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How to keep raccoons away - more about electricity than you wanted to know
"Adam Russell" wrote in
: "Snooze" wrote in message . com... "Adam Russell" wrote in message ... Evolution in action. He'll either learn what futility is, or he'll actually educate himself on electric fences and not subscribe to ignorant hysteria. I'll bet he's even touched his tongue to a battery as a child, but somehow he thinks that should have electrocuted him. I'm pretty sure it takes more than 9v to scare off a racoon. So how much voltage would you use that would do the job but not hurt the child? I know you can die from as little as 50v. Even less if you got imaginative. Don't let your kids wear wool socks on a low humidity day...imagine what would happen if they discovered they can shuffle around the house and zap each other with a few thousand volts. A typical static electricity shock is about 2000 - 4000 volts. Of course a amperage involved is so low, that aside from the surprise, no damage is done. Ever taken a weak 9v battery and tapped it against your tongue? A fresh battery hurts a little, but a weak one gives a little tingling sensation. A consumer grade electric fence is harmless, it will give a mild shock, but nothing dangerous. I couldn't find the specifications online, so guestimating, if an electric fence transformer draws 120v A/C @ 1 amp, the output would be 4000 v A/C at .03 amp. That's just a mild shocker, pretty safe..if it was D/C on the otherhand is a different story. You dont know much about electricity it appears. Static electricity is completely different from transformer electricity. When you get a shock from static electricity it is 2-4k for only an extreme fraction of a second. I dont remember how short exactly (1ms comes to mind), but it is the brevity that saves you. As it swiftly runs out of electrons the voltage falls to zero. Power out of your wall does not fall off. At all. That 120v will deliver 1mA or 15A depending on the resistance of what you are powering and only limited by your circuit breaker or fuse. If you were to put a penny in the fusebox it could deliver 1000's of amps with no problem except that the wires would get hot. So putting it through a transformer will not reduce the amperage available to any safe amount. 4000v will kill you, and it matters not whether it is DC or AC. As others have said, voltage doesn't kill, current does. If you want proof, go to a children's museum with a Van de Graf generator and observe as kid after kid cheats death at the expense of hairstyling. The Van de Graf Should be putting out least 10,000 V. That said, it exceeding more likely for current to force a path through your body as electric potential (voltage) increases. So for most intents and purposes high voltage will kill you, but it also requires sustained current running through your body, screwing with your normal electrical functions and overheating your cells. (The current does not have to be high at all.) Now don't go sticking your finger in a socket or something, thinking you'll be able to let go after a short time, because you won't. If anything, DC is "safer" than AC, but I believe this involves transmission losses that don't occur due the electric field generated by the oscillating alternating current. But the tranmission losses should be neglible at short distances and "safe" in this sense is not relevant. (Does AC make it more diffult to remove your hand from an outlet? That could be another reason, but I'm not too sure about it). Static electricity is a capacitive discharge (as is lightning and battery power). The only difference between that and electricity from an outlet is that there is nothing resupplying the capacitor and so the duration is short, depending on the size of the capacitor. (Just because you usually get DC power from batteries and AC power from an outlet doesn't mean they can't be the other way around. It wouldn't be efficient, but you could do it). Running electricity through a step-up transformer will step up the voltage at the expense of (I'm not sure I remember this correctly, but what else would it be?) current. (Inside a block transformer, you may also have a rectifier that converts AC to DC). You will also have current losses from the conversion and needless to say, just because you are on a 15A line, it doesn't mean the device or transformer will draw the full 15A. The input and output ratings should be printed on the transformer block. All other things being equal, the calculation above is still missing a sqrt(2) since the source is AC (in addition to conversion losses which I am guess could be 30%.) The term "transformer electricity" should probably be reserved for Autobots and Decepticons. [rec.gardens] |
#2
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How to keep raccoons away - more about electricity than you wanted to know
Salty Thumb wrote in message .. .
