The Ready Welder is a potent machine. It will work off of two car batteries just as well as the low voltage circuit of a mig. So twenty four volts will do just fine for some things under certain situations. (Look up "Ready Welder" you will be impressed)
I do one ten work hot, nervous as a cat with two tails crossing the floor when a tango is playing, but have never got more than a tickle from it. I've done two twenty hot, but only when there wasn't another option immediately available.
I've always been told it was the amps that killed. Remember in school the science thing where they cranked up the high voltage into the thousands and made hair stand on end and or the arc would jump inches? The amps were next to nothing.
I have to put in something here. I'm fifty five years old. I've got here by not being near as stupid as I look or sometimes act. So even when I'm working one ten hot I'm extremely careful to only touch one conductor at a time and I take care to not be grounded. In this conversation I hope I haven't encouraged someone to be stupid. One ten under the right circumstances will kill you just as dead as four forty will. It will be slower and hurt a lot more, but just as dead.
