I had an old microwave that wouldn't die. I spent 3 days blowing stuff up in it before melting a hole through the glass covered stainless steel floor it it. I have posted some pictures of my microwave plasma balls before. (Nuke an SOS pad). The plasma ball does hover around the top of the oven and eventually grows to fill the entire oven. Makes a really wicked sound too!
Disclaimer:
Don't try these experiments with any remotely useful oven, and do them outside in a safe manner (oven and camera remotely operated, and far from flammable items, oven case grounded). In case you don't know a microwave oven runs on about 2500 volts and kills more appliance technicians than all other appliances combined. Respect the power inside, and don't open it unless you know what you are doing. You won't live to laugh about being zapped by one!
Why outside? Well I managed to stink up the whole neighboorhood, with (probably toxic) smoke by nuking an old modem (don't do it). The neighbors thought the aliens had landed with the orange and purple glow and the most wicked buzzing sounds that came out of my back yard!
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I was working on a switching power supply once and accidently shorted the mains filter caps with a screw driver. I went blind and deaf for a few seconds before recovering. The power supply supplied 0-7.5Vdc up to 40 amps.
My dad built a shop when I was a kid. He supplied power to it with a male to male extension cord that we plugged into the house. I was carrying the cord all ready plugged into the house over to the shop and kept feeling a really painfull tickle in my leg. I looked down and the end was bouncing of my leg electricuting me each time. When I got to the shop, there was a grease gun sitting outside on some saw horses. I swung the end of the plug towards it and discovered arc welding.
My dad built a shop when I was a kid. He supplied power to it with a male to male extension cord that we plugged into the house. I was carrying the cord all ready plugged into the house over to the shop and kept feeling a really painfull tickle in my leg. I looked down and the end was bouncing of my leg electricuting me each time. When I got to the shop, there was a grease gun sitting outside on some saw horses. I swung the end of the plug towards it and discovered arc welding.
I was on the board of a parochial school (yeah, the one my 3 n'ere do well sons went) -- the principal wanted to kick one of the 6th graders out of school for microwaving Gulden's mustard packets (back when they were aluminum) -- I had to intervene as I thought it was hilarious that you could get a dozen pre-pubescent males to watch mustard packets explode for hours, nay days on end! Wonderful thing keeping pre-teens interested in physics for hours...but made one heck of a mess of the microwave!
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We had an old microwave oven with an intermittent door interlock. Yes the oven would turn on with the door open! It was banished to a storage shed for future experiments. My daughter decided she wanted to do an experiment involving the oven for the school science fair. Her experiment was called "foods that go boom". You can guess the rest. An egg will blow the door open. A whole carton of eggs blew the door off of the oven! After that experiment the oven went back into the shed, and was forgotten.
Her science fair write up won an award in the school, so it went to the county science fair, did well and was invited to the state fair where it was flatly refused for being unsafe and promoting irresponsible behavior. Not unlike Dad's Tesla coil in 11th grade (it wasn't even allowed in the school fair).
About 10 or 12 years later I found the old oven while cleaning out the shed. You know that I couldn't throw out an oven that still had some life left in it, so the door was reattached with a generous ammount of duct tape and the experiments beagn. The oven has a mechanical timer (yes that old) that I set on 5 minutes. I grounded the oven to a water pipe with an automotive jumper cable and powered it up with a power strip that had a 15 amp breaker and a switch. It took 3 evenings to kill it! They made them good then (about 1979). I relieved it of its transformer and discarded the rest.
Her science fair write up won an award in the school, so it went to the county science fair, did well and was invited to the state fair where it was flatly refused for being unsafe and promoting irresponsible behavior. Not unlike Dad's Tesla coil in 11th grade (it wasn't even allowed in the school fair).
About 10 or 12 years later I found the old oven while cleaning out the shed. You know that I couldn't throw out an oven that still had some life left in it, so the door was reattached with a generous ammount of duct tape and the experiments beagn. The oven has a mechanical timer (yes that old) that I set on 5 minutes. I grounded the oven to a water pipe with an automotive jumper cable and powered it up with a power strip that had a 15 amp breaker and a switch. It took 3 evenings to kill it! They made them good then (about 1979). I relieved it of its transformer and discarded the rest.
The IBM PC came out in 1981. Within a year or two there were clone shops all over the place building PC clones. There were about 5 of us that built clone machines to order for a reasonable price. We also did repairs. I got to know the operators of all of the local clone shops, and often made deals to buy their "defectives" for about 10 cents on the dollar. I got about 100 "dead' power supplies, on a deal. I had made a test jig using a dual beam car headlight for a load. I discovered that about one third of the power supplies worked, another third had blown fuses, and the rest were really screwed up.
I was opening up the dead ones attaching a jumper wire across the fuse and plugging them in. The first 4 or 5 worked fine, but the next one dimmed the lights and welded the plug into the wall socket. One of the large capacitors in the input filter exploded like a cherry bomb imbedding part of its case in the ceiling. It is still there! I modified my test method to include wiring a 100 wat light bulb across the fuse.
Hi,
I used to have an IBM Display Writer. It had the 8 inch disc drive that was as big as a monitor
. Shame I tore it down, I guess they must be worth a bit now:-( When I was in the TV repair shop as kid we would often use a 100W bulb in series. It saved a fair few line output transistors if the transformer was short. This is a good thing to use on any old kit if you dont have a variac. Certainly saves having to explain the stench and white fluffy crap everywhere to the misses after an exploded electro.
Yes 115V mains is a much better system, although large loads still require a split phase 220V supply. Still only 110V to earth though. We dont have the luxury here. Its get a whack and think youself lucky!!.
