Story Time! How bad have you been shocked?

[Solonar]

I used to get hit by the starting pulse for HeNe's 10-20 times a day, but the worst was a ganged PSU for lighting 40 HeNe's at once, I tingled for 2 days after that one.

:wtf:

 

[Seoul_lasers]

very nice flaws you have found in that video!

I would of loved to see someone put a clamp meter on the input to the blender, just because its rated for 700W doesn't mean that ~3A is flowing :thinking:

I'll also say that there is a complete lack of understanding of basic physics in that YouTube video. I also find this too to some degree in Korea.
Ever heard of fan death? It's a nonsensical belief that electric fans kill by chopping up oxygen molecules....these days, after the foreign media ridiculed the Korean media on this issue, Koreans have mostly stopped believing this. Older generations will still insist that fans are dangerous due to the lack of critical thinking skills.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any funnier, apparent only in Korea, eating brown rice when pregnant will make your child a boy. :wtf:

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Ever heard of fan death? It's a nonsensical belief that electric fans kill by chopping up oxygen molecules....these days, after the foreign media ridiculed the Korean media on this issue, Koreans have mostly stopped believing this. Older generations will still insist that fans are dangerous due to the lack of critical thinking skills.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any funnier, apparent only in Korea, eating brown rice when pregnant will make your child a boy. :wtf:

:crackup: I have NEVER heard of it, and LMFAO!!!!

Wonder why I'm not dead yet... I sleep with a fan on every night

 

[ShortyInCanada]

Lightning strikes have got to be the most impressive of all !

For me there are so many...Standard household 120VAC is nothing more than an annoyance and reminder that I'm being careless. Something I have managed to pay attention to for the last few years. (I'm getting too old to chance it !)

The first time I managed to zap myself with some form of higher voltage was back when I was 13. I was in the process of building myself 4 strobe lights. I was soldering the components to the PC boards while watching a good "who-dunnit" mystery program on TV. Sitting on the floor at a cofee table with all the bits laid out and the soldering iron just off to the right.
At the beginning I was mostly listening to the program while concentrating on the construction aspects but as the conclusion was drawing near my focus began to shift so that as the end was getting closer my attention to the electronics was limited to the commercial breaks.
As it turns out the previous "break" I had plugged in 2 of the completed strobes with one working perfectly and the other not at all. Before the program resumed I determined that I had placed one of the LARGE capacitors in reversed polarity for the circuit.
Then the show came back on and the conclusion began.
It was a real nail-biter of a show and I started to nervously twitch...and as it turns out I was holding the plug end of the non-functioning strobe in my hand.
I started tapping the metal end on my lower teeth as they worked through the solution...the solution to the 2 hours was....I tensed up causing the other prong of the plug to contact my upper teeth and as luck would have it, I had just enough flowing saliva to ensure conduction...
POW !
A purple flash in my eyes with my head snapping back so fast I almost caused reverse whiplash.
I was somewhat numbed and dazed for a couple of minutes. However I did figure out that I should to try to assess myself a bit by trying out some simple mental tests. It quickly became apparent that I couldn't do simple math. I knew 1 + 1 = 2 and that 2 + 2 is 4 but 4 + 4 was a bit confusing. I knew from memory that it was 8 but I couldn't really grasp what "8" was.
But most of my other faculties were still pretty good and I had no doubt that unplugging the soldering iron and putting everything away safely was the thing to do.
Those strobe lights were later tested to be 425-470 volts.
Across the heart can kill you but directly into your brain will mess you up in weird ways !

I have a battery powered (6V) homemade HeNe power supply that puts out 40,000 to 70,000 volts (depending on the battery charge) and I've had lots of fun with it as the micro amperage keeps it safe to play with. Now baby, lets see what happens if I kiss you here...Oooooooo
:eg:

 

[ShortyInCanada]

Oh, I forgot to mention, I missed the end on the TV program too. Or I was too befuddled to comprehend it.
I still don't know who did it !

But I know how not to !

 

[coldice]

I’ve been shock a few times myself over the years:

- First time was with a broken light bulb that needed to be removed but i didn’t check to see it the power was of so as I reached into grab it my thumb touch what was left of the filament, burn my thumb and felt it right down my arm

- A cap for a PC power supply got me thumb as well.

- Now for the stupid ones I was trying to fix a PC power supply while it was on and grab both the heat sinks inside it and got belted across the chest throwing the PS away from me.

- And the cherry on top was involving a MOT and caps I was using 2x MO caps for a coil launcher which was made from enamelled copper and launching a Au cup so I let it rip and left the power on to it and stupidly grab the cup and sat it back on the coil and being 2000v it went straight through the enamel and into the cup and belted the absolute shit out of me went up me arm down my side and through me feet into the ground, and I haven’t played with MOTs since.

 

[LaZeRz]

Yeh, MOT's are dangerous little buggers.

I almost never use mine. Thinking of tearing it apart for its copper and selling it to a scrapyard

 

[Dr_Evil]

I experienced a shock from a phone line today. I let go of that pretty quick. The fact that I wasn't expecting it is probably why I reacted like I did. I've been zapped by small motor ignition units before. I was turning the flywheel by hand during assembly and didn't realise I hand my other hand on the spark plug cable.

