Safety tip of the day

[electronjohn]

I have a broadcast engineering acquaintance who intimately knows what an undischarged filter's capable of. He was working on a balky 20kW FM transmitter...it was the middle of the night & he'd been at it for hours. His most recent attempt at getting it back on the air failed, he got VERY pizzed and flung a wrench in his hands into the transmitter's guts. As bad luck would have it, it landed RIGHT ACROSS the terminals of a big filter (maybe 20uF @ 15kV). The big cap blew the wrench out like it was shot from a gun...hit him in the face, breaking his jaw & taking out 8-9 teeth. It was a Collins like I'm familiar with, so prolly ran about 8,200V @ 3A or so. Owie.

Myself? Only been zapped once...an old Gates 1kW AM got me w/about 3500V @ 500mils. Knocked me right into the wall 3' behind the transmitter. I quit bypassing interlocks that day. Oh...when I was a kid I let a color TV snap an arc right thru my fingernail. Left a cute little hole. Owie.

[drh4683]

Originally Posted by electronjohn

I have a broadcast engineering acquaintance who intimately knows what an undischarged filter's capable of. He was working on a balky 20kW FM transmitter...it was the middle of the night & he'd been at it for hours. His most recent attempt at getting it back on the air failed, he got VERY pizzed and flung a wrench in his hands into the transmitter's guts. As bad luck would have it, it landed RIGHT ACROSS the terminals of a big filter (maybe 20uF @ 15kV). The big cap blew the wrench out like it was shot from a gun...hit him in the face, breaking his jaw & taking out 8-9 teeth. It was a Collins like I'm familiar with, so prolly ran about 8,200V @ 3A or so. Owie.

Myself? Only been zapped once...an old Gates 1kW AM got me w/about 3500V @ 500mils. Knocked me right into the wall 3' behind the transmitter. I quit bypassing interlocks that day. Oh...when I was a kid I let a color TV snap an arc right thru my fingernail. Left a cute little hole. Owie.

ouch. Sorry I couldn't help but to laugh while reading that as I can picture that happening.
I've made some bad moves too and sometimes, Im amazed that I didn't get zapped when soldering/servicing under a chassis not realizing that the set was still plugged in, especially if I was working in the power supply!!!!

[marty59]

Back in my teens a good friend of mine (also into electronics) and I were changing out a CRT in an early 25" Zenith color. So here we are with the face down on a throw rug working on the (tiled) basement floor with just socks on our feet. Next thing I remember we were about ten feet away from that set laying next to each other and saying "No, I thought "You" discharged the CRT"!!