Electrical Safe Tea

You are assuming a conductive skin, maybe OK for Tesla coil type high frequency AC voltages. The current path will be through blood and other bodily fluids.

Perhaps you can measure, with a low, safe voltage, current entering the hands and that passing from one hand to the other with your contraption.

Please do report back with your findings, however I suspect once current enters the body little will come back out through skin and be bypassed by your wigget.

BICBW

What you need is what this guy wears! I doubt it take much current though:

On Sun, 1 Oct 2017 11:27:51 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom coalesced the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension...

Ah, "Safe Tea" was a play on words was it?

I visualised having to hold a mug of tea in one hand while I prodded about with the other.

I remember being taught that eating or drinking whilst sustaining a shock put you in danger of choking to death, not advice I have heeded to any great extent.

"Contraption" indeed! Hardly a contraption by any definition.

Must admit I hadn't considered skin resistance as you and newsy mentioned. HOWEVER I do have some conductive electrode lube I've not had cause to use for a different project I was working on. Be interesting to try your test with and without the lube; it might just make that critical difference.

This is the powerline work I like:

Presumably those two cables are at the same potential and *in* phase WRT each other or that suit is going to burn up in a heartbeat!

Can't imagine it would help here;

Or here;

You really need a couple of these joined together (and earthed?).

I see where you're coming from here, but gloves like that rob you of the sensitivity you need for much investigative troubleshooting. And yes, they will need to be earthed *if* you're not using an isolation transformer to power up the DUT.

It was a suggestion half made in jest. But one thing they would stop - which wrist bracelets would not - are arc burns down unprotected skin. These are absolute buggers to heal, as the underlying tissue is superheated and killed.

Many people only consider the shock problem, but the burn can be a serious issue:

I did refine the concept following a bit of feedback from early in the thread. Electrode lube will improve conductivity and reduce any skin burning. And burning takes time, even if only a little time. So a worthwhile addition would be something to instantly cut the power in the event of the detection of a fault current. Something easily re-settable perhaps (if you're planning on making a habit of getting electrocuted).

Yeah, but better burned than killed.

I haven't seen any products in Ann Summers marked as VDE tested :-)

Owain

I would have though that for added safety you would need to ground your connecting wire so it removes the resistance of one wrist and set of fingers , a wire dragging around is almost bound to snag on something sometime and pull a hand onto something live that if it were free would have stayed clear so it doesn't actually sound that practical. better not to allow any current through in the first place and wear insulating gloves.

G.Harman

Nerve hit?

Except getting any conductive lube on one's hand mights create a greater risk of conduction into your arms.

Perhaps spikes penetrating the skin on wrists? :-)

What might be an idea is to measure voltage across shoulders and pass an equal and opposite current through the wrists?

You just have to remember to take electrodes off in the right order!

He did say it had fire-resistant fibres, so I guess even if you didn't survive the suit would.

I understand those cables carry an awful lot of current. Bundles are commonly used for improved cooling and are easier to handle.

Not when you eventually die from your internal burns.

Some survive the initial shock/burn and then go onto die later.

I would think that the very last thing you would want to be putting in a high voltage cabinet would be an earthed metal object. You want personal electrical insulation, flash protection and burn protection. But, above all, a very clear idea what you want to touch and what you don't want to touch. And if you are measuring anything as opposed to just turning it on or off then test prods on long insulated holders. One at a time fixed in place. And turning things on and off is probably best done with a long insulated thing.

Main rule I would follow is don't go near them unless you have to and have a very clear idea what you are going to do and which bit is which. It it gets to the stage of trying to divert a high voltage from one hand to the other via an alternative path then you have already lost; and you certainly don't want it to be a low resistance path.

Yes, you would need to ensure the goo remains on the electrodes only.

Not quite sure what you're suggesting here, but if it's what I think, it won't help because in the actual application I have in mind (working on live switching power supplies) there are all sorts of voltages up to about 800V present, all capable of supplying enough mills to kill. I think my idea merits further investigation, so I'll do the testing you suggested in an earlier post when time permits.

I think that scenario typically occurs with extremely high voltage power lines or prolonged 'low' voltage shocks (such as when you can't let go of mains live wire due to muscle paralysis).