Electrocution Poll

I am very curious, is this poll an Event or a HamFest??

Dennis

 

I use to work on mobile electric power plants for aircraft. I was working on one that had 115VAC 200 amp 3 phase power and accidently got my probe across two phases. All I seen was a brillantly blue ball of flame and remembering waking up on my sitter seeing spots. I wasn't hurt or anything, it just taught me to pay a little closer attention to what I was doing.

 

When I woke up I had a lot more respect for the rules about multiple cycle discharging of capacitors in a Radar Modulator...

 

Another BRACK in particular stands out,

One day while doing a rebuild of a directional
AM stations phase monitoring system, I was at the base of tower #1, and for whatever reason, I grabbed the copper tubing feeding the base of the tower.

To this day, I do not know why I grabbed it, I knew it was "Hot"

 Brain Phart, I guess.

Talk about an en"LIGHTNING" experience ! ! !

Fortunatly, it was only 1 kW, but it got my attention right quick.

bill       KB3LIX    

 

Without a doubt R.F. burns at A.M. broadcast frequencies are the most painful of all. I know from experience and charred flesh!

Eric

 

Installing a fluorescent light bulb (about 3 feet long) in a live circuit.  Stood on a 6 foot ladder and began to guide the pins on both ends into the socket.  Next thing I remember is being on the floor.  120v through both hands is not a good thing. Damn I was dumb back in the day.

 

I was working on my old Heath DX-60 and was checking the plate voltage.The test lead slipped off the test point and my hand fell into the B+ line.600 volts into the fingers and out the thumb joint of the same hand feels like a thousand bee stings.Then there was the time I was working on a buddies sweep tube amp.I had a similar type and wired the power supply of mine into his to check things out.I still can't figure how the chassis was raised to a negative 200 volts as referanced to ground but I did find out what happens when it does.I fell to the floor and just sat there feeling like I was going to vomit.Never work in the basement on the cement floor in your bare feet when working on tube gear!
Lastley I can relate to those AM broadcast RF burns.I am a broadcast engineer and was called in to assist one of our sister stations that just had an IT guy and no real engineer.I was working on the lighting choke for the tower lights and came into contact with the antenna side of the choke.My finger tips resonated at 960KHz with 10 Kw.That is how I define pain.It took several weeks before the cooked skin healed.RF burns are definately the worst.

 

I've been zapped a couple times by 450vac. Generally this happened when I was tired and in a hurry taking chances. I have also seen someone temporarily blinded by operating contactors without arc chutes in place. A 450 volt short sounds like a shotgun blast.
KB1LLY

 

Your muscles tighten as they recieve the electrcity.

I ahve been shocked numerous times already in my young life. Discharged 10 20KV caps into me(scary). Had a pluged in CRT get me in the chest (the neck board). Too many 110V zaps from power cords, and several photoflash caps have discharged into me.

There's probably more, and will be more (doing high voltage work).

 

Around 5 years ago, I was helping an electrician friend with a contract to rewire the old church in the next village. Unable to turn off all the power (it get's dark inside English village churches) I just removed the old ceramic fuse from the board and continued to pull through the old cable. WHAM!! It felt like I'd been kicked in the back and thrown backwards over a couple of pews. In the time that I had walked back down the church, my friend had found the fuse on top of the board, saw the empty space on the fuseboard...and you've already guessed the rest!!

If I remove a fuse from the main board now, I ALWAYS carry it in my pocket.

 

Me and my idiot brother-in law were on a construction job and we had no power to a unit we needed power in. I saw the empty meter base with two slots that I figured a wire should work just fine to make a bridge.
A huge blue flash and I remember my idiot brother-in-law saying to me "Bobby, you alive?" over my near dead carcuss flat on the cement.
I saw a big orange dot for a while in my eyeballs and I really should not ever call my brother-in-law an idiot as I now realize I was more one than he.

 

I think you owe him an apology for calling HIM the idiot.

 

400KV @ 5KA...Marx Pulse Generator mis-fired into open load
resistor...near-field voltage knocked co-worker off his feet & arced to my metal sunglass frames....saw stars for a couple of minutes...co-worker taken to Hospital as precaution; was OK afterwards...

 

I don't see stars...usually it's purple banana-shaped objects.

eric