> It would seem that what's needed is a way to reliably disconnect every cell from every other cell, lowering the voltage to around 4 volts.
Yes, absolutely. Something along those lines will probably be essential as we move forward. Maybe not to 4 Volts. That's probably not necessary. Somewhere in the range of 20 to 50 V there's a good safe spot. I am not up to speed on where safety levels lie for different circumstances. I's more about current through your body than absolute voltages. Of course, a higher voltage makes producing high currents that much easier.
High voltage and current circuits are not the easiest to interrupt mechanically. They tend to make such things as mechanical contacts explode with molten metal flying all over the place. The arcs produced when trying to mechanically interrupt high current circuits can be massively destructive. That's why most high power mechanical contactors are very large, loud and fast. More here:
Yes, absolutely. Something along those lines will probably be essential as we move forward. Maybe not to 4 Volts. That's probably not necessary. Somewhere in the range of 20 to 50 V there's a good safe spot. I am not up to speed on where safety levels lie for different circumstances. I's more about current through your body than absolute voltages. Of course, a higher voltage makes producing high currents that much easier.
High voltage and current circuits are not the easiest to interrupt mechanically. They tend to make such things as mechanical contacts explode with molten metal flying all over the place. The arcs produced when trying to mechanically interrupt high current circuits can be massively destructive. That's why most high power mechanical contactors are very large, loud and fast. More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactor
Not an easy problem to solve. Yet, it probably is solvable. Which is excellent.