Can you be electrocuted?

[Taipan]

Big helis are starting to pack some serious power. Will their lipos ever or are powerful enough to kill someone?

Makes me wary about handling these packs. Read somewhere not to wear rings when soldering connectors on as with big packs if they short across a ring can take your finger off easy!

[Pinecone]

They already are, of course not the ones we use. You can stick 100 lipo cells in series, get 370 volts DC and really cause some damage.

But figure, high voltage packs are in the 40 volt range right now, not that big of a deal.

And yes, shorting across a ring can do serious damage. But most accidents like that have happened with car batteries, which are only 12 volts.

[fllyer]

The amount of volts doesn't matter.

It would take only several MiliAmps across the heart to kill someone. I don't remember what the mA level was mentioned in my AC/DC class, but the lowest amount I have heard of is 6 mA. :WOW

[HeliDan]

6mA through the heart is all that is necessary to kill you. And the voltage is what is required to jump (or arc) through your skin resistance.
You can be killed by a car battery, or a LiPo, if you stick needles in your fingers and then touch the battery terminals of a car battery or a LiPo.
You are more likely to be burned by the heat generated by shorted the battery or by the explosion if you short the battery.

Just be careful and all will be well. ALWAYS treat electricity with respect and you should be fine. :D

[Pinecone]

Think about it, they use 300 or so watts to jump start a heart. LOTS of resistance to skin.

[spork]

We have plenty of capacity, even plenty of power, but our voltages are very low. Due to the high resistance of the skin, it'd be pretty hard to get any meaningful current through us from our batteries.

Our batteries could take people down all day long if we stepped up their voltage through a coil or other means.

[BarracudaHockey]

Defibrilators measure the shot in joules. Internal paddles used directly on the heart when the chest is cracked use much lower settings as there's no resistence.

[spork]

Defibrilators measure the shot in joules. Internal paddles used directly on the heart when the chest is cracked use much lower settings as there's no resistence.

Yes, the charge is measured in joules (energy), but the required voltage is quite a bit higher than our packs. Our packs have plenty of energy (joules) to kill you, but not enough voltage without stepping it up with a coil or equivalent.

Inside the chest has MUCH lower resistance, but not zero (which is what I assume you mean).

[PDC]

Look also at this thread

http://www.helifreak.com/viewtopic.php?t=9204&highlight=schools

One thing is hi voltage, an other thing is hi Amps.

With the big batteries you have Amps and watts enough to melt your gold ring in a second, but you don´t have voltage enough to kill a normal person.
That´s another good reason to sell your wedding ring and buy some ferrite rings instead :?


In Denmark we talked about where the limit is as well, but as far as I remember I don´t think we came to any conclusion.

You can buy EU approved chargers there can charge to more than 42V, you can have 220V in your kids room, etc. Guess the sky is the limit as long as you are a private person and it is something you do as your hobby at own risk. Guess the regulations counts for homemade installations in your house etc.

In the Danish schools the limit for DC is 60V at the tables in the physics room, and the "low voltage regulations" first starts at 75V in Denmark, guess that could be the case for many other European countries as well.

In my heli´s the limit will be the esc. :-).

[John Fox]

Just don't check the batteries by the "stick it to your toung"method!
Don't ask how i know. :mrgreen: