Way back in the late '50s, when Hams still used dynamotors in their mobile 75m
rigs (also mil suprlus based), the story was that you shouldn't spin up a
dynamotor without a load on the B+ output -- otherwise the excessive voltage
would short out the windings.

I played with one from one of those made-for-Russia WWII sets, spun it up
several times with no load, and never saw a problem. Maybe the original lytic
cap across its output leaked enough to provide a good load :-)

BTW, re the guy who had the 1000 VDC unit jump off his workbench -- lucky he
didn't made a desperate grab at it, and catch it by the output terminals ...
Mike K.

PS: Once, my old-fashioned soldering iron (pluggied in and heated up) started
sliding off my bench. I grabbed it just in time to ... you know the rest.
Still hurts my hand to think about it.
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