Re: gEDA-user: Any TV repair gurus lurking?

[Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 22 December 2007, Darryl Gibson wrote:
>Dan McMahill wrote:
>> By far the worst shock I've ever received was 23 years ago working on a
>> Fender Bassman that was unplugged.  I will *never* forget to discharge
>> caps again.  Especially ones charged up to 500 volts.  Thats one of
>> those mistakes you won't make twice.
>
>Yep, that's a bad day, but you lived to talk about it, and pass on the
>warning.
>
>My worst shock came when I was working on a plasma etching machine. Had
>to stick my head inside to take some voltage readings, found the
>voltage, with my pinky finger, rather than the meter probe. That was
>bad, but,,, trying to get away from that, I hit my head on the 440vac
>contactor which was over my head. That HURT, and I was wearing a hat!
>
>Told my boss he had choice, I was going outside and having a smoke, and
>he could have the design engineer work on the problem, or, I was going
>to find the blankety blank engineer, and pound him into the floor.
>
>The engineer showed up, and after we got things working, he decided it
>wasn't a good idea to put the 440 contactor on the roof of the cabinet,
>and he moved it to one of the side walls.
>
>I'm partly at fault here, I was taught in tech. school that usually the
>shock won't hurt you, but getting away from it will. To prove the point,
> the teacher made the lecture while holding a live suicide cord.

Suicide cord?  Not fam with that item.

However, do not ignore the trauma of the shock, it can come to haunt you very 
very painfully in the ensuing time frame of 6 months or more.  If you've ever 
had the chicken pox, aka herpes zoroaster, and is there one here who didn't 
have it as a child?, that virus lives dormant in your major nerve sheathing 
the rest of your life.  The trauma of the shock can awaken it for another 
round, only this time its called 'shingles'.  It will redefine your personal 
pain tolerance level, upwards.  I managed to get across the tickler 
transformers in the HV cubicle of a GE TF-3a amplifier (part of a tv 
transmitter, that's my game) and got 2nd degree burns on both arms and my 
chest area before I got kicked loose.  I was looking for a cotter key & 
washer for one of the HV shorting assemblies that I had dropped as I was 
getting tired after about 16 hours non-stop of fixing up a snake explosion & 
fire.  I was instantly so tired I had to go take a nap for several hours, and 
eventually had my heart checked out but it was fine and still is.  But 3 days 
later I had shingles breaking out all along the major path that about 260 
volt 3 phase ac took through me.  The pain was disabling and I missed about 3 
weeks worth of work.  Twas not fun by any sane definition, and to this day, 
15 years later, my lower chest and diaphram area have never been completely 
pain free.

>I still find it amazing how old timers can predict the future.

That is often because we've been there, done that, even "bought the T-shirt" 
describing our carelessness. :)

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
A small town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two.


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