"Adam Russell" wrote in : "Snooze" wrote in message . com... "Adam Russell" wrote in message ... Evolution in action. He'll either learn what futility is, or he'll actually educate himself on electric fences and not subscribe to ignorant hysteria. I'll bet he's even touched his tongue to a battery as a child, but somehow he thinks that should have electrocuted him. I'm pretty sure it takes more than 9v to scare off a racoon. So how much voltage would you use that would do the job but not hurt the child? I know you can die from as little as 50v. Even less if you got imaginative. Don't let your kids wear wool socks on a low humidity day...imagine what would happen if they discovered they can shuffle around the house and zap each other with a few thousand volts. A typical static electricity shock is about 2000 - 4000 volts. Of course a amperage involved is so low, that aside from the surprise, no damage is done. Ever taken a weak 9v battery and tapped it against your tongue? A fresh battery hurts a little, but a weak one gives a little tingling sensation. A consumer grade electric fence is harmless, it will give a mild shock, but nothing dangerous. I couldn't find the specifications online, so guestimating, if an electric fence transformer draws 120v A/C @ 1 amp, the output would be 4000 v A/C at .03 amp. That's just a mild shocker, pretty safe..if it was D/C on the otherhand is a different story. You dont know much about electricity it appears. Static electricity is completely different from transformer electricity. When you get a shock from static electricity it is 2-4k for only an extreme fraction of a second. I dont remember how short exactly (1ms comes to mind), but it is the brevity that saves you. As it swiftly runs out of electrons the voltage falls to zero. Power out of your wall does not fall off. At all. That 120v will deliver 1mA or 15A depending on the resistance of what you are powering and only limited by your circuit breaker or fuse. If you were to put a penny in the fusebox it could deliver 1000's of amps with no problem except that the wires would get hot. So putting it through a transformer will not reduce the amperage available to any safe amount. 4000v will kill you, and it matters not whether it is DC or AC. As others have said, voltage doesn't kill, current does. If you want proof, go to a children's museum with a Van de Graf generator and observe as kid after kid cheats death at the expense of hairstyling. The Van de Graf Should be putting out least 10,000 V. That said, it exceeding more likely for current to force a path through your body as electric potential (voltage) increases. So for most intents and purposes high voltage will kill you, but it also requires sustained current running through your body, screwing with your normal electrical functions and overheating your cells. (The current does not have to be high at all.) Now don't go sticking your finger in a socket or something, thinking you'll be able to let go after a short time, because you won't. If anything, DC is "safer" than AC, but I believe this involves transmission losses that don't occur due the electric field generated by the oscillating alternating current. But the tranmission losses should be neglible at short distances and "safe" in this sense is not relevant. (Does AC make it more diffult to remove your hand from an outlet? That could be another reason, but I'm not too sure about it). Static electricity is a capacitive discharge (as is lightning and battery power). The only difference between that and electricity from an outlet is that there is nothing resupplying the capacitor and so the duration is short, depending on the size of the capacitor. (Just because you usually get DC power from batteries and AC power from an outlet doesn't mean they can't be the other way around. It wouldn't be efficient, but you could do it). Running electricity through a step-up transformer will step up the voltage at the expense of (I'm not sure I remember this correctly, but what else would it be?) current. (Inside a block transformer, you may also have a rectifier that converts AC to DC). You will also have current losses from the conversion and needless to say, just because you are on a 15A line, it doesn't mean the device or transformer will draw the full 15A. The input and output ratings should be printed on the transformer block. All other things being equal, the calculation above is still missing a sqrt(2) since the source is AC (in addition to conversion losses which I am guess could be 30%.) The term "transformer electricity" should probably be reserved for Autobots and Decepticons. [rec.gardens] GOTHE CHEAPY WAY Go down to Walmart and buy yourself a few bucks worth of MOTH BALLS, yes Moth Balls. and scatter them around and all your animals will stay clear until they all evaporate in about a month then scatterer some more. If you have youngsters they might think they are candy so take that in mind. Jack |
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