attached to it, it never happened.

Agree, I don't believe is happened. First, I hardly believe that from a 9V battery 30mA could reach the heart running thru the blood. At second, noone without mental disorders would pierce his thumbs with a couple of multimeter probes.

[zapta]

Assuming 300v body voltage, 150ma body current, 10sec time to death,  500mah 9v battery capacity, and 50% efficiency, by my calculation a single battery can kill 20 people or so.

[jimmc]

I'm surprised that this is still listed as unproven when it's obviously false.
For a start the short circuit current of the Simpson 260 is less than 100uA on the 'Ohms x 10,000' range where the 9v battery is used!
(For details see my post here https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-64-fluke-28-series-ii-multimeter-review-teardown/msg2417/#msg2417)

Jim

[G0HZU]

At second, noone without mental disorders would pierce his thumbs with a couple of multimeter probes.

It doesn't work on dogs with a 9V battery... 

I'm going to test it on my neighbours cat next but they are harder to catch and hold down... :O)

[G0HZU]

Seriously though, it's supposed to take several hundred milliamps of dc current to give a fatal shock.

So you would have more success if you tried to eat/digest the contents of the 9V battery or if you dropped it on your head from a great height.

[Tinkerer]

The reason you cant kill yourself with a 9v is because there simply isnt enough voltage, even if the battery can output enough amperage. If you manage to boost that voltage up some, then yes, I could see someone killing themselves with just a 9v where the end result isnt 9 volts anymore.

[Psi]

At second, noone without mental disorders would pierce his thumbs with a couple of multimeter probes.

It doesn't work on dogs with a 9V battery... 

I'm going to test it on my neighbours cat next but they are harder to catch and hold down... :O)

You shouldn't joke about animal torture, people have no way to know if you're serious or not.
There's a lot of real dickheads out there.

[Fraser]

This takes me back to my childhood when I used to check the state of PP3 9v batteries in my toys by placing my tongue across the terminals.....nasty sting = good, little or no sting = bad 
It is still a useable 'field test' test to see if the battery is flat but likely not a great idea all the same 

It tingles a little but no other harm done as far as I am aware 

[G0HZU]

Apparently there's a band called "Killed by 9V Batteries" in Austria

[vk6zgo]

Yeah, note how this Darwin Award (like many others) is listed as "unconfirmed". As a rule, if there's no name & date attached to it, it never happened.

There's a lot of such stuff on what I call the "Lie Net"!

One of which is an inflammatory speech which has been accredited to three Australian Prime Ministers & one French PM.

Dr Goebbels is alive & well,& having fun on the Internet!

[zapta]

This takes me back to my childhood when I used to check the state of PP3 9v batteries in my toys by placing my tongue across the terminals.....

Is there another way to test a 9V battery?

[c4757p]

This takes me back to my childhood when I used to check the state of PP3 9v batteries in my toys by placing my tongue across the terminals.....

Is there another way to test a 9V battery?

Does this actually work? I'd suspect that an almost dead 9V battery might still be able to pump out a couple mA to tingle your tongue.

[cwalex]

This takes me back to my childhood when I used to check the state of PP3 9v batteries in my toys by placing my tongue across the terminals.....

Is there another way to test a 9V battery?

Does this actually work? I'd suspect that an almost dead 9V battery might still be able to pump out a couple mA to tingle your tongue.

yeah it works, the difference between a dead and full battery is easy to tell.

[vk6zgo]

Back in the day when I was a "Storeman" at an Electronics shop,we got some special 67.5v batteries in.
They were used in some sort of gear used by a Govt.Department.
This customer (& a few others) used a fair number of them,so the Boss decided to keep them in stock.

The more common version was a small rectangular unit,but these looked like a very large version of modern 9v batteries,complete with "press stud" connectors on one end.

The proportions were different,though,as they just fitted into the stock shelves.
As the shelves were metal,we put them with the "press studs" facing outward.

All was well,until one sweaty Summer day,when a colleague asked me about something on an Order Sheet.

Leaning against the shelves (as you do! ),I placed my arm across about four of these batteries.

Ouchhh!

I was quite surprised by this and yelled "Golly Gosh,Gee Whiz!" or something of that nature.

Luckily the Boss was elsewhere,so I didn't get chewed out for swearing just outside the Office.

[IanB]

special 67.5v batteries

When I was a child around 1970 I remember the local radio shop used to stock 90 V batteries, as I suppose people still had portable battery powered valve radios and wanted to buy the batteries for them. I was fascinated by those batteries, as the voltage was so exotic compared to the ordinary low voltage batteries I would buy for torches and bicycle lamps. At the time I had no clue what they were used for. I do remember that the terminals were covered by a paper seal that you had to tear off before use, so that you didn't accidentally get a shock from them.

[vk6zgo]

Yeah,the standard filament batteries,at least in Oz,were 9v for some radios with series filaments,& 1.5v for others.

The HT batteries were 45v,67.5v & 90v.

Some radios used two 45v in series for 90v,others used them on their own.

The bigger & older valve portables used  the midsized 45v ones & usually a 9v.

Smaller radios often used one 67.5v.or or 90v batteries,as they came in smaller packages.
These also often used "D" cells for filaments,usually two in parallel,or in series,depending on the filament string.

There were still ( early to mid '60s) a lot of large radios outside  the  Mains Electricity supply which used "Farm Packs",which,if I remember correctly,were very two very big 45v batteries & an even larger 9v one.

Other "Country Radios" used 6v car batteries & a mechanical "vibrator" supply.

Others,yet,were designed to run off 32vdc--a common supply voltage from wind or diese/petrol generators
in  isolated farms & Cattle Stations.

[ice595]

its pretty hard to kill your self with a 9v battery
unless its lodged in your head or by eating the chemicals in there.

[Psi]

A 9V battery and a small DC/DC boost reg however, is a totally different story...

[ice595]

A 9V battery and a small DC/DC boost reg however, is a totally different story...

heck, even a camera flash circuit can give a REAL NASTY shock if the capacitor is charged
and they're usually just powered by a single 1.5v alkaline cell 

[peter.mitchell]

cmon, if you get a mains  -> 18~6v transformer and put the primaries on your finger then tap the secondaries on a 9v battery you get a fairly nasty feeling zap.

[Phaedrus]

cmon, if you get a mains  -> 18~6v transformer and put the primaries on your finger then tap the secondaries on a 9v battery you get a fairly nasty feeling zap.

Why do you know this?