Electronics > Beginners
How dangerous are high voltage pulses?
Zero999:
Another thing to consider is whether there's a failure mode which can result in longer pulses? If so then more caution is needed.
Jwillis:
Its the current that kills. Consider that an average human body has a resistance of 1000 Ohm (damp skin) to 100,000 Ohms (dry skin) and it really only takes a small amount of current to injure or kill. Ohms Law.
Berni:
Well at 10kV you don't really even need to consider skin resistance because the high voltage just punches trough it.
The part that makes this 10kV at amps of current a great deal safer is the 2 us pulse length. Its the same reason why shocks from static electricity buildup are not deadly despite involving >10kV and currents exceeding amps effectively passing many kW of power trough that part of your body, but because there is so little charge the pulse is so short that no harm is done by it apart from a bit of swearing.
The internet seams to suggest that static shocks carry about 1 mJ to 4mJ at most 100 mJ of energy: https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/244092
So yeah the pulse from the OP would certainly be quite a jolt, and getting that 500 times per second would certainly not be fun. Id compare it more along time lines of grabbing the spark plug of a running engine. But a tazer is probably not far off as it has a similar repetition rate and energies. These things don't tend to kill people, but as i said someone with a heart condition could be in danger.
daqq:
Thanks for the info guys. I have no intent of touching the damn thing (or getting anywhere close to it at the moment), I was just curious.
amyk:
--- Quote from: Electro Detective on July 07, 2019, 11:05:28 pm ---FWIW I've had some good zaps and jolts from packing away those common to find white long plastic folding tables, with the tubular metal frame screwed in underneath, after a job end.
--- End quote ---
I'd figure out what is getting charged, and find out a way to discharge them. Maybe an ESD strap attached to a good ground, or at least the metal frame... I guess the reason those were so strong is because the tables are big enough to act like capacitors with a relatively high capacitance, maybe even a few nF.
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