Voltage and the Shocking effect on the Human Body

---

Ok I keep seeing these ads for stun guns that supposedly deliver 950,000 volts of electricity in half a second, now my first question is, what effect would that have? as well as, is that possible? i dont know much about it but 950k seems a bit high

I don't think it's safe for you to be near anything that dangerous young man!

you have no say in this little miss no-caller! and for your information i have several sharp implements decorating my room as well as a 12 guage, and 2 .22's in the closet, and id only shock myself oooonce...hopefully not in the testes

What actually is dangerous is the current. These things can generate a high voltage but the amount of charge delivered is small and usually non-lethal, though very painful.

so is it more like a non-lethal sandbag shot like riot police use?

It's more disabling, because electric shocks temporarily paralyse the muscles they go through (they go into a cramping spasm).

ok but generally the same idea? high power but minimal damage?ok but what about other than a stun gun? when it is a continuous current, what would that amount of voltage do?

If you have something that can maintain that sort of voltage, then generally it would produce a huge current. The resistance of the human body is not very high. Even when it is only for a matter of milliseconds, people can get fried and much damage done, as seen in lightning strikes.

Stun guns have capacitors with a fixed amount of charge. The rated voltage is only reached if there's nothing that can conduct the current.

oh ok thank you, and just for shigs and gittles how much voltage does a lightning bolt usually reach?

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/stun-gun.htmLightning.. whew.. ALOT.... An average bolt of negative lightning carries a current of 30-to-50 kiloamperes (kA), although some bolts can be up to 120kA, and transfers a charge of 5 coulombs and 500 megajoules (enough to light a 100 watt light bulb for 2 months). ~~~~~~~~An average bolt of positive lightning carries a current of up to 300 kiloamperes (about ten times as much current as a bolt of negative lightning), transfers a charge of up to 300 coulombs, has a potential difference up to 1 gigavolt (a billion volts), and lasts for hundreds of milliseconds, with a discharge energy of up to 3x1011joule. That's enough to power that same 100-watt light bulb for 100 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning

holy shit, thatd be sore in the morning......thank you for both the link and the info

Yes, it's interesting stuff. The figures in the Wikipedia article suggest 100 million volts for the average negative lightning bolt (the usual sort - positive ones are much rarer but huge). But the discharge is very complex.

Its nto the current, current is the load put on the circut, what will fuck you up, kill you, maim you, blow big holes inside and out of your body is the Amps.Long long ago, during my schooling years, we got shocked with 10 k volts dc. It barely even tickled. It had been passed through transformers and the ampers dropped out. it takes less than one half amp to kill a person.think of this, at your breaker box onthe house, you have (US standard) 100 amp service. most appliamces run on very few amps, your lights in a room may pull 3 to 5 amps, a toaster around 2, it doesnt take much to power stuff. evey single outlet in your house has the potental to carry 100 amps though. Thats regulated by the breakers (or fuzes, what ever your house may have).Most shit is rated at 15 to 20 amp service for most rooms. a breaker states on it what the service level is. if you draw more power than the breaker is capable then it flips to off because of the heat thats built up in the breaker. if its a fuze, it blows.If youhave a short and its properly grounded an tied back into teh nutrel bar, it builds heat very quikly and trips the breaker.Its nto teh volts ya need to worry about, its the amps.You can take a 9 volt battery, hit a radio shack and buy a couple pices of shit I wont list on the forum, that 9 volt battery wired in, through the 20 dollars worth of parts and up to a couple of nails on the end of a pole, now has the capability of knocking a man on his ass, with alot less power than a stun gun or zapper. They run higher volts, and amps, still small amps understand. I dont recall the exact legal ampers you can have but its something like .1 or it may of even been .01, Id have to go looking to find that information again. witha high voltage and that high of an amp, since the human body effectivly is made of electricity, producing it on its own to power various nerves and muscle control, the resulting shock overpowers the human system and most use A/C, this contracts all the muscles, flexing them and wearing the person out thats been hit. it also overloads the nervous system and makes people hit the fucking ground like a ton of shit.If that person had a pacemaker or heart problems, shit like that it could well kill them. also depending on the age and size its possible to overload and kill them. It is however an effective and relatively safe, less than lethal method for controling people in situations that require it.People have been killed from being tazered, but its rare when you consider how many people have been tazered total.Its a good alternatize to having to shoot them, if your in a situation requiring your protection and death is not a desirable outcome.

That depends on the voltage, a/c contracts the muslces while d/c expands them.

Its nto the current, current is the load put on the circut, what will fuck you up, kill you, maim you, blow big holes inside and out of your body is the Amps. Amps = Ampere's is the unit of measurement for current.So what Ineligible said is correct. You're just a little confused with the terminology. How much current will kill a person?

By the books he is, but anyone that doesnt know about electricty wouldnt understand it. I guess that dantek didnt as he was only concerned about the voltage. Most people dont have an understanding of it.
My dad was a master jounreyman electrician for 40 years before he retured, I dworked high voltage at Magcorp for 10 years and have done a hell of alot of house wiring, I know the shit, I was taught by my dad. I know that most people, that didnt have any reason to fuck with it, or never had a reason to study basic elctric, only think in terms of voltage. Volts mean very little.
He was right by the book, but not in shall we say layman terms?
simply trying to get the whole idea for people that dont understand things like ohms amps volts and current.
Ill also add that Iv fixed alot of shit mistakes made by people that did electric work and didnt know what they were doing, if you dont know it and understand it, dont fuck with it. that 110 volts in yuor house will kill ya just as easy as 4160\.

All I was saying is that Amps is a name for the measurement for current. In reality Amps = current.

A quarter of an amp is enough current to kill you...it just depends what part of the body it goes through. Think of current as the flow and voltage as the pressure that creates the flow. If you have high voltage but high resistance (in a rubber suit, for example), you'll probably be OK. But if you have high voltage and low resistance (barefoot in water) you're dead meat on a stick, as the current will be very high.In the wrong situation, 500 volts is enough to kill you...the thing with stun-guns is that they produce only a little current. As has been said, the voltage in a stun-gun quickly drops near zero if there is little resistance...so there's never enough current (amps) to kill you (unless you're the unlucky bastard who gets zapped in the heart).I've been an electronics repairman in the past, and still do it out of my home for cash under the table. FYI, the fly-back transformer in a TV produces about 25-30,000 volts...older TVs will go up to 50,000.

But Rules are nto always true.I had a buddy who was fishing inthe rain (yeh hes nto real bright) he got hit by a bolt, knocked him out of the back of his truck that was backed up to the waters edge and about 20 feet into the lake. Some people grabbed him, drug him back to shore, cpr all that shit. Hes a bit goofy still today (I say that because he likes all star wrestling) but alive and that was about 1999. My dads cousin was a lineman, he was working high voltage one day and fucked up, he got it shot through his right arm, down his back and out his foot. It blew his shoe apart, knocked him out of the bucket truck and onto the ground 30 or 40 feet below. He lived. Hes 100% normal (doeesnt like wrestling) went on to own and run his own electrical business, put his kids through college and his son in law as well, all on electrical journeymen trades. They all worked for him tilhe shut that business down 2 years ago and retired. his kids didnt want to run it after they found out the work that went into it. I can remember him laying there in bed for months after, his wife pulling burned skin from his back with pliers while he screamed biting a wash clothe. It was prescribed at the time. This would of been about 1979 or so.It should of killed both of them, but didnt. Actually my buddy was dead, clinically, for a couple of minutes before they got a pulse and him breathing again after the CPR.

Are you guys replying to me or Dantek? I already know about this stuff. I'm an Electrical Engineer.