I also nearly got it from a wall outlet. Fire and electricity area a couple things I've done dumb stuff with. I decided to take apart one of those old wall warts with a decent size transformer inside. I don't remember the exact details since it happened a while ago. My bedroom door was closed while I was messing with it. My brother later mentioned that he saw the flash under the door when the two HV wires touched each other.

 

[LtKernelPanic]

Damn. I guess I've been lucky. I've gotten bitten by the 90V from the phone line a few times which tickled a bit. The one that pissed me off the most was when I was change a standard light fixture for a ceiling fan in my basement office. Anyhow I have to stop working on it for awhile so I wire nut and tape the black "hot" wires and flip the breaker back on so the upstairs living room has power. I come back later to put the mounting bracket on the box and figured everything was safe in the box since the hot wires were taped off. Nope. Some jackass wired the box so the white, normally neutral, wire was the hot leg. Nw this is allowable by code (i.e. to make a formally non switched light switched) but you have to mark both ends with a wrapping of black tape to indicate it is a hot wire. After letting a volley of profanity fly I verified that wire was indeed the one bringing power to the box, labeled it properly and wondered if the idiot who wired it originally had won a Darwin Award yet.



Edit:

Forgot to mention that one of the guys I went to school mom wins the "prize." She's been struck by lightning twice and survived both times.

 

[jeffreythe00]

Such good stories. Keep em coming guys

 

[rodman1369]

A friend got ZAPPED working arms deep in a Nuclear Submarine Radar system with the safety Bypassed. I whipped off my belt and yanked him out...we were Both Smoking after That one!

Myself...been zapped by lightning Twice (I was in a different place and year each time) Woke up once with a beautiful blond giving me mouth-to-mouth...

 

[TheReddish]

I experienced a shock from a phone line today. I let go of that pretty quick. The fact that I wasn't expecting it is probably why I reacted like I did. I've been zapped by small motor ignition units before. I was turning the flywheel by hand during assembly and didn't realise I hand my other hand on the spark plug cable.

I also nearly got it from a wall outlet. Fire and electricity area a couple things I've done dumb stuff with. I decided to take apart one of those old wall warts with a decent size transformer inside. I don't remember the exact details since it happened a while ago. My bedroom door was closed while I was messing with it. My brother later mentioned that he saw the flash under the door when the two HV wires touched each other.

Holy crap you reminded me of another time I got shocked and felt dumb, I was hooking a school bell to a phone so we could here it in the shop, I dropped my stripper and figured, ahh wth can a phone line do to me, I put the wires in my mouth to strip them, and....someone called, the jolt hit a nerve in my mouth and sent my flying off a 20' tall ladder to crash into hard concrete floor. Gary Job Corps HVAC shop in 1991 good times

 

[JLSE]

I dropped my stripper...

What would we do without the

function:eg:

 

[TheReddish]

What would we do without the

function:eg:

haha I was going to say diagonal cutting pliers but whats the fun in that.

 

[LittleGeenLaser]

When I was like 13 me and my friends used to play with electric fences my friend mark could grip a electric fence for like 5 minuets He used to hold it with one hand and then touch us with his other hand and shock the living hell out of us me and my other friends did not like this game but mark did. :evil:

 

[vk2fro]

My multimeter beeps on the ohms range, but I have to select it. Its multiple function on that setting (Ohms/Diode/Continuity). Need to press mode 3 times to get to it though.

I've actually been fairly lucky and only been shocked a few times. Considering the stuff I play with its any wonder I haven't been shocked more. I've had a few bites from HeNe power supplies, got tagged by 240 when I was building a project and didnt unplug it before changing a part. That one resulted in me being shocked, and every semiconductor on the pcb blowing out. (light chaser). I've been hit by a car coil once, but the worst one I've had was from a photo capacitor. This was a big one out of a defunct pro studio flash. It threw me across the room, and still had enough juice in it to make a loud bang when I later discharged it with a screw driver. Needless to say replacing the trigger transformer in the flash fixed it.

As a youngster, my worst one was on a mates farm. I trod in some slippery mud (or perhaps it was manure LOL), and grabbed the orange tape overhead to prevent me from falling. Needless to say, those horse/cattle fences sure pack a wallop! I landed in some cow poop and needed to head back to the house to shower and change! The orange tape was actually a electric fence passover, to allow the current from the fence to pass over the gate, allowing the gate to be opened without opener getting a zap, and had 2 counterweight loaded reels. A stick with a Y on the end was present at the gate, and was supposed to be used to push the tape above ones head as you walked under. This way you could also get a horse into or out of the paddock without the animal being zapped. When the tension was released, the counterweight would slowly pull the tape back into position to shock any critter that touched it. In the lower position the tape was at 5-6ft, easily reachable by a 9 year old, even a shorty, but too high for anyone but the tallest child to need to use the stick to avoid a zap to the head.

When I walked in Mrs Wescombe asked how I came to have cow poop all down my back. I told her about the orange tape and she laughed, and explained what the tape was. In the end I still got to go horse riding that day