Story Time! How bad have you been shocked?

Oh, while were in the thread resurrection mood, back in the 80's, I found a street light with the cover removed , I decided to see if it was live by sticking my finger on the live side of the mains input.

It was live.


I have no words to explain my stupidity.

Electrical engineering student here

Worst was just 220v on my hand, wires a few centimeters from each other, not too bad. But I've had some very close calls that would've shocked me across the heart. One time I was unscrewing exposed mains wire off a connector, but I had forgot to unplug the mains first. I was sitting with my knees pressing on metal from the workdesk which I assume was grounded so if I had touched the screwdriver anywhere except the plastic top I would have been shocked bad.

Another time we were working on a 220-24V transformer, but it was the most unsafe thing I've ever seen. There was no encasing around the circuit board and lots of 220v nodes were exposed, and we weren't even warned by the teacher. It would be so simple to just have a brainfart and move it or pick it up by grabbing the circuit board while the mains was plugged in. And one student actually did and got shocked, luckily only across one hand, not from one to the other.

Touched my first cute little HeNe (I bare tubed it) right after I unplugged it without realizing that HeNe tubes act as capacitors then later was holding one end of the HeNe tube as I connected the leads to the PSU to power it up, accidentally had my other hand too close to the PSU contacts, made a nice arc to my hand and through the other hand, made the tube light up briefly

when i was 12 i used to open things and observe how they worked, most things were battery powered or 230~240v mains,
Then one day i accidentally touched neutral and phase together which made an amazing blue ball of sparks and little sparks came out and would melt the carpet, i had my broken "whoopie cusions" on my hands as rubber gloves,
After that happened i had an idea to test the power on bugs and snails etc. then one day i somehow shocked myself and never fiddled with mains power ever again! atleast until i knew more about it...

Sigurthr said:

It's more likely that you charged up the transformer as an inductor by applying the DC, and when you disconnected it you received a shock from the inductive kickback, which is a HV pulse.

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I was recently working on a project where a mountain top repeater kept dying and was a mystery to everyone why for two years and several visits replacing radios. I found that all of their DC control relays were unprotected from that same thing, the kickback or counter EMF pulse from the 12V relay coils were sending high voltage back to the DC bus and frying the sensitive solid state radios. Fixed that by taking 1000 PIV rated silicone diodes and placing them backwards across the DC coil terminals of each relay.

I've felt the same shock coming back from coils too, once energized with current, when you disconnect the power, the magnetic field around them collapses and acts like an AC current, since it is moving... the coil then acts like the secondary winding on a step-up transformer and every turn in the coil increases the original voltage to where you can produce hundreds of volts from a 12 volt battery, low current it be, it can still zap and be very painful.

I must've been 5 or 6 years old, my mom took me to this place called headlines for a haircut. When we walked in I remember hanging on the door handle & grabbing on to a metal railing in this stupid, typical kidlike manner. In my head I was a monkey swinging from tree to tree so I was hanging on everything that day. Anyways apparently there was an electrical short with a nearby outlet from christmas lights that went through the railing, and I was the 1st person to close that circuit by grabbing the railing while still hanging on the door handle like a jackass. It was 120V and I screamed like a girl! My hands compressed the railing AND the door while I was being shocked, had to be a good 3 or 4 seconds before my mom grabbed my shirt & yanked me out of it. Then she yelled at me for embarrassing her and I don't think she every took me back there... :thinking:

:beer:

hwang21 said:

Touched my first cute little HeNe (I bare tubed it) right after I unplugged it without realizing that HeNe tubes act as capacitors then later was holding one end of the HeNe tube as I connected the leads to the PSU to power it up, accidentally had my other hand too close to the PSU contacts, made a nice arc to my hand and through the other hand, made the tube light up briefly

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Right there with ya. shocked myself more times than I care to admit when I got my first hene. Doesnt hurt thankfully, just pissed me off lol. At least now I know how long those tubes hold a charge.

ohh I have another story!
about 4 years ago i was at a friends punching his boxing bag with bare hands , the bag was attatched with chain to the Truss in his shed, when i was finished i was hugging the bag and leaning on it, I wrapped my hand on the chain and it zapped me good and i fell on the ground,
I then accused my mate of making some kind of shocking device so people dont steal his boxing bag,
He laughed and thought i was talking shit, we inspected and found the boxing bag chain was over a 230v power cable wire,
Unfortunatly the shed was live wired for free power for growing Marijuana and would not turn off when we turn main switch off,
So we had to call in our sparky friend who done the wiring to fix the cable.

ARG said:

The worst one was when I was little (3ish) my sibling had a toy that used a 12V power supply, I unplugged that power supply from her toy and stuck the connector right into my mouth. It wasn't very pleasant, it probably hurt less than I remember though.

Second time was when I was 6, I was into taking apart anything electronical. My mom gave me a disposable camera that wasn't working to take apart. At the time I had no knowledge of what capacitors did... I ripped it open and started poking everything with my fingers until I hit the capacitor that was used to charge the flash. It made a REALLY loud pop, as well as some sparks. It left me with a nasty mark on my finger where I touched it.

Nothing serious compared to those two. I got shocked with a HeNe tube, but that felt like a strong static electricity shock.

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I recently decided to see how much of a shock a disposable camera capacitor puts out. (i had watched those youtube videos of them tazing etc) I popped it all open and touched it with a bit of metal rod. Not only did it zap me but the flash went off which made me think i got shocked alot worse than it was XD

But the worst for me was when i was around 7 climbing an electric fence and slipping onto it halfway over it. A few weeks later i peed on it not knowing it would zap me at the time. (i am an idiot)

My school used to go for cross country runs, I remember one time when we stopped for a rest and one lad laid on the ground with his eyes shut. I grabbed his leg - he gave me a strange look but he was too tired to care and closed his eyes again. I then grabbed the electric fence with my other hand... :eg: