Electronic safety with watts/volts/amps

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There are typically 3 things when connecting a device to power:

1. wall outlet

2. extension cord/phone charger

3. device being charged or powered

Each has watts/volts/amps labeled. With W/V/A, how do I determine if a system is safe or unsafe?

In: Physics

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

If it is less than 50 volts, it is generally safe. If it is less than 10 milliamps is generally safe, though may produce a shock with high enough voltage.
Watts is just volts times current.

A wall outlet is ~120 Volts (240 in Europe) and can carry up to 15 amps of current (sometimes 20). An extension cord is just a wall outlet extension, exactly the same. a phone charger has an inverter in it which will drop the voltage down to less than 10 volts, a safe level. The device being charged by it is the same. The amperage going through the phone charger can be pretty high, but the voltage is low enough that it won’t be a danger to you unless the inverter at the plug fails. I’ve heard of cases where people have got an electrocuted by dropping their phone in a bathtub while it was charging.

So, the safest thing is to assume that any current carrying conductors is not safe and to treat it as such.

Edit: fixed breaker amprage

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