(WARNING BURNED SKIN)Don’t bypass capacitors

Rex Walters said:
I once worked with a guy that kept charged electrolytic capacitors (big ones from datacenter power supplies) sitting loose on his desk. Inevitably someone would pick one up out of curiosity and shock themselves — he'd say something to the effect of "that's why you don't play with other people's stuff."

I'm still surprised he wasn't sued, arrested, or at least chewed out by HR. I once considered turning the tables on him by bribing someone he didn't know to clutch their chest and gasp "pacemaker..." before falling to the ground.

Your short and burn also reminds me of the nichrome-wire fuses we'd make for Estes model rockets when I was a kid. It's amazing I survived to adulthood with all the crazy things we used to do (said rockets, Jacob's ladders made out of furnace transformers, broken thermometers to get at the mercury, hairspray potato canons, ...). That little burn would have been trivial to hide from my parents. (laugh)
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my dad just says 'that must of hurt'
 
I have had the practice of keeping one hand in my pocket when working with high voltage for a long time now.. It prevents that potentially (no pun intended) lethal voltage from completing the circuit through the heart. I came close to pushing up daisies when I was working on a ham radio transmitter and accidentally contacted the 350 v d.c. plate voltage. The violent muscle contraction kicked my hand out , pulling the transmitter to the floor and probably saving my life.
An experience with a capacitor happened in high school with a Leyden jar, a primitive type of capacitor. We had had a demonstration of A Wimshurst electrostatic generator. During the demonstration, the Leyden jar was charged for some experiment and the supposedly discharged Leyden jar left on the table. A number of us were standing around the table after class and I absently mindedly picked up the Leyden jar and touched the ball to my lip. I'm not sure about how much of the 50 kv charge was left but it was enough to jump a several cm spark. To add insult to injury, I set the Leyden jar down and was explaining what had happened and I touched the ball again. A painful lesson about residual charge.twice learned.
 
One of my dad's friends had a parts store in town when I was in high school. His favorite thing was to leave a charged condenser laying on the counter. Inevitably somebody would walk up to the counter and, when they were explaining what part they were after, pick up the condenser. You only did it once. I'll never tell how I know...
 
Braeden P said:
my dad just says 'that must of hurt'
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I can imagine the accompanying dry expression completely devoid of any sympathy. (Laugh)

The rural Virginia equivalent was “that’ll learn ya.”

It seems several of us on this thread shared a, uh, Darwinistic upbringing.
 
Back in my younger years, I assembled a Van de Graff generator that was a great source of fun and interest.
It worked really well in the dry air in the house in the wintertime as I remember, a great toy for science minded kids.
My experiences with high voltage in tube transmitter projects and linear amplifiers has had it's share of excitement
as well and I too DO NOT work with both hands in the midst of high voltages. I could share a few experiences
too but am leery to expose these stories to the world on the internet.

Edit: OK, i changed my mind and have one story I can share. Back in the day I built a small one transistor
oscillator that emitted a very high pitched tone. The whole thing was about the size of a man's watch. We
took it to school and buried it under the teacher's desk and all was fine till towards the end of the period
when we were supposed to be quiet for a time to read. The high pitched tone permeated the room and
it was a lot of fun. I don't remember if the teacher ever caught on but those of us who knew about what was going
sure had a good laugh. We couldn't stop laughing that day.
 
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A safety relief valve, they never told me it was bad, opened up while I was walking passed the outlet, at that precise moment it opened up and I got hit with a blast 175 psi steam and the flashing hot water. Between first, second and third degree burns, I burnt about 83% of my body and spent 16 weeks in a burn unit
 
More than ouch... Lucky to be alive is more accurate. A lot of folks with that much skin affected just don't make it.
Your skin is the largest organ in your body.
 
I have several Simpson 260 meters with a 5000 volt scale. If I am measuring thousands of volts, I hook up
the meter, stand back and plug the unit in. My newer Simpsons only read to 1000 volts I believe. It's only
a guess but I bet there is a reason for that. For one thing, the test leads don't look like they are rated for 5K!
 
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