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Electric shock path of current

Newfutile

We all know not to touch a live (line) conductor, but how does the current flow to give an electric shock or perceived electric shock?

Conventional wisdom says its via resistance of the hands , skin and feet but we all wear thick rubber soles and could be on a carpet on a timber floor.

I have done test at 250v DC touching one probe while the other is connected to the MET the meter was unable to detect anything and i felt nothing but i would not try this with AC.

Therefore to me that leaves inductive and / or capacitive coupling.

Does anyone here have any explanation of this effect?

Parents
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    The first time that I got a belt was at the age of about eight. I reached up to turn on a bed-head lamp (the things that we had in the sixties!) but it had fallen off in the night, so I grasped bare wires. The shock must simply have gone through my hand, but it didn't half give me a turn!

    So now let's change a lamp fitting using aluminium step ladders, but forget to isolate the circuit. The fault circuit (as it were) is terminal, screwdriver, finger, body, shoes, ladder floor. OK, for this exercise we can have leather shoes rather than rubber ones, but it is a suspended timber floor. Or we can use wooden step ladders so now we have even more insulation. Surely, that must be comparable with Mike's upturned bucket!

    So perhaps the reality is that you get 2 mA, but I still don't really know how the circuit is completed.

    That said, a shock off a static electricity machine can give you quite a tingle.

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  • 0

    The first time that I got a belt was at the age of about eight. I reached up to turn on a bed-head lamp (the things that we had in the sixties!) but it had fallen off in the night, so I grasped bare wires. The shock must simply have gone through my hand, but it didn't half give me a turn!

    So now let's change a lamp fitting using aluminium step ladders, but forget to isolate the circuit. The fault circuit (as it were) is terminal, screwdriver, finger, body, shoes, ladder floor. OK, for this exercise we can have leather shoes rather than rubber ones, but it is a suspended timber floor. Or we can use wooden step ladders so now we have even more insulation. Surely, that must be comparable with Mike's upturned bucket!

    So perhaps the reality is that you get 2 mA, but I still don't really know how the circuit is completed.

    That said, a shock off a static electricity machine can give you quite a tingle.

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