this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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For many consumer electronics the general design used, (because it's cheap and easy to assemble) is a PCB in a plastic clamshell sort of thing which unfortunately places the PCB right where the seam in the plastic is. Usually there's some additional geometry to prevent direct exposure. But high voltage finds a way and if there's tabs with cutouts or anything like that there often is a direct path, especially for something as thin and 'sharp' as cat fur.
That being said, it's more likely to be either the buttons, power connector, or something the designers foolishly thought of as "ground" and there not actually being an earth ground
For reference, if you can physically feel an ESD (electrostatic discharge) event, aka shock, then it's at probably least 3kV, could be 10+ kV. But they're incredibly short duration transients, on the order of microseconds.
low voltage: who here is a conductor? High voltage: Who here wants to be a conductor??