cable jointing business

[stuartR1963]

are you taking the mickey?

 

[EFLImpudence]

No.

 

[stuartR1963]

I'm sorry, Its difficult to tell on the internet. I guess there are always risks whatever job you decide to take. cheers

 

[EFLImpudence]

That's what I meant.

 

[Dave54]

I think a voltage even as small as 50v with enough current can kill you..

I believe it's on record that a 32V rural farm installation has proved fatal at least once, although it must have been a pretty rare set of circumstances for that to have happened (person up to his knees in mud, somehow wedged in contact for a long time, etc?).

But keep in mind that while low voltages don't generally pose an electric shock risk, if the source of the power has a low enough resistance, they can still pose other dangers from the amount of power which can be generated into a short. Years ago when I worked for BT I was shown a burned spot on the wooden floor directly below the main supply busbars. It was where somebody in the past had thought "It's only 50 volts" and had become careless, dropping something (I forget what I was told it was now - a screwdriver perhaps, or an offcut of bare conductor) across busbars connected to battery banks capable of delivering thousands of amps into a short-circuit. The result had been an almost instant blob of hot molten metal falling to the floor.

Even something like a 12V car battery can be dangerous in this respect because of the low internal resistance, as a few unfortunate people who have shorted rings on their fingers across one will attest.

The "lowest voltage death" I heard of was during a discussion at college years ago. Apparently a pre-WWII German standing barefoot in an electrolyte bath of some kind touched a busbar at the side and was killed. I think that it was was 24V but it's a long time ago.
Can't find anything online about it, and I remember at the time there was quite a discussion about why he would be stood in there barefoot.

As far as the live cable jointing thing is concerned, I'd leave that job to someone else I think.