| Page 1 of 2 | 1 | 2 |
|
|
High Current Horror Stories
Hi all,
Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. p. -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. |
Hmmmmmmmmm......there was this time a few decades back a solder blob
caused a B-C short in the linear for my CB - Man, do the ceramic caps sure fly off those MRF454's :-o -- Gregg t3h g33k "Ratings are for transistors....tubes have guidelines" http://geek.scorpiorising.ca |
My brother, circa 1965, was working on a six volt Chevrolet.
His ring got between the battery terminal and ground. (Don't ask me how.) He ended up with a destroyed ring and a finger with a very painful burn around it. No permanent damage but come to think about it he's a little weird even today. Hmmm.... but isn't everybody weird but you and me and I sometimes wonder about... ================ This is really not low voltage high current but an event that sticks in my mind as potentially fatal. I had a female student in one of my community college electronics class. The electronic bench where she was working had a 8 foot strip of outlets on one of the typical 1970s surface mount plug strips. She had plugged in some instrument but in retrospect she hadn't pushed the plug in completely, leaving a small amount of the metal of the plug exposed. Around her waist she had a silver colored metal belt with a hanging end with a washer shaped end on it. It looked to me like a dog collar. She bent over the bench to adjust something and the metal end of her belt went across the metal prongs of the plug. RESULT = lots of sparks, a loud scream, a partially melted end to the belt and a much wiser and more careful student. (And a very relieved instructor, thankful that it hit BOTH prongs and not just one while she was holding touching a grounded instrument case. Yes, we then moved all the plug strips on the benches where they were mounted to the bottom edge of the bench and removed them from other benches where there were adequate outlets on the plug strip on the front of the shelf along the back of the bench. Paul Burridge wrote: Hi all, Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. p. -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. -- Address is NOT monitored due to SPAM volume from newsgroups. DO NOT REPLY to post directly. |
The place was Hong Kong.
It was around Xmas, 1945. I was alone in the lab. Working on a set of airborne radar equipment strewn around the workbench. The scanner was not rotating, just pointing out of the open window, past a Royal Navy cruiser moored in the harbour about a mile away and onwards to Victoria City with the island's mountainous peaks in the background. All displayed strong echos on the PPI on its 10-mile range. As indicated on the PPI there was something intermittent. I suspected a poor coaxial cable connection. Familiarity breeds contempt. Forgetting the equipment was still switched on I unscrewed one of the many coaxial connectors and Pye plugs. To clear out any foreign bodies I inserted the tip of by my right forefinger into the vacant socket. Now that particular socket was power output from the modulator unit on its way to the transmitter unit. The transmitter was a 50 Kilowatt magnetron which required unpteen thousand volts, pulsed at several hundred times persecond with a one microsecond pulse width. How long I lay on the floor I do not know. Probably only a few seconds. I trembled all over which passed off after a few minutes. Apart from a white burn on the afore-mentioned fingertip the after-effects were sychological - it took several days to pluck up courage just to re-enter the lab when I had difficulty looking in the direction of the offending plug and socket. --- Reg, G4FGQ |
Paul Burridge wrote:
Hi all, Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. p. Well there was this guy changing batteries on a golf cart. Had 6 very large 6 volt storage batteries wired in series. He was using a ratchet wrench to remove the battery contact clamps and while detaching the most postive end first (!) the ratchet handle touched the frame of the golf cart. Ever see a Sears ratchet glowing WHITE HOT? |
Paul Burridge wrote:
Hi all, Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. Though there is considerable voltage involved in the production of the currents involved, it is the (forces of the magnetic field of the) current that crushes the coins. http://webpages.charter.net/tesla/crushed_coin.htm -- John Popelish |
On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 12:50:28 -0400, Ken Scharf hath writ:
Well there was this guy changing batteries on a golf cart. Had 6 very large 6 volt storage batteries wired in series. He was using a ratchet wrench to remove the battery contact clamps and while detaching the most postive end first (!) the ratchet handle touched the frame of the golf cart. Ever see a Sears ratchet glowing WHITE HOT? Ya, but... You can take it back and they'll replace it. HI!HI! Jonesy -- | Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux | Gunnison, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | OS/2 __ | 7,703' -- 2,345m | config.com | DM68mn SK |
On 15 Aug 2004 18:17:32 GMT, Allodoxaphobia
