Electric shock experiences - for those still alive

[SeanB]

I remember when I had Tetanus after cutting myself on rusty wire. The red lines growing up my leg and the trip to the doctor, along with the painful shot of antibiotics to stop it. I must have been around 3-4. I remember the house layout, and that we had ducks, and hatched the eggs in the cooker warming drawer.

[B.B.Bubby]

My earliest childhood memory is that of swimming up a really long but skinny tube with a heap of my mates, we were all racing trying to get to the big soccer ball first.  Pretty sure I won   

[WZOLL]

Plugging in a wall wort with my index finger on one of the prongs. My arm jiggled and flew back. Someone  needs to make those things safer.

[Votality]

My earliest childhood memory is that of swimming up a really long but skinny tube with a heap of my mates, we were all racing trying to get to the big soccer ball first.  Pretty sure I won   

Thanks for that lovely insight into your mothers vagina. However I think this could be a bit off topic.

[TheAmmoniacal]

I have been shocked by 230 VAC mains countless times, I try not to be stupid or reckless - it's always been across two fingers on the same hand. It's quite the experience and I do recommend it! Whatever you're holding at the time will be flying and you most definitely will swear at least once.

Interestingly - you can feel the frequency quite distinctly, it's a very buzzing-kind-of sensation. 

[poorchava]

I got shocked many times by mains but the worst was when i took a shot from a capacitors charged to about 10kV or so. I was building a CW multiplier for some experiment. I have unplugged it but forgot to bleed the capacitors. The output was some serious nanofarads if not more (don't remember, it was like 10 years ago) but some of the charge must have bled of already or I probably wouldn't be writing this. Anyway, I woke up laying on the floor in my chair, having been out cold for like half an hour. It kinda strange that nobody at home heard anything... I still do not remember the exact moment of the shock.

Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk

[mmagin]

I guess I've been pretty careful, excepting playing with a battery and a switch and a reversed filament transformer as a kid and shocking myself and others for fun.  Never been shocked off the AC line (mains).

My worst shock was just across my hand.  When I was a kid, I had a off-line strobe light kit, probably had the usual photoflash capacitor, with no bleeder resistor.  After turning it off, the tube had fired, so the voltage probably wasn't near the peak, but I picked up the board and went to put it in my other hand (bottom of the board against my palm).  That was quite a surprise, and I involuntarily tossed it on the floor.

I try to make a habit of avoiding working on line voltage or higher stuff live, and when I do, I use an isolation transformer.  Also there are GFCIs here, should trip at 5 mA or less.  The big danger I envision being involved with are higher power high voltage circuits (ham transmitters, vacuum tube tesla coils, etc.) and I've usually aimed to diagnose similar things without poking around in them while live.  And always using bleeder resistors.

[microbug]

I got into electronics by making a spark generator from old disposable cameras for a potato cannon. I was 10... you can guess the rest! I guess the worst one was from a capacitor bank of maybe 450uF charged to 300V :|

[gazdamissa]

Hihihi, I read couple of pages with people's shock experience, and I could't help myself from laughing. Truth, some of the stories are dark, but as the topic says, we are still alive, and probably a bit smater from those experiences.
I myself had countless shocks from various sources, I could run a topic thread by myself. Some of them were from carelesness, some from stupidity.
The one that I keep talking about to my friends when this kind of topic pops up, is the shock I received from 20" CRT Mirovideo monitor. 42kg. Sometime around 1996, I think.
The stupid thing was randomly prevailing green color. Like if you would put green film over the screen. Bonk it on a side, it flips back. In time, it required harder and harder slapping, and gone to the point where it was dangerously close to breaking its housing. So, I popped it open. By that time, I was just lightly introduced to electronics, what was dangeorus, what was not.

Don't touch plugged in devices, touch unplugged. If it is plugged, it is safe to tinker near small electronics, it is always at low voltage/current. What bunch of lies...

I called on the phone my in-that-time-electronics-foreman (smartest guy that I knew at that time), explained problem, and he said that one of the circuits (there were three of them, each for one color, I think) behind the tube is going loose, try to find a cracked solder, tinker a bit. Power it on, point to the mirror to see if you make difference.
Easy, I took a small tuning screwdriver, that was all metal, and BOINK  Found live pin on first try. Threw be on my back, and I didn't know what the h*ll happened. Phone rang. It was foreman. "If you are going to tinker on those chips, use toothpick, or a plastic pryer, those mother*****s run on 600V".
Ok, hang-up.
Aaand I started laughing like crazy for a good five minutes.

Sorry for the long post, but since I read some of your stories, I thought I owe you guys mine.

Remember, plastic is your best friend!