I killed two cheapo chinese microwaves messing about with crazy experiments. My old boss did his final project for his degree with the magnetron, transformer and some flourescent tubes with the ends cut off and phosphor washed out and C02 pumped through with the magnetron as the pump for lasing. He said it worked but was stupidly dangerous. He went on to own his own laser cutting/heat treating and induction heating company. Still going strong now. Sort of an offshoot of the Delapina company.
Massive current can also be a killer. I do a lot of work in telephone exchanges these days. Some still have the old centralised 48V battery and massive bus bars throughout the building. I have been told that people have dropped a spanner accross them and been litteraly blown to bits. The larger buildings had supplies easily capable of 5000A so a dead short would have been imense. 1 1/2" AF spanner vapourised in your face. OUCH.
Cheers Matt.
I used to have an IBM Display Writer. It had the 8 inch disc drive that was as big as a monitor
. Shame I tore it down, I guess they must be worth a bit now:-( When I was in the TV repair shop as kid we would often use a 100W bulb in series. It saved a fair few line output transistors if the transformer was short. This is a good thing to use on any old kit if you dont have a variac. Certainly saves having to explain the stench and white fluffy crap everywhere to the misses after an exploded electro.Yes 115V mains is a much better system, although large loads still require a split phase 220V supply. Still only 110V to earth though. We dont have the luxury here. Its get a whack and think youself lucky!!.
I killed two cheapo chinese microwaves messing about with crazy experiments. My old boss did his final project for his degree with the magnetron, transformer and some flourescent tubes with the ends cut off and phosphor washed out and C02 pumped through with the magnetron as the pump for lasing. He said it worked but was stupidly dangerous
. He went on to own his own laser cutting/heat treating and induction heating company. Still going strong now. Sort of an offshoot of the Delapina company.Massive current can also be a killer. I do a lot of work in telephone exchanges these days. Some still have the old centralised 48V battery and massive bus bars throughout the building. I have been told that people have dropped a spanner accross them and been litteraly blown to bits. The larger buildings had supplies easily capable of 5000A so a dead short would have been imense. 1 1/2" AF spanner vapourised in your face. OUCH.
Cheers Matt.
I don't remember many details. All I recall is that one moment I was checking the B+ voltages on a belly-up EL84 stereo amp, but the next moment, though I was still sitting straight forward in my chair, I was looking straight up at the ceiling.
That was nearly 10 years ago. Hasn't happened since - unless, of course, I'm like Bruce Willis in that movie The Sixth Sense, in which case I only think I'm alive, but in fact I'm the ghost of a man who died 10 years ago while building a really bitchin' amplifier. Boo!
That was nearly 10 years ago. Hasn't happened since - unless, of course, I'm like Bruce Willis in that movie The Sixth Sense, in which case I only think I'm alive, but in fact I'm the ghost of a man who died 10 years ago while building a really bitchin' amplifier. Boo!
OK, I got all of you beat my a mile....
Try 2KV! From a photomultiplier distribution panel, what they used to call a 'cow' in the high energy physics world....
Unplugged an SHV (safe high voltage - yeah right!) (it's like a big BNC) connector only to find it was HOT... tried to drop it (like you can), my partner grabbed me, he got stuck to ME, and we both got zapped. When I finally could get away from it, it fell down my fore-arm like a laser, arcing all the way. I still have the scar. Ended up in the hospital for a day or so for 'shock' and burns.....
A little tickle from a tube amp seems tame by comparison...
Bill
Try 2KV! From a photomultiplier distribution panel, what they used to call a 'cow' in the high energy physics world....
Unplugged an SHV (safe high voltage - yeah right!) (it's like a big BNC) connector only to find it was HOT... tried to drop it (like you can), my partner grabbed me, he got stuck to ME, and we both got zapped. When I finally could get away from it, it fell down my fore-arm like a laser, arcing all the way. I still have the scar. Ended up in the hospital for a day or so for 'shock' and burns.....
A little tickle from a tube amp seems tame by comparison...
Bill
Vconsumer,
I think you may be on to something, I sort of know when something is live. Its a bad habit. Complacency Kills. It has almost taken me to the scrappy several times, just when I think its cool-WOLLOP game over "what the F£$% was that"................"Oh" ............."S&*^" ..........."Wo, ho, ha ya. Think its time to go".............man that was wrong, I shouldnt have done that????. Yeh, only so many times you can go through that before it really is over.
I once stood with all three phases in my hand whilst my good friend Clive was chatting. I turned around and put the screwdriver in my hand accross the lot, bang. Wow!, how did that happen. I will tell you why, I didnt test!!!!. Muppet. Scared the crap out of us both. He was supposed to be learning. Good job he's my mate, I would have run a mile. Save yourself death and/or embarressment, test first.
Cheers Matt.
(I can not spell to save my life)
I think you may be on to something, I sort of know when something is live. Its a bad habit. Complacency Kills. It has almost taken me to the scrappy several times, just when I think its cool-WOLLOP game over "what the F£$% was that"................"Oh" ............."S&*^" ..........."Wo, ho, ha ya. Think its time to go".............man that was wrong, I shouldnt have done that????. Yeh, only so many times you can go through that before it really is over.
I once stood with all three phases in my hand whilst my good friend Clive was chatting. I turned around and put the screwdriver in my hand accross the lot, bang. Wow!, how did that happen. I will tell you why, I didnt test!!!!. Muppet. Scared the crap out of us both. He was supposed to be learning. Good job he's my mate, I would have run a mile. Save yourself death and/or embarressment, test first.
Cheers Matt.
(I can not spell to save my life)
I work with excimer lasers at work and the power cord going to the laser chamber (which makes a garden hose look tiny in comparison) has a nice label on it warning that it carries 25,000 volts at 700 amps. Fortunately, I haven't had any close encounters with it yet. If I do, I probably won't be here to post about it. Does any one else work with EXTREME high voltages like this?
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