wrote: On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 12:50:28 -0400, Ken Scharf hath writ: Well there was this guy changing batteries on a golf cart. Had 6 very large 6 volt storage batteries wired in series. He was using a ratchet wrench to remove the battery contact clamps and while detaching the most postive end first (!) the ratchet handle touched the frame of the golf cart. Ever see a Sears ratchet glowing WHITE HOT? Ya, but... You can take it back and they'll replace it. HI!HI! Only if you don't melt the part that says "Craftsman". Happy trails, Gary (net.yogi.bear) ------------------------------------------------ at the 51st percentile of ursine intelligence Gary D. Schwartz, Needham, MA, USA Please reply to: garyDOTschwartzATpoboxDOTcom |
On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 15:12:54 GMT, DO NOT REPLY to this ADDRESS hath writ:
My brother, circa 1965, was working on a six volt Chevrolet. His ring got between the battery terminal and ground. (Don't ask me how.) He ended up with a destroyed ring and a finger with a very painful burn around it. No permanent damage but come to think about it he's a little weird even today. Hmmm.... but isn't everybody weird but you and me and I sometimes wonder about... My dad (the first W3DHJ) told me an almost identical story. It was in the late 20's. He was working on _his_ dad's Ford utility truck. (Grandpa owned a dairy in Big Bear, Calif.) Six volts here, too. The truck was parked in the driveway -- just outside the garage. When my dad caught his ring between the positive terminal and the truck frame, my Grandpa picked him up bodily -- ran him over to the rain barrel at the corner of the garage -- and stuffed my dad's entire left arm (and much of his upper torso) into the barrel. ( *The worst* thing you could do in a situation like that is try to _pull_ the ring off.) My dad was a 90-day wonder in WW II. He then spent 25+ years in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (we traveled the planet....) Most of his duty assignments were as (Deputy) Post Engineer -- with the added responsibity as Post Safety Officer. I always knew him to be evangelically anal about safety. I'm sure that incident with the old Ford truck had a wee bit to do with it. 73 Jonesy -- | Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux | Gunnison, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | OS/2 __ | 7,703' -- 2,345m | config.com | DM68mn SK |
On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 12:01:14 +0100, Paul Burridge
wrote: Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. I did once work with this sort of power, at a company which was making superconductors. We had to test various samples at high current/low voltage to determine some of the properties, while they were submerged in various liquified gases. One project involved setting up a two-module 1000 watt DC power supply. I "wired" them together using copper bar stock 1" by 1/4", bent to fit the terminals, and plated with silver for lower contact resistance. The connection to the samples was with 2 ought welding cable, which was about 1-1/8" in diameter with insulation. I have also worked with high voltage RF up to 20 kV, but that is another story. The general rule is when you are working with KIL-o-amps, KIL-o-volts, or KIL-o-watts, is to make sure you don't get KILL-ed. Happy trails, Gary (net.yogi.bear) ------------------------------------------------ at the 51st percentile of ursine intelligence Gary D. Schwartz, Needham, MA, USA Please reply to: garyDOTschwartzATpoboxDOTcom |
Sorry, I answered the wrong question. Hope you found it interesting. ============================= "Reg Edwards" wrote - The place was Hong Kong. It was around Xmas, 1945. I was alone in the lab. Working on a set of airborne radar equipment strewn around the workbench. The scanner was not rotating, just pointing out of the open window, past a Royal Navy cruiser moored in the harbour about a mile away and onwards to Victoria City with the island's mountainous peaks in the background. All displayed strong echos on the PPI on its 10-mile range. As indicated on the PPI there was something intermittent. I suspected a poor coaxial cable connection. Familiarity breeds contempt. Forgetting the equipment was still switched on I unscrewed one of the many coaxial connectors and Pye plugs. To clear out any foreign bodies I inserted the tip of by my right forefinger into the vacant socket. Now that particular socket was power output from the modulator unit on its way to the transmitter unit. The transmitter was a 50 Kilowatt magnetron which required unpteen thousand volts, pulsed at several hundred times persecond with a one microsecond pulse width. How long I lay on the floor I do not know. Probably only a few seconds. I trembled all over which passed off after a few minutes. Apart from a white burn on the afore-mentioned fingertip the after-effects were psychological - it took several days to pluck up courage just to re-enter the lab when I had difficulty looking in the direction of the offending plug and socket. --- Reg, G4FGQ |
The place was the same lab in Hong Kong.
