The message
from "Nath" contains these words:

something he'd had lying around for too long.

Anyway, you lot, it's all very well taking the ****, especially as I'm
so sure none of you has ever had anything similar happen to you at any
stage, and made a rash move at a time of excitement and anticipation....


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967
110890
Manchester, U.K.
http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk



Nope. Can't say I have. Don't recall taking a chance of blowing something up
by guessing which way things go. It's risks like that that can get you
killed.

Martin, thanks for the flurry of interesting posts that your original
confession has produced.

I have had a Bush VHF 61 (early VHF plus MW/LW) beside my bed for a year
now. Cost me a tenner and a little very basic fixing, and sounded great
for a year till something died within it. Now the clock radio sits on
top! Yes, hifi it ain't but I was amazed by the mellow beauty of its
tone on FM.

However, your post prods me to do something about getting it working
again. It's all hard-wired within, and I was told that many of the
(working) components should also be replaced. Off to
http://www.bvws.org.uk/ at the weekend.

David

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 00:06:14 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman
wrote:

In article ,
Nath wrote:
I meant anything. For example, I don't now anything about electronics,
so decide to wire up a 1 farad capacitor, but in the wrong phase. I then
stand above it when I switch the power on.

Why would you wire a 1 farad capacitor to anything if you didn't know
about electronics? And where would you get a high voltage 1 farad
capacitor that might blow up and what would you be using it for?

Well, I heard a guy drop a spanner into a 1 farad 3kV capacitor one
day. He was temporarily blinded, permanently deafened in one ear, and
the rest of us at that end of the building were left with ringing ears
for a few days. The spanner disappeared entirely..................

Don't mess with big radar sets!

BTW, I've had my share of serious belts over the years, including
being thrown across a lab after leaning on two 'scopes that were
'earth lifted' and 380 volts apart! Makes you feel *very* peculiar for
an hour or two.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 00:06:14 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman
wrote:

In article ,
Nath wrote:
I meant anything. For example, I don't now anything about electronics,
so decide to wire up a 1 farad capacitor, but in the wrong phase. I then
stand above it when I switch the power on.

Why would you wire a 1 farad capacitor to anything if you didn't know
about electronics? And where would you get a high voltage 1 farad
capacitor that might blow up and what would you be using it for?

Well, I heard a guy drop a spanner into a 1 farad 3kV capacitor one
day. He was temporarily blinded, permanently deafened in one ear, and
the rest of us at that end of the building were left with ringing ears
for a few days. The spanner disappeared entirely..................

Don't mess with big radar sets!

BTW, I've had my share of serious belts over the years, including
being thrown across a lab after leaning on two 'scopes that were
'earth lifted' and 380 volts apart! Makes you feel *very* peculiar for
an hour or two.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 01:46:37 +0000, Ian Molton wrote:

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 01:38:03 +0000
G.Snail wrote:

I recall prodding about in a live monitor with a wooden spoon. That
was pretty ****ing stupid. The best one was when I electrocuted myself
by pushing a mains plug into a socket with a finger trapped underneath

that shouldnt be possible with a nice UK plug. perhaps you had one of
those older dodgy ones with no insulation at the base of the pins?

Fun game we used to play in the old days at Marconi was to wrap some
fuse wire across the live and neutral pins of one of those old
'full-length' plugs attached to a piece of kit being used by someone
who'd gone home, then push the plug back into the socket and wait
until the next morning..............

Not me of course, you understand, some of my colleagues...... :-)

On the 'Darwin Award' subject, one of the funniest things I ever saw
(once we'd checked that he was OK) was a guy who was kneeling at the
back of an equipment cabinet with the door open, leaning inside to
check some capacitor voltage levels. His hand slipped and touched one
of the live cap terminals, which threw him back until his head hit the
top of the door opening, which threw him forward onto the caps, which
threw him backwards..... you get the picture, about four iterations
before he missed the doorframe and fell back onto the floor.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 01:46:37 +0000, Ian Molton wrote:

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 01:38:03 +0000
G.Snail wrote:

I recall prodding about in a live monitor with a wooden spoon. That
was pretty ****ing stupid. The best one was when I electrocuted myself
by pushing a mains plug into a socket with a finger trapped underneath

that shouldnt be possible with a nice UK plug. perhaps you had one of
those older dodgy ones with no insulation at the base of the pins?

Fun game we used to play in the old days at Marconi was to wrap some
fuse wire across the live and neutral pins of one of those old
'full-length' plugs attached to a piece of kit being used by someone
who'd gone home, then push the plug back into the socket and wait
until the next morning..............

