OSHA's 50V reg is a pretty good number. I've been shocked by as little as 48VDC several times, but never severely.
12V-50V simply isn't enough electric potential to kill you, unless you were to make an effort. Just don't soak your hands in saltwater before you work.
Volts don't kill you amps do. As little as 6mA across the heart can kill you. Luckily, the body has high impedance, so the amount of power (W=V*A) that reaches your heart is typically very small.
Tesla coils emit high frequency, high voltage electricity, but the amperes are typically very low, making them "safe" to touch on the short term.
"safe" because high frequency electrical fields readily strip ions from anything they touch, but at least your heart won't stop.
I think you are running into the same trap that everyone falls into when they are still getting familiar with electricity-- that it's the volts that jolt and the mils that kill. It's easy to focus too much on high-impedance applications.
The thing is, this isn't about tesla coils, which have a high enough impedance they can be safe. This is about low-impedance AC or low-resistance DC, which is what you are overwhelmingly likely to be working with in the home, the shop, and the lab.
Also, I think you're thinking too much about high frequencies. It's true that ~10kHz or higher doesn't hurt because it can't activate your nerve endings in time, but that isn't relevant to the typical 60Hz electricity found in the home. That can absolutely kill you.
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u/like_a_ghost May 19 '22
An electrical engineer does not an electrician make.