There was a chinese lady who came in each day to sweep the floor and remove the EF50 valves, etc, which had been replaced because of low cathode emission. It was my habit to point the radar scanner into the room, stand in the beam and quickly put put a neon lamp into my mouth. The lamp always lit up brightly. Whenever I did this the lady used to run out of the room terrified at the magic sight. Just the sort of trick a 21-year-old RAF radar mechanic would play. Being in the Far East, the anti-radar defence rumour, spread by the Germans, that exposure to radar beams caused sterilisation to radar mechanics had not reached me. Anyway, as my wife at intervals some years later allowed me to think, I eventually became the father of 5 children. --- Reg |
Remember an old article in popular electronic, back from 1960's,
young boy wanted to help his girl nextdoor with a wart on her hand, bright as he was, he thought he could use the hv from his pops hf rig to burn off said wart.... well, she let out this scream that almost broke the sound barrier and he got his butt wacked big time. The wart did get removed ! j Paul wrote: Hi all, Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. p. -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. |
On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:37:32 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards"
wrote: Being in the Far East, the anti-radar defence rumour, spread by the Germans, that exposure to radar beams caused sterilisation to radar mechanics had not reached me. Anyway, as my wife at intervals some years later allowed me to think, I eventually became the father of 5 children. Perhaps you shoulda stood a bit closer to the waveguides, Reg. You'd have been rich by now without all those kids. Plus you might even have grown an extra brain. ;-) -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. |
Behold, Paul Burridge signalled from keyed 4-1000A filament:
On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:37:32 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards" wrote: Being in the Far East, the anti-radar defence rumour, spread by the Germans, that exposure to radar beams caused sterilisation to radar mechanics had not reached me. Anyway, as my wife at intervals some years later allowed me to think, I eventually became the father of 5 children. Perhaps you shoulda stood a bit closer to the waveguides, Reg. You'd have been rich by now without all those kids. Plus you might even have grown an extra brain. ;-) You mean his widow wouldda been rich ;-) -- Gregg t3h g33k "Ratings are for transistors....tubes have guidelines" http://geek.scorpiorising.ca |
The time was 1952 or 1953. I had a roving job. Indeed I've nearly always
had a roving job. You meet people. The place was Gretna Green, just a few hundred yards from the well-known black-smith's forge and its famous marriage-ceremony anvil. I was working with a colleage in a normally unstaffed telephone repeater station. The job was capacitance-rebalancing of the multi-pair trunk carrier cables which ran through the place. The test leads were very flexible twin-screened cables which kept getting in the way of the portable test equipment, on a collapsible table, and the two operators. Difficult to read the dB meters. So to ease the accommodation problem the test cables were tossed up and over a pair of substantial bars, up near the ceiling, which could have been part of the station's equipment racks. Unfortunately, the insulation over the screening braid was worn at one point and the bars turned out to be the main copper 50-volt bus-bars from the battery room. Work continued in silence until suddenly there was a loud bang, like a cannon shot. The main fuse from the station's batteries had blown. The station stopped working. England was disconnected from Scotland at a time when the Cold War had started. There was a glass-fronted fusebox containing a lot of cardboard-cased fuses. The idea was for fuses which had blown to indicate themselves by charred cardboard. But none were indicated although spare fuses were available. One catastophy after another. But in any case neither my colleage or I was familiar with station maintenance procedures. We had visions of severe disciplinery action being taken. And I had brought with me a set of fishing rods. Indeed, I had obtained after much arguing temporary exclusive membership of Gretna Green fishing club at the then extortionate fee of 2 shillings and sixpence. But then our luck changed. 10 minutes later the local maintenance man walked in. Purely by chance he had come in to make himself a cup of tea (facilities were available) whereas he should have been doing something else in the English town of Carlisle, 12 miles away. We were of senior rank. He fixed the fuse and we never heard any more about the serious incident. In the evenings I went fishing for trout by bright moonlight while my colleage, a much older fellow than I, took my wife (who had come to join me for a week) to the local Gretna cinema. He bought her icecream in the back row. And I made friends with the female cook at the hotel and had trout and butter for the first course at breakfast. The next few jobs took me further into the wilds of Bonnie Scotland where there was nothing to do except to gamble and play cards in the evenings. I always lost. Even to the extent of losing my ex-army camp bed and having to sleep on the hard wooden blocks of the repeater station floor. Myxamatosis raged amongst the poor Scottish rabbit population. It is only relatively recently, in my old age, have I returned to such happy days. I have just opened a bottle of Sierra Valley, Californian white wine for a night-cap. Diplomatic relations are now back to normal. I expect no more irritable invitations to tea parties in Boston. ---- Yours, Reg, G4FGQ |
