Current running through headphone cord?

Could someone please enlighten me as to whether or not there is a current of any strength passing through the cord of a set of ordinary stereo headphones.

/very curious...

Reply to
gigajosh
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of course there is, it is electricity after all. As to the amount it is very low I do not know what the exact value is. I sure would not sit in a bathtub and wear them. I am a bit paranoid about electricity and water. I will not even swim in a pool with the light on.

Just for fyi all values in milliamperes

1 threshold of sensation 2 mild shock 5 gfci will trip 10 can not let go 20 muscle contraction 30 suffocation possible 100 heart stops beating 300 severe burns/ breathing stops 1000 will light a 100 watt lightbulb

Just my view from the cheap seats

Reply to
SQLit

Minimal strength. Consumer phones are generally rated to handle

0.1 watt or less (pro audio are often rated at 0.5 to 1.0 watt) and that's at burnout - listening is a lot less. Assuming a 10 ohm headphone speaker (they range from 8 ohms to a hundred ohms or more) 1 volt into 10 ohms would result in 0.1 amps and 0.1 watts (per side) at maximum rated current. Higher impedence headphones will have even lower currents.
Reply to
Guy Macon

I wouldn't worry about sitting in the tub and listening to headphones from a battery powered portable CD player or radio! Most run off of two AA cells, and 3V isn't going to do squat to you! If your radio/player plugs into the wall, well then that's another story...

It's the current that kills you, but it takes a good amount of voltage to get it through you!

Just my $0.02!

Paul

SQLit wrote:

Reply to
pkh

Dry skin = high resistance = low current.

But wet skin = low resistance = high current. Also large surface area implies lower resistance. I recall a story from my college physics prof about an electrocution involving salt water and a single dry cell.

Reply to
Caleb Hess

Wet skin will be lower resistance, but still not enough to make a 3V dangerous. Your physics prof was having some fun with you ;) . Salt water has higher conductivity than pure water, but now the dominant current path is through the salt water, not you.

Wet your hand and put some ohm-meter probes on it an inch apart and measure the resistance... I=V/R... how much current will that 3V put through you??? And this is just a 1 inch section of the skin on your hand, to be lethal, the current path must travel through your chest cavity... hop in the tub and grab an ohm-meter probe with each hand and see what your resistance is... (well, that's a pain to try, but it should more than an order of magnitude higher than the single hand test).

BTW, my tried and true method for testing a 9V battery is to put my tongue on the terminals... :) if it's a little painful, it's got some life left in it, if it just tingles a little, it's spent! Now if my tongue were only long enough to test my car battery... ;) .

Regards,

Paul

Caleb Hess wrote:

Reply to
pkh

Try putting each hand in a seperate bucket of salt water at different potentials. Believe it or not, people used to do this on purpose; There is a scene showing it in the movie _The Road To Wellville_.

..then you could join the rock band KISS...

Reply to
Guy Macon

Be careful Guy! Somebody will some day attach a headphone jack to one of the old ac/dc radios on which the chassis is connected to one side of the line. Given that most of these radios have non-polarized cord sets, the consequences could be lethal. This hazard is of course not limited to ac/dc radios, since many older transformer operated radios have capacitors connected between each side of the line and chassis ground.

Most of us over the age of 50 can recall being shocked by simply touching some of these products. Many younger readers have not yet shared that "enlightening" experience! :-)

Harry C.

Reply to
Harry Conover

For you old AA5 and AA6 fans here is an interesting web site. That was still the best AM radio they ever made, particularly if you swapped out the detector tube. We used to listen to stations all over the country at night. Now days, with these transistor radios, it is hard to get the station at the end of the road.

Reply to
Gfretwell

Point well taken. My comment relate to headphone jacks already installed on audio equipment. If you wire in your own jack, it's up to you to make it so it won't kill you.

I am well under 50, but I have repaired radios from the 1930s. It sure surprised me the first time I discovered that some of the speakers use electromagnets instead of permanent magnets, and that the electromagnet has a fairly hefty voltage on it!

Reply to
Guy Macon

The high quality radio is back! See [

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Reply to
Guy Macon

I've seen an old (1920s) electrician's handbook that describes tasting as a standard way to test for live low-voltage circuits. For 120V and

240V power, they describe something I've seen (and cringed at), namely checking for voltage by licking two fingertips (on the same hand!) and putting them on the terminals. The book mentions that some men* find the shock from doing this at 240V to be too much for them. And if they're standing in a puddle while they're doing this ... *At that time, they didn't even consider the possibility that an electrician could be a woman. 73, JohnW
Reply to
John Wilson

So true! I recall reaching across the desk where I caught two chassis's, both on unpolarized plugs, and only one with a grounded neutral. I made up the difference...that would be 110vac back then!....Ross

Reply to
Ross Mac

Guy is right here!....These guys at C Crane make a fabulous radio...I live in the mountains and can pick up distant signals that even the radio in the Cadillac cannot get!....Ross

Reply to
Ross Mac

It guts even better with the Justice AM Antenna [

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Reply to
Guy Macon

Correct again!....I have that select a tenna too....great device.... Living in a narrow valley with 200 foot redwoods does not lend itself to good reception, but this C Crane stuff is fantastic! ...........Ross

Reply to
Ross Mac

That does seem to be a reasonable assumption though, right?

Do you know any women _*dumb*_ enough to do that?

Reply to
Floyd Davidson

Dunno, I see a lot of them around work. The pay is reasonable and they have to feed kids too.

Reply to
Keith R. Williams

But they aren't sticking their fingers into light sockets.

That, ahem, is a *man's* job!

Reply to
Floyd Davidson

Oh, I thought you meant dumb enough to be an electrician.

I see the "dumb enough" part. Hell, I'm not *that* dumb. My father (a power engineer and Prof) tested fuses this way. He told a story of one female student in the 50s who used both hands - once.

Reply to
Keith R. Williams

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