Discharging CRT anode and capacitors on a VT52 DECscope

be really packing Hi There is quite enough energy in a normal 9 volt battery to kill a person. It might need a little conversion but the total amount of energy stored there is quite large. I would suspect that there is several times less energy in the large arc as in a 9 volt battery. The fact is, it is the current that kills. The voltage is only needed to induce the current. Once one has enough current across the heart, it makes little difference what the voltage source was, so long as the current is sustained long enough to do damage. Sure, you might also say that it is the total energy that the heart takes in a given period of time. Still, the voltage is relatively constant across the heart for any given current. One might say there are two stages. One where the current holds the heart long enough to kill and the other where the total energy/time is large enough to damage tissue. Still, dead is dead. As far as discharging CRT, the charge can come back after some time. There are surface charges in the glass that will tend to rebuild the charge after a simple discharge. Don't trust a CRT unless a clip is connected from the second anode to the conductive layer on the back. It ain't gonna kill you don't want it. Dwight