"Paul Burridge" wrote Perhaps you shoulda stood a bit closer to the waveguides, Reg. You'd have been rich by now without all those kids. Plus you might even have grown an extra brain. ;-) ============================== Paul, I could have been even richer if I'd charged for all those computer programs. But I have been much happier just by producing them instead of setting up a waste-of-my-time sales and marketing organisation. But it's a fact I never realised at the outset how popular they would become. I was under the impression I was a late-comer to the field. But it seems I was not. I was perhaps the originator of this type of program. And I am confiding in you, even now, only because I am half-way down a bottle of Californian medium-sweet white. Must keep international relations in good order. --- Yours, Reg, Amateur radio station G4FGQ |
In 1982, I was about 20 I guess and working for Dentron Radio as a tech. For
no other reason than being careless, as I was normally on high alert when working on the amps, I discharged a fully charged bank of filtercaps in a Clipperton L from the left hand to the right. I had tunnel vision for a couple seconds, fell to the ground as co-workers rushed to my side. Short of breath and dizzy I began to sweat profusely. I was ill for about a half hour then both arms began to ache as if I had been pummeled with a baseball bat. I have been zapped a few times since then but never ever will I allow IT to flow across my chest again, that event scared the hell out of me and I was a strapping young lad in good shape. Today the same hit would kill me, I'm sure of it. This could also explain my devout interest in QRP today! Tim |
Paul Burridge wrote:
Hi all, Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. p. This dates thirty years back: I was about ten years old. My father did occasionally charge car batteries in the basement of our house. The output of the charger was short cable with a broken cigarette lighter plug. He did connect the battery to be charged with a pair of jumper cables connected to it. I was doing something in the room, when there was a big spark and some smoke started to appear. I immediately disconnected the charger from the mains as he explained to us that this was all we had to do to remove all electricity from a device. I then went to search for him to tell him what happened. When we came back the room was full of smoke and all what was left of the jumper cables was some melted plastic. The copper was all gone ! Markus |
Paul Burridge wrote:
Hi all, Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. p. When I graduated from highschool, 1967, I started work for a company called Standard Plastic Products. What we really did was make those plastic and cardboard Barbie cases. These were heat sealed with RF Energy. Lots of it. The work area had about 50 sealing machines. These units were Class-C RF oscillators and ranged from 25 to 60 KW. Yes, that is Kilo Watts. Each unit had a large ceramic tube that had a base of around 6 - 8 inches in diameter. The larger units had tubes with large heat sink hats which required a chimney to remove the heat. The RF energy was applied to two copper platens that performed the sealing. My job, along with three other techs, was to keep these machines working. The most common problem with these things was blowing fuses, dirty coupling capacitor clips, and some pretty spectacular blowouts on the platens when the material got too thin. The real problem was that, you had to reach into the units from the back to get to the fuses or the coupling caps. The units had power interlocks, so you couldn't activate with the back open This was suppose to disable all power, remove the plate voltage, and allow any charge to bleed off. But there were a few units where the bleeder circuits did not work properly. This usually left a few thousand volts on the plates of the tubes. You learned real quickly to grip your adjustable wrench with your cardboard fuse pullers and short the plate to ground. It was a heck of a blast and after 2 or 3 times, the unit was safe to work on. Although I never heard of anyone actually comming in contact with the voltage, because we were always on our toes, but I am sure that it would have done some damage. I doubt the government would let them get away with something like that now. And you want to talk about QRM, these things oscillated around 27 MHz. -- Martin E. Meserve http://www.k7mem.150m.com |
On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 04:00:56 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards"
wrote: Paul, I could have been even richer if I'd charged for all those computer programs. But I have been much happier just by producing them instead of setting up a waste-of-my-time sales and marketing organisation. But it's a fact I never realised at the outset how popular they would become. I was under the impression I was a late-comer to the field. But it seems I was not. I was perhaps the originator of this type of program. And I am confiding in you, even now, only because I am half-way down a bottle of Californian medium-sweet white. Must keep international relations in good order. Well you're doin' a great job, Reg. Keep it up! What's the next program you've got in mind to write? And which language to you generally use for this purpose? -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. |
Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to
share? I friend who is a power IC developer told me about FETs being blown up by the enery stored in the self inductance of the IC bond wire. Wim |
Paul wrote -
Well you're doin' a great job, Reg. Keep it up! What's the next program you've got in mind to write? And which language to you generally use for this purpose? ================================ Paul, what makes you think I do a great job? Nobody ever tells me. It's not just idle curiosity. I'm not fishing. Feedback needed. I always have several programs on the go at any point in time. Some have lasted, on and off, for years. But little to do with complexity. More to do with reliability and freedom from bugs. I have an unfinished program which calculates the L and C values of a parallel tuned circuit. It can be connected in an antenna wire to resonate it to two frequencies. It is not a trap. The circuit's resonant frequency doesn't matter very much. But on the low side of resonance it behaves as an inductive loading coil and on the high side it behaves as a capacitance load. The antenna becomes resonant at one frequency below the wire's natural frequency, and at another frequency above the wire's natural frequency. Unlike use of a trap, at both frequencies the wire radiates over the whole of its length. Furthermore, at its lower resonant frequency, the wire is shorter than a 1/4-wavelength. I do not claim to have invented the arrangement. It has been previously discussed on a newsgroup. But I doubt if the L and C values have been explicitly calculated before. I hesitate at making the program available to all and sundry for ever more, because I am unable to erect an actual antenna to prove the calculations correct. Although I am reasonably confident they are correct. I use Pascal source code. Its an old language and you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But programming languages have settled down. There's little further room for improvement. I like Pascal because it is disciplined and structured. There's no such thing as a "Go-to" command as with BASIC. The compiler won't allow you to make logical mistakes. The quality of a program, the finished working product, doesn't have much to do with the language used. Chinese is just as good as English. ---- Reg, G4FGQ |
Paul Burridge wrote:
On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:37:32 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards" wrote: Being in the Far East, the anti-radar defence rumour, spread by the Germans, that exposure to radar beams caused sterilisation to radar mechanics had not reached me. Anyway, as my wife at intervals some years later allowed me to think, I eventually became the father of 5 children. Perhaps you shoulda stood a bit closer to the waveguides, Reg. You'd have been rich by now without all those kids. Plus you might even have grown an extra brain. ;-) Hey there was this radar tech in the army who used to sit near the big dish in the winter to keep warm. One day they increased the radar transmitter power 10 fold but this tech wasn't informed. Let's just say he won the 'Darwin' award for a job 'well done' |
On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 21:42:56 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards"
wrote: Paul wrote - Well you're doin' a great job, Reg. Keep it up! What's the next program you've got in mind to write? And which language to you generally use for this purpose? ================================ Paul, what makes you think I do a great job? Nobody ever tells me. It's not just idle curiosity. I'm not fishing. Feedback needed. You make a worthwhile overall net contribution to the hobby, Reg. Your programs save untold people an awful lot of time and f*cking about with the kind of calculations that typically invite careless errors and torn-out hair. I regularly visit your site and grab what I can! Anyone with any sense would! Will that suffice? ;-) -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. |
Behold, Wim Ton signalled from keyed 4-1000A filament:
Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? I friend who is a power IC developer told me about FETs being blown up by the enery stored in the self inductance of the IC bond wire. Wim That's why FET is known by many to stand for Fire Emitting Transistor ;-) -- Gregg t3h g33k "Ratings are for transistors....tubes have guidelines" http://geek.scorpiorising.ca |
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:39:28 GMT, Gregg wrote:
Behold, Wim Ton signalled from keyed 4-1000A filament: Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? I friend who is a power IC developer told me about FETs being blown up by the enery stored in the self inductance of the IC bond wire. Wim That's why FET is known by many to stand for Fire Emitting Transistor ;-) Not so much your GP FETs, but power MOSFETs, certainly. They do tend to go 'pop' quite spectacularly. -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. |
In message , Paul Burridge
