shock glove

[ezxen]

watching system today reminded me of a time on TSS or unscrewed were Kevin rose made a taser glove form a camera any one remember this

[scienceking]

Heh, yes. And I'm guessing all that was inside that box was a camera flash charging circuit. Those can be fun...and dangerous.
I have been shocked by high voltage twice in my life. Once by letting my leg rub up against a 5000V EMC test table(where the table was charged like a capacitor to 5000V and your device was put on it). I was talking with a senior engineer in that EMC conductive lab, and was not paying attention to where I was standing relative to the table. Mind you, it looked like a standard office table, so its the sort of thing you'd get used to.
This was nasty, as it took several seconds until I noticed that my leg was getting really hot. No harm done, though.

The worst one was when I was working on current and thermal specing a powersupply for use in a product. Had to run it open and in our unit and stick probes on it. Well, I was testing it for like 10 hours and had 1 test left. So I carelessly turned in my chair, brushing my elbow barely against the top of the big charging cap in the PSU. That hurt like CRAZY and my arm was all tingly for a couple minutes, but I was fine.
Rule of thumb, if you are going to do something dumb with electricity, which you shouldn't. PLEASE only use one hand at a time, and keep your other hand free, not resting on anything, etc. This way if you do get shocked, like I even was, it will go up your arm and down your side to the floor, and not across your arms, which happens to have your heart in the middle. This is the rule the EEs use. Note its not full proof, and the current can still swing over and fry your pacemaker, but its sure better than the certain death way of carelessly using both hands. Note fingertip to fingertip your body has a steady state resistance of about 250kohms, but it only takes a few milliamperes to deliver the fatal blow to the right place.

[hugepedlar]

My aged uncle delights in telling one particular story from many years ago when he worked in an amusement arcade as an engineer.

In those days most games machines were electromechanical, and he was called out to repair one of those horse-racing games - you know, a large cabinet with 8 tracks for little horses on sticks to 'race' from one end to the other, with bets placed on which would win.

The guts of this machine consisted of hundreds of electromechanical relays, the armatures of which often seized up. All that was required by way of repair was a firm tap on the top of the relay to release the mechanism.

So my uncle had this giant circuit board laid out on the floor of the arcade, and a crowd of fascinated kids watching him. In those days smoking was still cool, and he often used the technique of tapping the relay with the end of a packet of cigarettes, because it was easier to reach across the board with such an implement. It was also much easier to diagnose with the circuit board live so you could see which relay was stuck.

What my uncle failed to notice however was the foil band around the top of his cigarette packet.

Upon nonchalantly tapping the live relay with his foil conductor he was thrown backwards across the floor accompanied by a loud bang, smoke, and the jeers of the local kids. He claims his embarrassment was more acute than the electric shock.