Can a 12V car battery kill you

[billyo]

Is it possible to get a lethal electric shock from a 12V car battery?

Was chatting with a friend the other day and he said he'd heard of a guy who had been electrocuted and killed whilst working on a car.

Both of us have held a car battery and touched the terminals but didn't even register a shock or jolt?

 

[Fabia17]

Seriously injured, burns, acid burns if it explodes are just the minor things.

Do not try this under any circumstances.

But should you accidentally short the terminals of a 12v battery it will give off some serious heat, and sparking. A shorted 12v battery will dump several hundred amps in one blow, which is technically enough to kill, but you have to be extremely unlucky to have an event where the perfect situation arrose.

24V battery set up... Will definitely kill you. In fact I knew a hgv mechanic who lost a ring finger... He accidentally shorted a set of truck batteries with his wedding ring and a spanner, the proceeding electrical blast destroyed one of the batteries, covered everything within 8ft in hot battery acid, it welded the spanner to one of the terminals and blew his finger clean off....

Do not mess with vehicle electrics unless you have good knowledge.

Today's vehicles are even more dangerous with super high voltage ignition coils, and now hybrid and electric vehicles whoes batteries run at 300v plus..

Please, always disconnect the battery when working on the vehicle....

 

[obi_waynne]

12V is pretty low and your skins resistance will protect you so it's very unlikely a shock will kill you.

However the HT (high tension) circuits that drive the spark plugs certainly can kill, thankfully most cars now have coilpacks which step up the current at the plugs which helps reduce the risk but you must be careful.

Also components which use capacitors can store up very high voltages, I'm thinking of the power caps used in woofers and amp circuits.

As @Fabia17 says, electric cars are a whole different story and can do you a lot of damage if you go beyond the safety housings, and fuses and start poking about in there.