Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

Either way the plug gets dropped which is hazardous with our monstrous things. I'm waiting until I drop one on a toe or something.

You can get trainers with steel toecaps for £25. They also protect against teenagers trying to influence you by treading on your toes: simply smile beatifically, and say "my turn now".

[tautech]

Best bite other than a 5KV 3ms electric fence zap was when I was just 13, building a valve PSU and got zapped from the 700V 100mA on the plates of the rectifier tube. OUCH !
Biffed me right across the bedroom and bounced me off the bro's bed. 

Yes I guess that when I was bitten by this electronics bug ! 
Piss ant battery powered Philips electronics set when I was 7 didn't do it but a good zap at nearly twice that age sure did. 

[tggzzz]

Best bite other than a 5KV 3ms electric fence zap was when I was just 13, building a valve PSU and got zapped from the 700V 100mA on the plates of the rectifier tube. OUCH !

When she was in an ornery phase, I used an electric fence to teach my pre-teen daughter not to fiddle with electrickery.

Got her to make a fist and lightly touch the fence with her knuckles - and why doing it that way ensured her muscles wouldn't be locked with her still gripping the cable.

Yes, an exaggeration, but all in a good cause.

[bd139]

Either way the plug gets dropped which is hazardous with our monstrous things. I'm waiting until I drop one on a toe or something.

You can get trainers with steel toecaps for £25. They also protect against teenagers trying to influence you by treading on your toes: simply smile beatifically, and say "my turn now".

Trainers with steel caps? Is that so the chavs can kick each other in effectively? 

I mostly go bare foot in the lab. Probably a bad idea.

Best bite other than a 5KV 3ms electric fence zap was when I was just 13, building a valve PSU and got zapped from the 700V 100mA on the plates of the rectifier tube. OUCH !
Biffed me right across the bedroom and bounced me off the bro's bed. 

Yes I guess that when I was bitten by this electronics bug ! 
Piss ant battery powered Philips electronics set when I was 7 didn't do it but a good zap at nearly twice that age sure did. 

This was my favourite circuit on those old electronics kits using the inevitable relay's field collapse as a high voltage generator



Hey - touch these and the light will come on. Bzzt.

Knackered the relay after a few minutes though

[BU508A]

When we are going to assemble the high voltage power supply for the anode of the GU81-M,
we got a security advice from our Prof.: "Be careful, when you are handling with that capactor.
The energy in it can kill a cow instantly." And that was all he wrote.   

Btw, the capacitor was one of those paraffine filled ones with 3.5kV max voltage and a
capacity of about 4.7µF. We were running the GU81-M with 2500V.
This is a similiar looking example:



We had a lot of fun.   

Mounty

[tautech]

One of the small engine workshop tricks when I twisted spanners for a bit was to charge up Bosch points caps on the SEM ignition tester and gracefully lob them at a mate to catch. ZAP ! Gottcha ! 

[BU508A]

One of the small engine workshop tricks when I twisted spanners for a bit was to charge up Bosch points caps on the SEM ignition tester and gracefully lob them at a mate to catch. ZAP ! Gottcha ! 

You are such a joke cookie   (Scherzkeks in German, or, correct english: joker)

[tautech]

Best bite other than a 5KV 3ms electric fence zap was when I was just 13, building a valve PSU and got zapped from the 700V 100mA on the plates of the rectifier tube. OUCH !

When she was in an ornery phase, I used an electric fence to teach my pre-teen daughter not to fiddle with electrickery.

Got her to make a fist and lightly touch the fence with her knuckles - and why doing it that way ensured her muscles wouldn't be locked with her still gripping the cable.

Yes, an exaggeration, but all in a good cause.

Reminds me of the daughter nearly 30 years ago  when she was a toddler and after having a bee sting of two got a zap from the electric fence wire along the top of our garden fence and ran to her mum shouting MEAN BEE, MEAN BEE ! 
That wire served a dual purpose, kept our tame as church mice Hereford breeding bulls from pruning the garden and kept the kids from escaping down the farm !
That little girl then became the resident 'mother' keeping her bro's and any visiting toddlers from climbing the fence to find out for themselves what that grumpy old bugger tautech was saying about the fence that BITES !
  Some kids ears are just painted on !

[med6753]

@med,sorry but I totally missed the fact that we're bitten by the B+, bloody hurts don't it. Did you drop or was it on the bench?

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

Luckily it was on the bench. I had just rotated the chassis to check something when somehow my forearm very slightly brushed the B+ terminal.  I hadn't felt something like that in a LONG time. 

[med6753]

Dumbass 

[med6753]

My first shock was a big one and considering the circumstances it's a miracle I got interested in electronics. My Father was working on a 16 inch portable TV that needed new B+ caps. He had the chassis pulled away from the CRT to gain access. What I didn't know was with the chassis pulled away from the CRT the ground strap that normally grounds the aquadad coating on the CRT was hanging free. That aquadad acts as a giant capacitor for the HV. He powered up the TV and a beautiful raster came up on the CRT. I remarked how nice the picture was and pointed to the front faceplate of the CRT. Well, the 14KV that had been pumping into the CRT found a home. Right through the glass face plate into my finger. Don't remember much after that. 

Another time he was working on another TV and he had the high voltage cage open. Suddenly the 1B3 HV rectifier started glowing a bright purple. The tube had gone gassy. It scared the crap out of me and I left the room and wouldn't come back despite his assurances that it wouldn't blow up.       

[Specmaster]

Holy crap you guys have been getting some good zaps and some of the descriptions of them have had me chortling like a good un here, especially bd139's "holy fuckadoodle you little wanker" I can just picture him muttering those words when he stuffs his porkers in the sockets. Would have thought by now, you'd learnt the lesson not to fucking do that cos it bites 

[bd139]

I'm a slow learner 

[med6753]

Now you know why some of us are somewhat nuts. All those zaps scrambled our brains. 

[Specmaster]

Good job those X2 are only tiny little bastards or otherwise you'd be fingerless by now. That tosser pissing on the electric fence must be fucking mental, must be agony receiving a bite up your pork dagger 

[bd139]

Could be worse 

[Specmaster]

Now you know why some of us are somewhat nuts. All those zaps scrambled our brains. 

Yep, I've had my share but most of mine have been 230v or lower, never forget the time when I was rewiring the offices at a company I was working at a few years ago. Fuck it needed it too, it was the old clothe insulted cables in the main, all run in wooden capping, mostly singles, buried behind beautiful walnut and oak wall panels that had to be preserved at all costs, that was an interesting job as well. Parts of the offices upstairs had been partially rewired before me in T&E and I needed to cut into of these cables for a spur and I told my apprentice to nip down downstairs and lock out the circuit breaker for that circuit. He cam up and told me all done so I got my side cutters and hacked through his cable. Fuck there was a huge blue flash right before my eyes, partially blinding me for a few minutes, when I could see again the side cutters jaws had completely evaporated. That taught me to double check everything for myself in future. I went downstairs to check which breaker he had padlocked off and sure enough he had done the right one according to way label, but whoever did the installation upstairs had mislabelled the ways. He had turned off the boiler circuit as instructed except it was actually the sockets circuit for the chairman's office, and I had cut right through a 30A supply 

[Specmaster]

Could be worse 

All they'd find is a blackened crisp on the floor 

[BU508A]

Finally Darwin is taking care. 

[med6753]

Could be worse 

All they'd find is a blackened crisp on the floor 

Like this guy?

[Specmaster]

fucking idiot, surely he was dead, if not he was certainly being burned alive as well just for good measure 

[Brumby]

Bringing the volts down a little .....

Wanted to check the output of one of the sensors on a family car that had been deposited in the street, immobile.

The only scope at hand that was easily compatible with the situation was a humble DSO138, but attaching it directly to the car's power did not seem wise, especially as I was going to be cranking the engine during the test.  Needing it in a hurry, I grabbed a few bits I had on hand plus one of the bonus items I received from Beanflying - a 3D printed case.  A bit of soldering iron action saw this result:
 

Which worked nicely.



Thank you Bean for the perfect case.

[Specmaster]

I got one of those little scopes, ideal for that type of thing, will work of a 9v and although have a low bandwidth are ideal use on low stuff like cars and audio where often you just need to confirm if a signal is present or not.

[beanflying]

On my list of projects to get back to  That split case should have come with a TPU band to keep it together but I got sidetracked about six months ago  . When I get it sorted I will drop you one in the mail.

[Mr. Scram]

Could be worse 

I'll ruin that party by mentioning a lack of laminar flow. The stream breaking up into droplets will save you. You'd need to get real close to make that work and at that point you've really earned it.