To you or I, that would be lost time. To Doug, its another column.

The risk scales up with the voltage. The higher the voltage, the more demands we place on insulators. Insulators break down over time, in ways that are not always obvious.

One thing for sure, it must really suck to be the iraqi government.

The current thru your body, sure. Which is determined by a combination of your bodies resistance and the voltage of the power supply, as long as the power supply can sustain the current, which a car charger certainly can.

You’re right in that the system can certainly be designed in a way that it wont electrocute anyone unless its damaged. However, your description of the required damage is a tad off. At high voltages you don’t need to lick the contacts, you don’t even need to touch them, just getting close is enough. The insulator…

Yes, the internal resistance of the power supply. The high voltage is only there as long as the terminals are open. You haven’t actually experienced it.

Tube TV’s have killed people in spectacular fassion who went messing with them without first discharging the capacitors.

Electric fences, and other low current high voltage capacitors can only produce that high voltage across an open gap. As soon as the ciruit closes, their internal resistance needs to be considered, and the output across the terminals drops way down.

Wasnt there some relationship between voltage and current they teach in laser engineering school. Some ohm guy had something to do with it.

Exactly. The only way high voltage doesn’t lead to high current is if the supply is unable to deliver it, in which case the voltage actually drops.

I was wondering who would get that reference. The internet never dissapoints.

A car charger is a high current source. It has to be.

Hey, no matter what the propulsion method, it take a great deal of power to accelerate a 3,000lbs car to highway speeds and keep it going to its destination, and no matter how you store that power, there is a danger that it will be released in an unintended way.

Good thing no people have ever been killed by the result of little nifty explosions of gasoline.

Funny story. For various scientific purposes, they make a 90V battery, of which we keep a few. At one point, some dumbass got curious, since he never heard of a 90V battery. He decided it had to be a typo, and of course checked his theory by touching it to his tongue. He lived, but said it felt like getting hit in the…

So lots of people objecting my not mentioning current (which I sort of did) but let me elaborate. Current is voltage divided by resistance. The resistance is determined by your body, which path the current takes thru it, and how resistive you happen to be on that particular day.

Generally yes, but gasoline will kill you slower. You have some time to react. Maybe not enough to save yourself, but you stand a chance. High voltage kills you almost instantly, and paralyzes your muscles while it does so. Once you’re shocked, you’re done for.

An idiots guide to voltages might be helpful. All these assumes a power supply capable of delivering continuous current, not some sort of scientificy sensor supplies.

Does the phone have rocket assisted rocket modules? If not, I really don’t see how its relevant.

I believe it also needs and extra set of landing gear, 16 carbon fiber beams, 3 perfectly round spheres arranged in a deltoid configuration, 13 organic honey dew melons, and a infinite number of pinguins with sunny desposition.