I’ve played around with a power supplies in the past and each one seems to have a safety feature preventing electrocution even when touching something which has a current running through it. How does this work? How does the power supply know that’s it’s touching skin as opposed to another conductive material.
In: 1
With DC if your body’s resistance is much much higher than the device it’s trying to power then very little current will actually go through your body. This is especially true for something like a 12V power supply. The amount of power being sent out is just too small to affect your body.
That does NOT mean you should go around touching electric circuits. But DC is safer in this regard as opposed to AC because in general your body isn’t going to be as good at conducting electricity as the wire.
This is NOT true for AC circuits. AC circuits are dangerous at almost any voltage and power level because we don’t measure resistance in the same way as we do in DC. It turns out that with AC your body can act as a capacitor or an inductor and carry current and power through your body pretty easily.
Latest Answers