It also makes a difference how well grounded the person touching the fence is. If you’re on dry ground, wearing rubber-soled shoes, etc, anything that partially insulates you the shock will be much less. Quite often, the people that show off with hot wires take advantage of this fact.
Had a similar situation once, with a table saw that as it turned out had a bare wire touching the motor frame. I turned the saw on and got a nasty jolt. Mentioned it (loudly) to the owner of the shop who was nearby. He turned it on, ran a board through it, no problem. I think he thought I was hallucinating. I noticed he was wearing rubber wellington-type boots, told him to touch the saw table again, then grabbed his hand (I was wearing street shoes and was well-grounded). We both jumped that time and he stopped doubting me.
SS
I have doubts about this; does this mean that holding a 1.5 volt battery (or perhaps 9 volts, easier to apply) can be harmful, burning in the way hydrofluoric acid burns; not physically burning but by damaging cells, so I hold a battery for a while and the next day I have areas of dead tissue? Plant sap also has a much higher resistance* than human flesh due to much less sodium (see Snnipe 70E’s post about using grass to test an electric fence without being shocked).
*According to this PDF, it is in the 100s of kilohms to megohm range for maize leaves (less lengthwise due to the structure), and paradoxically decreases as the leaf drys up (until it completely drys). Current also mainly flows outside the cells, through the apoplast. At 100 k ohms, you need 5 kV to deliver 50 mA and at this point power is 250 watts, so they are literally fried (much lower voltages will also do it, but due to physical heat damage).
I dreaded killing my uncle’s heavy brush mower. The kill switch was a metal tab that shorted out the spark plug. You had to press it firmly and quickly against the spark plug to avoid a shock. I had a habit of pressing and backing off with it and got shocked. Not fun.
We had a electric wire to keep the cows away from the chicken house. Had to swing your leg over it to cross. Got my crotch zapped a few times. Never on purpose.
A few months ago my spare lawnmower refused to shut off so I installed a metal tab just as you describe to short out the plug. Works and fortunately only a tickle.
I’ve touched (accidentally) the electric fence surrounding the horses where my daughter rides and its no small shock! No way would I ever touch that thing on purpose.
This sounds fun. There’s a medium security correctional facility around here with an electric fence around some of its outlying yards. I think I’ll go touch them.
I once read a wildly hilarious story about “testing an electric fence with a cat.” Virtually every professional comedian could have benefited from lessons from that author.
When I was nine years old, my brother and cousins thought is would be funny to tell me that the electric cattle fence was turned off and that I could hold the fence and go safely through the fence into the pasture. It was not off, and they knew it. I was continuously shocked for several minutes, I could not break away from the charge, they were laughing hysterically, while this massive voltage was going thru my body, Then someone had to walk up to the building to shut off the power. They did this to me twice. The third time they tried to do it again, I refused, my sadistic brother told me they would hold the fence apart so I could go thru, he was holding a saw with a wooden handle, so after I made it thru the fence, he touched me with the metal part of the saw, it immediately slammed me to the ground. I feel that a lot of my health problems are effects of these shocks. The research I have found says it may have been between 3000 and 7000 volts of electricity. So not funny, I don’t understand how people can get a laugh out of injuring someone in this way. I would like to find a Doctor who can help me find out if these electric shocks are the source of my chronic pain and other health issues. I have not been able to do internet searches with any success.
That was way beyond a simple prank Reejody and you are right to use the word sadistic. Thats the thing about kids, they can’t always judge when to stop. My sympathies.
Electric fences operate at high voltages but low amps with a mico-second pulse and than a gap. A shock isn’t usually harmful because if it was, the fences would disappear. Animals aren’t stupid - one crack through a curious nose and that’s enough for them.
It is possible to bear the shock cycles if you grip the wire hard because the shock becomes muted.
My high school science teacher, Mr Hugdahl, had a hand-cranked generator that looked like it was made for school demontrations. He would have all the students hold hands in a long chain, and crank the machine faster and faster, laughing like hell, and said the first kid who let go would get an F for the day. That was his second favorite day of the school year. His favorite was he day we worked with H2S in the chem lab, and he’d keep the door open to smell up the halls, so kids in other classrooms would be hit by the smell as soon as the bell rang and they opened the doors and hit the corridors, and he’d stand out in the halll to savor the experience.
Hell, I’ve been a city boy for all of my 47 years, and I still can’t resist an electric fence whenever I come across one. How else are you going to know for sure if it’s turned on, if you don’t check it yourself?
It was entertaining watching cows run into the electric fence when it was installed, but I never purposely touched it. It hurt less than, say, getting kicked in the groin by a cow. That’s not saying much, though.