writes Hi all, Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever. p. Although I knew how crowbar protection worked on PSUs I was shown in a dramatic way when I used a bench PSU to charge a car battery, for what ever reason the crowbar operated and put a short across the battery, lots of bright white wire and smoke for a few seconds. A colleague of mine was a vehicle radio fitter and always wore metal watch straps, until the day one bridged a battery supply and chassis. He always wears a leather strap now and takes his watch off before working. How more of us are not maimed or killed I'm not sure. -- Bill |
Back in the 60's I recall being at a party where everyone had too much
to drink and some YL's car would not start. The 'guys' went out to help and checked the battery water level. The guy doing the checking could not see as it was dark and asked for light. He was talking about a flashlight and a helping hand showed up with a Zippo lighter. The battery exploded! Very lucky none were killed or blinded. |
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:39:28 GMT, Gregg wrote:
Behold, Wim Ton signalled from keyed 4-1000A filament: Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to share? You should see a 440 RMS working volt 50,000 Joule MOV on a 600 amp 440 line that has received an over voltage spike. The only thing left are the connecting wires and they are pointed straight out. They are blinding if you happen to be looking at one when it blows, or deafening if you are near. They'd put any 12 gauge shotgun to shame. These things are about 3 X 4 inches and just shy of an inch thick. Used across a pair of 1200 VAC 1200A (as I recall) SCRs (Thyristors) Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com I friend who is a power IC developer told me about FETs being blown up by the enery stored in the self inductance of the IC bond wire. Wim That's why FET is known by many to stand for Fire Emitting Transistor ;-) |
"Paul Burridge" wrote - I regularly visit your site and grab what I can! Anyone with any sense would! Will that suffice? ;-) =========================== Well, it will have to do. Thanks Paul! For the last one or two years of my varied career I was listed in the firm's phone directory as "Chief Standards Engineer". I had under some sort of control the Quality Managers of 3 factories and laboratories. Strictly speaking, "Quality" is defined as the ability to conform to specified requirements. It can be statistically measured as can anybody's performance. But in my case I would prefer the more lax and broader definition of Quality : The ability to serve the intended purpose. "Reliability" is defined as Quality versus Time. My programs, produced in retirement for a variety of reasons and purposes, have now been available to the 'rabble' for 5 or 6 years. ;o) Here I go again - pouring out my heart with the aid of a bottle of Valencia red. It's supposed to be good for the arteries. It didn't do Franco any harm. But a pity about Guenica as depicted by Pablo Picasso. He should have done Nagosaki (which I witnessed from the air) and Hiroshima (which I visited on foot). Unfortunately my camera had a pin-hole in the bellows but the experience, nevertheless, profoundly influenced, you could say biassed, my early education. --- Reg, G4FGQ |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1 Allodoxaphobia wrote in : Ever see a Sears ratchet glowing WHITE HOT? Ya, but... You can take it back and they'll replace it. HI!HI! They do insist that all tools be cooled well below the point of emitting visible light before return, though. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.1 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com Comment: Encrypt; it makes people wonder what you're up to. iQA/AwUBQSRZDqauO3Snl+t6EQLmBQCgpxSU1g1LxJ0E+K+WSebUlI Fm4dcAoP/e Qp+oYIKPPglTzRq6IqIwnQ3z =uavw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
My story may not be extremely spectacular, but I think it has a rather
amusing moral... I had for a number of years not bothered screwing down the top cover of my 13.8VDC 10A power supply, for whatever reason. Of course, every so often the top cover would move and expose the inside working of the supply, but that wasn't really a problem!(?) Then one day, while doing my electronics trade course, we moved to the subject of AC safety and how not to fry yourself! Very interesting lesson and I scored 100% in the final exam for that subject. Then I came home, rather pleased, reached down to switch off my power supply, and promptly shorted the 240V AC main switch with my finger! What was that about AC electrical safety again???? ---- Another event, some years later, I was working on a tape deck on my workbench. I had to reach over the tape deck to get a screwdriver from the back of the bench, but of course I forgot it was still pluged in and promptly shorted the AC transformer inout with my forearm... Luckily for me we had just installed earth leakage breakers and it didn't take long for it to trip... After that, whenever someone asked me "how long do these breakers take to cut out" I would always answer with "oh, about ARRRGG" Cheers Martin, VK2UMJ |
My dad tells a story of his days working as a maintenence engineer in
a building where the power was carried along exposed buss bars. Another worker had a screwdriver in his back pocket and backed into a buss, blowing himself across the room and leaving a notable set of scars from the molten screwdriver blade. |
High school.
