Electrical Dumbass-Check

[willskyfall]

I have a safety question for the electronically-minded among you; I dearly want to go through with a particular test (as I'm hungry for knowledge of the world), but I have a strong suspicion that I might set a multimeter on fire in the process.

Comments

[ywalme]

Well, at this point we're at the level of me googling the answers to your questions, which you can do as well as I can :) but the short answer is that the resistance your body provides can vary wildly (for instance, simply sweating can cut it down an order of magnitude or two, as Julie mentioned, and I don't recall you being in the habit of wearing rings made out of conducting metals, but if they happen to be the contact point, that can also be quite hazardous).

As for whether that's enough to cut down the current, Wikipedia et al claim that 100-300 mA is enough to induce ventricular fibrillation, so you can do your own math there if you check the resistance of your own skin (assuming your multimeter has an ohmmeter on). :) Based on Julie's data and what I seem to recall learning, I'd guess you're probably safe, but then again I've seen other sources quoting much lower resistances. Who knows.

(Anecdotally, and somewhat unrelatedly, my boss the former EE did once in grad school nearly electrocute himself with a mere 40 V. The moral of the story, as I recall, is not to believe that two wall outlets have the same ground.)