Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!unixhub!shelby!siegman@sierra
From: siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (siegman)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: AC-DC at wall current voltage
Message-ID: <17@sierra.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 6 Oct 90 17:12:06 GMT
References: <27666@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 20

In article <27666@boulder.Colorado.EDU> weverka@sashimi.Colorado.EDU (Robert T. Weverka) writes:
>
>I want to convert an AC electric blanket to DC.
>
> . . .
>
>PS.  Yes the desire to convert the blanket is motivated by the cancer scare
>of 60Hz magnetic fields.  Yes I know that the evidence is not conclusive 
>(for a review see 9/90 IEEE Spectrum), but this is a better safe than sorry
>type situation to be installed in my kid's bed.

The chances of YOUR doing something wrong in a home-brew operation
like this, leading to electrocution, fire, what have you, seem to me
enormously greater than any risk from the EM fields in the blanket.
Who knows whether the thermostatic and other controls in the blanket
depend on the voltage being ac instead of dc, and so on?  All in all,
a thoroughly bad idea.

(And by the way, how do we know that the DC magnetic fields from a DC
blanket don't do harm?)