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Feel free to roast me if this is idiotic. Thank you!
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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Not an electrician but 12V dc is relatively low current.
I don’t think that’s any kind of electrocution/shock hazard (assuming there’s some kind of drip loop where water can’t flow down the plug to a socket)
That being said what about the equipment? Is it expensive enough that a short frying it out would be a huge problem?
In this case there would not be much current, which we know from OP sharing that the device in question uses 5.3 watts at the most. At 12 volts 5.3 watts is .44 amps.
Watts are power, which in electrical terms is Volts (electric difference) times Amps (current). If electricity were water, volts would be the water pressure and amps would be the size of the pipe with watts being the volume of water per period of time. You can have a huge pipe with very low pressure and pull 1 gallon per minute out of it, or you could have a much smaller pipe under more pressure and get that same gallon per minute.
12v circuits can carry however much current is pulled up to however much can be supplied by the power source, so long as the conductor doesn't overheat and burn. The device in question pulls less than half an amp from its power supply while a 12v car battery can supply over 100a when the starter is cranking the engine.