No smoke unless its coming from my ears (safety warning)
- Thread starter Daddy Tanuki
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Sverige
A Brit in Sweden
OzSolar
Whatever you did, that's what you planned.
A few times I've gotten a tingle when working on 48v batteries. Sweaty clothes and kneeling on concrete floors whilst landing wires on the battery was the situation. Since then I grab the floor mat out of my truck or use any sort insulator laying around to lay on concrete.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
was it lead acid? or lithium? (or some other chemistry??) I think the difference is in the ability of the battery to dump its power similar to a capacitor. the LiFePo4 batteries can dump power at insane rates. the CALB's I am using even though they are used units originally had the ability to dump at 600 amps for a 10 second pulse.... whats that equal for a millisecond? on a sweaty salty forearm? I have no clue, but that coupled with a full charge as all had been top balanced all of their voltages were at or above 58 volts all being freshly top balanced so I could add the new pack. needless to say it was enlightening.
now add 600 amps and multiply that by four. so 2400 amps at 58 volts. might be kind of scary. I ignored it and came out lucky with just a funky pinky finger. BTW my forearm is almost back to normal, so I have high hope for that pinky. (now I have to go back to sitting on my hand prior to servicing myself) Damn it.. the ups and downs of solar power systems.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
in this case it was forearm by the elbow to forearm by the wrist. so short and sweet.. or sweat
Hedges
I See Electromagnetic Fields!
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Capability of battery to deliver amps will have no influence on the shock you get. It is only voltage/body_resistance) that matters.
Whether inverter or charger is operating or not probably doesn't affect voltage much. It does cause high ripple current. It is possible there is a high frequency AC voltage riding on top of battery voltage, especially at inverter end of cables. AC vs. DC would affect body's impedance. I did find a reference indicating substantially lower impedance of blood or sea water at 8 kHz vs. DC.
Probably just a matter of how wet or dry the skin, and area & pressure of contact.
Whether inverter or charger is operating or not probably doesn't affect voltage much. It does cause high ripple current. It is possible there is a high frequency AC voltage riding on top of battery voltage, especially at inverter end of cables. AC vs. DC would affect body's impedance. I did find a reference indicating substantially lower impedance of blood or sea water at 8 kHz vs. DC.
Probably just a matter of how wet or dry the skin, and area & pressure of contact.
Sverige
A Brit in Sweden
Which is presumably why anyone touching a van de graaff generator dies instantly?
cs1234
Solar Wizard
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You would think they would regulate those things a bit better.
Hedges
I See Electromagnetic Fields!
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Never mind him, he was just mocking me
Which is why I replied, "It's the Source Impedance, Stupid!" (Or the Joules of stored energy; up to about 1 J or 10 J is considered not a human safety hazard.)
Vigo
Solar Addict
The other thing is just because you don't feel anything doesn't mean current isn't flowing, just that 'perceptible' current isn't flowing. Perceptible basically means it has to get into your nervous system, or has to make a bunch of heat. If you have current mostly flowing through dead skin cells on the surface of your hand, you very well may not feel anything. It's also likely that people's perception with electrical current varies as much as it does with 'pain' in general. There is at least one video of a guy being actively tasered in a test environment rather jerkily being able to grab the leads and rip them out of his skin over the course of a couple of seconds while remaining standing. Meanwhile someone else immediately goes down like a sack of a potatoes and cracks their skull on the curb and gives pause to the concept of 'non-lethal weapons'.
A guitar player might be better at the 'fingers across the terminals' thing than the rest of us just due to calluses. As long as noone's dying.. whatever!
A guitar player might be better at the 'fingers across the terminals' thing than the rest of us just due to calluses. As long as noone's dying.. whatever!
teal95
Solar Enthusiast
IIRC rule of thumb is that nerves grow 1" per year.
Vigo
Solar Addict
I'm going to regurtitate that in monotone the next time someone says something about 'not having the nerve'.
Nobodybusiness
Collecting the leftovers of the Great Sky Reactor.
Actually a very good video game also..Well here are my own "sins"
"Sins of a Solar Empire"
(Not promoting any game here, just thought of it as an apt title) Quite embarrassed to admit, but so far I have had: Accidentally shorted the positive and negative of one of my 12v batteries. Got sparks that jolted me back to my senses (pun intended). Luckily the battery seems to be fine...diysolarforum.com
sparrowhawk
Christian Prepper
Not a shocked by a battery story but:
Once upon a time when I was around 10 years old, a friend of mine acquired a used go cart. It didn't have the original centrifugal clutch and the one he had was to small to fit the motor so we had the bright idea to file down the motors shaft to fit the clutch.
To accomplish this we would take turns holding a file on the shaft while the other held the throttle open to rev up the engine. I was the first to hold the throttle open and while doing that my arm touched the top spark plug and in those days the plug wire didn't have a boot so I was indirect contact with whatever voltage was flowing to the plug.
From the moment of contact I was in some sort of dream state and wasn't fully aware of my surroundings. I don't know how long I was in contact with the plug, but do remember my friend pulling my hand off the throttle and me coming out of my electrically induced dream.
I didn't seem to have any ill effects at the time. I'm 60 now and for the last 20 years I have had all kinds of nerve related problems. I don't know if it's related but it wouldn't surprise me.
Once upon a time when I was around 10 years old, a friend of mine acquired a used go cart. It didn't have the original centrifugal clutch and the one he had was to small to fit the motor so we had the bright idea to file down the motors shaft to fit the clutch.
To accomplish this we would take turns holding a file on the shaft while the other held the throttle open to rev up the engine. I was the first to hold the throttle open and while doing that my arm touched the top spark plug and in those days the plug wire didn't have a boot so I was indirect contact with whatever voltage was flowing to the plug.
From the moment of contact I was in some sort of dream state and wasn't fully aware of my surroundings. I don't know how long I was in contact with the plug, but do remember my friend pulling my hand off the throttle and me coming out of my electrically induced dream.
I didn't seem to have any ill effects at the time. I'm 60 now and for the last 20 years I have had all kinds of nerve related problems. I don't know if it's related but it wouldn't surprise me.
I did the same thing when push starting a go-kart. My arm touched the top of the spark plug and got a few decent shocks before I pulled it away. Just felt like a very strong electric fence.
sparrowhawk
Christian Prepper
I never felt any shock just the dream state which was where all the fun is.
400bird
Solar Wizard
You may be on to something there. These guys all work on heavy equipment.
Hahaha, see above!…or the speech center of the brain having been burned away
Lithium, not lifepo4. But, smaller capacity. It's a power tool battery. Short circuit current shouldn't factor into how well it can pass current through anything. Current flow is volts/ohms. Current flow (amps) is the result.
chess-equality
Solar Enthusiast
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Bad donkey!
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