I understand basically that the current, or amps, are what cause harm, but based on Ohm’s law, V=IR, for the amps to be so low with such high voltage, the resistance must be very high. So why do you need such a high voltage in the first place? Wouldn’t that require a transformer to step up the voltage? And doesn’t such a high voltage create a safety risk, for instance if a conductor with lower resistance came into contact with the voltage source? If you want low amps as not to electrocute animals/people, would it not be easier to use lower voltage?
Just curious and trying to understand. Electricity is like magic to me.
In: Physics
It’s all to do with the length of the cable. Resistance is proportional to the length of the wire being used, so if you have a long cable like an electric fence the voltage needs to be high enough to overcome the resistance due to length for any sort of current to flow. Most consumer electronics are far too short to really worry about this, but in the case of an electric fence you do have to.
Yeah if you made the cable shorter you would run into arcing issues so you’d lower the voltage to compensate.
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