New Classic Finds and etc. (Long)

From: Gordon JC Pearce <gordonjcp_at_gjcp.net>
Date: Mon Jan 26 07:09:50 2004

On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 09:49, Lyos Norezel wrote:
>
> You know that it's the current of the electricity is what will kill you right? You could have thousands of volts running through your body and still live. How is this possible, you might ask? Well if the the current (power) is below .5 mA then it should not cause a problem. Ask any electricity teacher "At what point will electricity kill a human being?" and their response will be something along the lines of "Anything at or above .5 mA will (more than likely) kill a human being." Of course there have been cases that said otherwise but this is the majority case. Same thing applies to delicate electronics... apply more amps then it's rated to handle and it's fried. Just last week I fried a 2.4GHz wireless phone by applying a power supply that had exactly the rated voltge but was 1A instead of the required 800mA. I smelled smoke not long after plugging it in. All this in a unit that worked properly with the right PSU just 2 weeks before... the original PSU being lost. Need I sa!
> y any
> more? Current is everything... voltage is nothing.

Sorry, that's just nonsense. I've used a variable-voltage bench PSU for
powering everything from ZX81s to wireless APs to laptops to homebrewed
contraptions for the best part of 20 years (since I started getting
involved in electronics). I've never had a problem with a PSU supplying
too much current.

If the maximum current output is an issue, then the load must be pulling
down the output voltage of the PSU, generally a bad thing.

Gordon.
Received on Mon Jan 26 2004 - 07:09:50 GMT