My buddy Pete has one of those continuous AC electrical outlets on the side of his desk. You know. Two continuous brass strips in a foot long plastic housing with two slots, into which you shove the (older two bladed) plug. Well, one day he needed some line cord, which he ALSO had hanging on the peg-board on the side of his desk SO... He reaches around the end...grabs some line cord and proceeds to cut off a piece with scissors... Blam! ... notched scissors! Outlet strip had the same kind of brown, two conductor cord. -- Steve N, K,9;d, c. i My email has no u's. "Mike Silva" wrote in message m... My dad tells a story of his days working as a maintenence engineer in a building where the power was carried along exposed buss bars. Another worker had a screwdriver in his back pocket and backed into a buss, blowing himself across the room and leaving a notable set of scars from the molten screwdriver blade. |
In message , Steve Nosko
writes SO... He reaches around the end...grabs some line cord and proceeds to cut off a piece with scissors... Blam! ... notched scissors! On a vaguely similar line my father was rewiring an outside building and carefully removed all the fuses from the fuse box before cutting out all the old cabling. He then came across a cable he had forgotten and cut this too, BANG!! It was the input to the fuse box. One very badly melted pair of cutters and a rather startled father. -- Bill |
Bill wrote:
In message , Steve Nosko writes SO... He reaches around the end...grabs some line cord and proceeds to cut off a piece with scissors... Blam! ... notched scissors! On a vaguely similar line my father was rewiring an outside building and carefully removed all the fuses from the fuse box before cutting out all the old cabling. He then came across a cable he had forgotten and cut this too, BANG!! It was the input to the fuse box. One very badly melted pair of cutters and a rather startled father. I gotta. I just gotta. About 25 years back, I was a new systems programmer for a government agency which I'll cleverly call WeBuildHighways. Our sister shop, the Department of inHuman Services, was fairly close, and we spent a fair amount of time visiting and swapping hints and kinks. One day I was there while some remodeling was being done: an old door wsa being blocked and a new one cut. I heard a Skilsaw fire up, saw a blade movingd ownward, and cringed: there was a quad-box about a foot below the blade and in its path. My counterpar was a bit quicker, and shouted "Turn Off All Your Terminals RIGHT _NOW_!!" -- just before the blue flash and the great dark silence. This was before PCs, and so we only lost some 3270 terminal sessions to the mainframe. It was ... interesting. Another time I'll tell about The Guy Who Blew Himself Through The Door. -- Mike Andrews Tired old sysadmin |
12 years back there was a CB'er that had a double 3-500 Z amp with 3500
volts on the plate that lived next door to me. One day he noticed he was running about half power instead of full bore so he popped the top of the amp and noticed one of the wires on the tube caps (PLATE) had come unsoldered.....so instead of turning the amp off he melted the solder a bit with his insulated soldering iron and forced the wire back into the molten puddle....It worked!.......Then holding a large roll of bare solder in his hand he added a bit more to the molten solder It didnt take him long to let go of that roll of solder in his bare hand!!! His entire hand was burnt white! "Mike Andrews" wrote in message ... Bill wrote: In message , Steve Nosko writes SO... He reaches around the end...grabs some line cord and proceeds to cut off a piece with scissors... Blam! ... notched scissors! On a vaguely similar line my father was rewiring an outside building and carefully removed all the fuses from the fuse box before cutting out all the old cabling. He then came across a cable he had forgotten and cut this too, BANG!! It was the input to the fuse box. One very badly melted pair of cutters and a rather startled father. I gotta. I just gotta. About 25 years back, I was a new systems programmer for a government agency which I'll cleverly call WeBuildHighways. Our sister shop, the Department of inHuman Services, was fairly close, and we spent a fair amount of time visiting and swapping hints and kinks. One day I was there while some remodeling was being done: an old door wsa being blocked and a new one cut. I heard a Skilsaw fire up, saw a blade movingd ownward, and cringed: there was a quad-box about a foot below the blade and in its path. My counterpar was a bit quicker, and shouted "Turn Off All Your Terminals RIGHT _NOW_!!" -- just before the blue flash and the great dark silence. This was before PCs, and so we only lost some 3270 terminal sessions to the mainframe. It was ... interesting. Another time I'll tell about The Guy Who Blew Himself Through The Door. -- Mike Andrews Tired old sysadmin |
In message , Ernie
writes ......Then holding a large roll of bare solder in his hand he added a bit more to the molten solder It didnt take him long to let go of that roll of solder in his bare hand!!! I trust you entered him for the "Darwin award"? -- Bill |
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:20:01 -0400, "Ernie" wrote:
12 years back there was a CB'er that had a double 3-500 Z amp with 3500 volts on the plate that lived next door to me. What a delight to live next-door to. :-( -- "What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793. |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:01 PM. |
|
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
RadioBanter.com