Not me of course, you understand, some of my colleagues...... :-)

On the 'Darwin Award' subject, one of the funniest things I ever saw
(once we'd checked that he was OK) was a guy who was kneeling at the
back of an equipment cabinet with the door open, leaning inside to
check some capacitor voltage levels. His hand slipped and touched one
of the live cap terminals, which threw him back until his head hit the
top of the door opening, which threw him forward onto the caps, which
threw him backwards..... you get the picture, about four iterations
before he missed the doorframe and fell back onto the floor.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Fleetie wrote:

I repeat what I said befo I bet you've *all* done things before,
that with hindsight would have been better not done. Now stop acting
like boring parents - and anyway, what would you care if I had been
killed?

We wouldn't have known you'd been killed as (IIRC) you didn't post the
original article until *after* you'd tried the valves in the sockets :-))))

Fleetie wrote:

I repeat what I said befo I bet you've *all* done things before,
that with hindsight would have been better not done. Now stop acting
like boring parents - and anyway, what would you care if I had been
killed?

We wouldn't have known you'd been killed as (IIRC) you didn't post the
original article until *after* you'd tried the valves in the sockets :-))))

In article ,
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
Why would you wire a 1 farad capacitor to anything if you didn't know
about electronics? And where would you get a high voltage 1 farad
capacitor that might blow up and what would you be using it for?

Well, I heard a guy drop a spanner into a 1 farad 3kV capacitor one
day. He was temporarily blinded, permanently deafened in one ear, and
the rest of us at that end of the building were left with ringing ears
for a few days. The spanner disappeared entirely..................

Don't mess with big radar sets!

They let someone who doesn't know anything about electronics mess with
radar? Does the BAA know this?

--
*Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

In article ,
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
Why would you wire a 1 farad capacitor to anything if you didn't know
about electronics? And where would you get a high voltage 1 farad
capacitor that might blow up and what would you be using it for?

Well, I heard a guy drop a spanner into a 1 farad 3kV capacitor one
day. He was temporarily blinded, permanently deafened in one ear, and
the rest of us at that end of the building were left with ringing ears
for a few days. The spanner disappeared entirely..................

Don't mess with big radar sets!

They let someone who doesn't know anything about electronics mess with
radar? Does the BAA know this?

--
*Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

"David Holgate" wrote
Martin, thanks for the flurry of interesting posts that your original
confession has produced.

I have had a Bush VHF 61 (early VHF plus MW/LW) beside my bed for a year
now. Cost me a tenner and a little very basic fixing, and sounded great
for a year till something died within it. Now the clock radio sits on
top! Yes, hifi it ain't but I was amazed by the mellow beauty of its
tone on FM.

However, your post prods me to do something about getting it working
again. It's all hard-wired within, and I was told that many of the
(working) components should also be replaced. Off to
http://www.bvws.org.uk/ at the weekend.

David

Ha, yes, I always enjoy reading stories of people's near brushes with
electrical death!

I myself used to enjoy big caps as a teenager; I fondly remember
making it rain white-hot molten aluminium onto my bedroom carpet
many times, as I used to short out a big bank of caps with a piece
of aluminium. The little globules used to fall onto the carpet and
fade through orange to red, then black again, as small wisps of
carpet smoke issued up from each cooling drop!

And the big fat orange furry 40kV sparks that reeked of ozone, which
came from an old oil-filled 'scope xformer, which had its 4v or
6.3v filament windings collected to 10 or 15VAC, while we made good
use of what came of the 3.2kV (IIRC) H.T. winding.... Now that WOULD
have killed us (me and my best friend from school, electropyromaniacs
both) if we'd done anything wrong - with extreme prejudice!

But I did get some sensible things done. At 15 I managed a 4-digit
frequency counter with 1, 1000, 1000000 ranges, build entirely from
discrete 4000-series CMOS chips, which came to something like 22
I.C.s on an IMPRESSIVELY small piece of Veroboard.

I made a half-decent push-pull valve audio power amp that I got
about 15W RMS out of, which wasn't bad considering I wasn't using
a proper output xformer, but rather a mains xformer pressed into
service. That valve experimentation got me my share of minor jolts.

A single-scope to 8-channel multiplexer from a 4051 CMOS analogue
switch I.C. and a counter (though in truth, it wasn't that useful
when made).

Stuff like that. All good teenage kicks. I could go on. All good fun, apart
from the shocks.

Keep 'em coming (the stories)!


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk