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Okay, misinterpretation fixing time:
@ Wa2ise the portion of what I wrote about that you quote was when I lived in a house that was built in the 40's (original toilet was dated 1948 IIRC, and inspectors thought parts of the wiring were made prewar). No breakers in the place. The DMM story was the house that had the breakers, and that was built in the late 70's to early 80's.
@Jeffhs: It was not the lead connectors on the DMM or any part of the DMM that smoked, but rater the female socket on the TV end of a proprietary TV power cord. The cord socket smoked when I stuck the DMM probe tips in to it....Surprisingly both the cord and the DMM survived that incident essentially undamaged.
The wiring in that house ALWAYS had a faint hum in some places...It was cloth insulation and rather brittle...Not my problem anymore.
I have killed many DMMs from leaving them on the wrong settings...I'm too impatient and scatter brained to always check the settings, and I often rapidly switch between hot voltage checks and cold resistance checks when trouble shooting so it happens from time to time...Which is why I don't buy pricey DMMs. DMMs and soldering irons I cheap out on because depending luck, what I'm working on, and how focused I am when working I can go 1-2 years without killing one or have three die in one day, and I mourn my equipment less when it is cheap junk.
I never worry about power cords on tube era devices unless they are obviously damaged, and as long as the schematic and parts layout suggests there is nothing connected across the line when off that could cause a fire I don't worry about leaving tube stuff plugged in (especially if I've worked on the set).
I view seleniums this way: If I'm keeping the set, it works with the originals, and there are no signs of low B+, or hum then I leave them alone...Otherwise replacement usually happens when I have them open. I don't freak out over lead asbestos or selenium...I spent the first 12 years of my life in a house that had lead EVERYTHING and have had blood lead levels that freaked out the doctors back then.Yet I can think and operate just fine...heck I'm probably smarter than the average guy my age! And about 3-10% of the sets I work on have asbestos in them (which I usually remove and toss if the sheets are loose or easy to pull out), if either of these things were significantly affecting my health I'd notice and reduce my exposure, but they are not....Granted I don't TRY to poison my self with them either. It is the dosage that makes the poison. Water and table salt are both poisons if consumed in sufficient quantity. A bit of selenium ain't gonna hurt you to breathe if you catch the set smoking in a reasonable period of time, and deal with it. But if you let it fill your room like a roach fogger and instead of opening a window sit in it until it's gone then what happens to you is your fault.
Seleniums smoked up many homes back in the day yet there is no period media scare of people dying of selenium inhalation during TV failures...What does that tell you?
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