Which is more danger, AC or DC?

It will kill you both, sooner or later.
Therefore I choose AC/DC & thunder :)
Guitar solo: dilidit, dilidit...
Sorry, could not resist.
 
C
I met a couple of candidates. When I was teaching electronics, there were a couple of err, students on the back bench amusing themselves by seeing who could hang on the longest while the other turned up the power supply. That was the last day in my class for both. I saw their future in the trade being quite limited anyway.

Regards
cww
 
P

Process Value

AC/DC

well , i should get this off my mind, I was wrong to suggest that DC was more dangerous than AC. I spent a good part of the last 5 days on this and i got nothing substantial. It is quite a shame that i believed this myth for my 4 years of engineering education and two and a half years of power plant

comissioning and maintenence.

Bob, skin effect is the nature of AC current to have a greater density at the surface the conductor than at the middle. during the electic shock with AC it

was my belief that the current passes through the outer surface (the skin of the human body , which is primarly responsible for the body impedence). The fact was compounded by the fact that i have seen electrical injuries caused by shock and in two to threee patients , they all have one common malady ; burnt and peeled off skin. This compounded my faith in the fact that the bulk of the electricity passes through the skin. Now i came to know that ( from my friend doing Phd in biomedical) the skin has the highest impedance in the body and due to the higher resistance when exposed to electrical shock dissipates more heat thus causing desientegration of skin.

As the frequency increases the impedance of the skin increases but for a comparison between o hz DC and 50 Hz AC it is negligible and it is also dependent

on the path of the current.

My apologies to anyone who would have mislead by this post. Hope my other good posts will not be tarnished by this bad one. From now on i will post posts which are verifiable in their correctness.
 
>Which is more useful -- sugar or salt?

Salt was a primary food preservative throughout human history, and a ubiquitous reagent in many, many chemical processes.

Sugar gives you a a shallow burst of energy and tooth decay.
 
> Can any one tell me which is more danger: AC or DC?

Current kills and arc flash maims/kills more. Search for Professor C.F. Dalziel and find out what the research say.

In my opinion, 115, 220, 240 VAC home voltage is the most dangerous because too many unqualified people attempt to work with it. It is sort of like home water heaters or more dangerous than super critical boilers.
 
For me what is more danger and can kill with one touch 380 volt, means 2 phase line when you make contact between them with your finger 90 percent you will die if not you will loose it! so my answer is of course ALTERNATING CURRENT.
 
>Can any one tell me which is more
>danger: AC or DC?

Lethality wise, they are equivalent. It is a factor of how much current is delivered through the body over a period of time.

A 100,000V shock delivering 1 mA of current for a brief period of time is most likely harmless (e.g. Van de Graaff generator). On the other hand, a 100V shock delivering 5 A would likely be fatal, causing burns and cardiac arrest.

Speaking purely of danger, AC is more likely to deliver a shock than DC because the alternating current causes dielectric breakdown of insulating material to occur at lower voltages than DC.

If you choose to work with power sources that are capable of supplying large amounts of current, even as low as 30V, make sure to use proper safety equipment. Voltages at this range and above have the potential to use the human body as a current path.
 
Good answers. Dead is dead. I have been shocked by both and all is a bad experience. Building equipment that can electrocute someone is irresponsible and liable. Work on equipment with one hand in your pocket. Always, and very carefully, assess every situation, everytime, moment to moment before you touch anything that may kill you from high voltage. Electrocution is instantaneous with no warning and AC or DC, one is as deadly as the other -
 
Real experience with750 VDC - When I was 20 years old (I’m 62 now) I was working on an old Heathkit Apache AM transmitter. I had recently changed out the modulation transformer with one from an ART-13 WWII transmitter. This (new) modulation transformer had the high voltage leads on the side through ceramic insulators. In the process of working on it, I had to set it up on its side. It was off but still plugged in to the wall. As I sat it up on its left side I accidentally flipped the unit on as it brushed by my belly and I sat the high voltage connections of the modulation transformer down on my left wrist just below my thumb. That was a really really bad experience. 42 years later I remember it well and still have the scar to remind me. Pain is horrible - the smell of my burning flesh was just as bad and my body was in a painful knot like I have never known before or since - Thank God. My mouth tasted like I had been chewing aluminum foil. It was truly a horrible experience. I am very lucky to be alive and not have suffered any permanent damage (although my wife may be able to point out some remaining anomalies in me…)
 
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David said:

> I had recently changed out the modulation transformer with one from
> an ART-13 WWII transmitter.

David....

I am in the process of putting an ART-13 mod tranny in my Apache. Would you please e-mail me and tell me the results you obtained when you did this.

Thank you.

Phil C. Sr.
k4dpk e-mail k4dpk at comcast dot net
 
J
> Can any one tell me which is more danger: AC or DC?

AC is more dangerous because your hand can get stuck to it because it cuts off the communication to your brain to tell your hand to let go of the wire. unlike DC were you touch it you will immediately let go. because of the alternating current that is why the AC is more deadly
 
J

James Ingraham

What worries me about Jacob's answer is that it doesn't seem to take in to account the 50 other replies. His response actually seems reversed from the conventional wisdom, but the conventional wisdom is wrong to begin with. I'm particularly fond of "Process Value's" mea culpa on March 11, 2011. It takes a big man to publicly admit that something you've taken for granted for years is wrong.

What the data shows me is that there is no "more dangerous" between the two. Both can kill you, even down to 50 volts. The 110V 60Hz / 220VAC 50Hz standard powers are more than enough to kill you. Since these are basically the minimums in the industrial world, assume any live circuit has the ability to kill you. Much like how you assume every gun is loaded, always assume a circuit is live. (It figures the Texan would bring a gun analogy into it.)

Stay safe out there, everyone.

-James Ingraham
Sage Automation, Inc.
 
J
Well said James and I fully agree with you: Depending on the conditions, almost anything above 50V can be lethal!

And you analogy is perfect: assume the gun is always loaded and assume that any electrical circuit is live!
 
Hi,

Your friendly local moderator here.

I believe it is time to close this topic. I think all that needs to be said on either side of the argument has been said.

Regards,
Peg Ferraro, Control.com moderator
 
Not being a doctor I cannot add a professional fact. My experience is that for some reason DC seems to not run through human skin as easily as AC. I have felt 12 volts dc when my skin was wet. Edison electrocuted an elephant in Central Park NY to illustrate the danger of AC. The current war was over by that time. If we had went DC for our grid everyone who used a compass would get lost.

>When electricity was in its infancy there was a battle
>between Edison and Westinghouse as to which would be the
>standard, AC-Edison or DC-Westinghouse. Since the electric
>chair was becoming the preferred method of executing people
>and the electric chair used AC, Westinghouse used that as a
>campaign against Edison to show people the killing power of
>AC. Of course as we all know today, AC became the standard
>in all of our houses today.
 
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