Author Topic: Testing out some nice high voltage caps (and hoping to promote my channel a bit)  (Read 11703 times)

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Offline XOIIOTopic starter

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You might do better if you slept more regularly. I'm a lot more tired and need a lot more sleep when I wake at random times. I usually feel more well-rested if my alarm wakes me at 6 than if I sleep until 8.

heh, alarm waking you up, lucky :P

I do plan on modifying an alarm to give a small electric shock through a wrist band (like an ESD one) to wake me up because I sleep way too deeply when I sleep.

Offline smashedProton

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You're learning.  I was doing stuff just as stupid as you are doing now a couple years ago.  That doesnt make it right... learn the properties of high voltage/high current.  My advice is to design a simple switchmode boost converter.  A super cheap one with a 555 timer and a comparator would do.  also, get a safer trigger circuit.  A scr with the gate opto isolated would be alright.  A hand wound coil would also be an improvement.  Also, include a flyback diode so you don't fuck your shit.
http://www.garrettbaldwin.com/

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
 

Offline smashedProton

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You might do better if you slept more regularly. I'm a lot more tired and need a lot more sleep when I wake at random times. I usually feel more well-rested if my alarm wakes me at 6 than if I sleep until 8.

heh, alarm waking you up, lucky :P

I do plan on modifying an alarm to give a small electric shock through a wrist band (like an ESD one) to wake me up because I sleep way too deeply when I sleep.

Is your name by any chance Doc Brown?
http://www.garrettbaldwin.com/

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
 

Offline SLJ

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XOIIO - It's been a day since your last post here.  Are you still alive?

Offline c4757p

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XOIIO - It's been a day since your last post here.  Are you still alive?

His electric shock alarm clock probably gave him a heart attack.
No longer active here - try the IRC channel if you just can't be without me :)
 

Offline Phaedrus

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I've accidentally shocked myself on 400-450V caps charged to 100-350V before. With the 350V my heart skipped at least two beats. If I were older or in worse shape I might have died. I take precautions now to avoid that sort of thing. A painful zap is one thing. Feeling your heart almost stopping is another.

Only needed to feel that once to go from "Yeah, I'll take some precautions unless I'm tired or in a hurry" to "This shit gets discharged safely now, or if I can't do that, I wait until it discharges naturally. No exceptions, and damn the time it takes." Deliberately charging a cap to high voltage and discharging it for fun, without taking extensive safety precautions before-hand... Is something I'll leave for those who place a much lower valuation on their life than I do.



High voltage is dangerous, kids.
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Offline XOIIOTopic starter

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XOIIO - It's been a day since your last post here.  Are you still alive?

His electric shock alarm clock probably gave him a heart attack.

Lol, good one

I actually totally forgot about this forum post. I still plan on making the Shock Clock (patent pending), a couple hundred volts from bug zappers/camera flash circuits (without the caps of course) doesn't bug me at all, I got pretty used to it (not across the chest though, although I did that a few times) so just having the contacts close is enough to make my arm twitch a bit still until the third or fourth time and I'm used to it, the thing that's really stopping me is just finding a way to make a good wrist strap that will maintain good skin contact, I was thinking maybe some conductive thread, though that's a tad expensive I think, and there's still the matter of getting it to connect to the wires securely and durably, I was thinking maybe some elastic wrist strap and a couple metal buttons would work well (the kinds that snap together in two parts) because I could pinch the wires together between those.

The shock clock is a pretty catchy name actually  :).

I've accidentally shocked myself on 400-450V caps charged to 100-350V before. With the 350V my heart skipped at least two beats. If I were older or in worse shape I might have died. I take precautions now to avoid that sort of thing. A painful zap is one thing. Feeling your heart almost stopping is another.

Only needed to feel that once to go from "Yeah, I'll take some precautions unless I'm tired or in a hurry" to "This shit gets discharged safely now, or if I can't do that, I wait until it discharges naturally. No exceptions, and damn the time it takes." Deliberately charging a cap to high voltage and discharging it for fun, without taking extensive safety precautions before-hand... Is something I'll leave for those who place a much lower valuation on their life than I do.



High voltage is dangerous, kids.

Interesting, any idea the current it was at? as I said in bit above I've been shocked with similar voltages though pretty low current across the chest and while it was a little big of a jolt, it definitely didn't make my heart miss any beats.

Sometimes I think I have a weird resistance to electricity, I'd have to go to the police to volunteer to be tasered to see how much, but I seem to not be bothered by it as much as other people. A few weeks ago after finding some crappy jumper cable like clips (from an old spark plug tester gun sort of device, I still have the shell from it someone, a big chrome metal thing that fired up a neon tube I believe) I didn't notice the poor quality of the rubber, I had it hooked to the UPS transformer wired up to give 36v AC and I don't know how many, but it's a lot of amps (I need to buy an ebay clamp meter to find out, it puts out a buttload of current from what I can tell though) and god zapped a bit, thing is it wasn't bad at all, I wouldn't have done it again but I would have expected worse. The things were rusty as hell though so I doubt I made good contact.

It makes me wonder if some people are more resistant to electric shock than others. Maybe it's just a combination of luck, having dry hands and being used to shocks, and a little bit of insanity perhaps.

Heh, I remember my first shock, I had just had a shower (many many years ago by the way) and was going to plug in our TV, and I got zapped pretty darn good, I was stuck to the outlet for a second or two, I guess my finger was a bit too close or on the outlet prongs, but I remember thinking A: holy crap and B: that was kind of awesome. I did know better than to try it again, but I've always kind of liked electric shock a bit since then.




... something's wrong with me isn't there? lol

Offline XOIIOTopic starter

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Oh yeah don't know if I mentioned it at all but I was really surprised that that was a delay line and not the coil to keep the electron beam in line, I figured it would be fairly beefy, I guess you don't need a whole lot though since it is in a vacuum.

I still kind of wish I could have figured out what was wrong with it  but after turning it on when it had frozen the damn thing wouldn't work no matter what. Oh well, got some neat parts out of it and I only ever used it a bit as a neat music visualizer, would be nice to get another old analog scope someday to muck about with if I can.

Lurch

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It seems that this forum doesn't have an ignore user button. Would be useful.
 

Offline XOIIOTopic starter

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It seems that this forum doesn't have an ignore user button. Would be useful.

You could also just do what regular people do and ignore it the regular way. Taking the time to post a useless comment is pretty much the exact opposite of ignoring something.

Guess some people never learn these things though

Lurch

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You could also just do what regular people do and ignore it the regular way. Taking the time to post a useless comment is pretty much the exact opposite of ignoring something.

That doesn't make any sense.

On the subject of useless comments posted, I refer you to your OP, and also quite a few of your other posts where you seem to just insult people because you can't do something yourself when asked. Rather than getting angry at the fact that you are incapable of following simple instructions or doing things in a safe manner how about you like, I don't know, learn.
 

Offline XOIIOTopic starter

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You could also just do what regular people do and ignore it the regular way. Taking the time to post a useless comment is pretty much the exact opposite of ignoring something.

That doesn't make any sense.

On the subject of useless comments posted, I refer you to your OP, and also quite a few of your other posts where you seem to just insult people because you can't do something yourself when asked. Rather than getting angry at the fact that you are incapable of following simple instructions or doing things in a safe manner how about you like, I don't know, learn.

Like I've said before, when people offer tips in a shitty way with a sarcastic tone, or being a jerk for no reason or just having a shitty attitude throughout their post I'm not going to listen to their so called advice. At least my OP got some discussion going, what did yours contribute to? Apparently your lack of ability to ignore things and some personal grudge against me that you can't seem to get past, I guess that is why you insist on posting useless stuff instead of, oh yeah, ignoring it since the ignore user feature you complained about doesn't exist.

Offline smashedProton

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People are being passive aggressive because a video blogger and maker killing himself would make the hobby look bad...
http://www.garrettbaldwin.com/

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.
 

Offline GreyWoolfe

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I agree with the tone of the posts, if not necessarily the language used.  If you get the urge again to do something like this at 3:00 AM, please don't post a video of it.  Don't give anyone with very limited knowledge any excuse to try it at home.  You were lucky, someone else might not be.  I don't know you personally, but you do seem to have a bit of a cavalier attitude.  I wouldn't want to see you or anyone else hurt because judgement wasn't as good as it should have been.  Over the years, I have found some very creative ways to hurt myself.  In fact, my wife is no longer amazed, she just looks at me and shakes her head.  And this with trying my best to take all possible precautions.  OK, so I won't give up wearing shorts while soldering.  Florida is just too hot for jeans and I will live with my choice there.  Don't give up ever on learning and experimenting.  However, fully engage your brain at least 10 seconds before you put your hands in motion.  The life you save might just be your own.
"Heaven has been described as the place that once you get there all the dogs you ever loved run up to greet you."
 


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