Re: Something to Bookmark

Zonn wrote:

> There was a jock in my electronics class that used to show off by discharging
> TV's by holding one hand to the chassis and using the other to slip a piece of
> wire under the HV cap. What an idiot! But hey he did get a bit of attention!
>
> His best act was going next door to the auto shop and grabbing the ignition coil
> (also with a wire of something under the cap) and holding on until the car
> stalled.
>
> Pretty damned funny to watch! He only did the car thing a couple of times and
> while he laughed afterwards you can tell he was visibly shaken, he couldn't be
> talked into it anymore, well, after the *second* time.
>
> This guy wasn't even on the bell curve, he was hangin' on somewhere near the end
> of the clapper!
>
> And to think he got dates in high school and I didn't have a girl friend until I
> was twenty!
>
> But hey I'm not bitter! NOOOOO!!! I'm sure he's having a helluva good time
> pumping gas at an ARCO station for tips! (A little gas for you, a little sniff
> for me!) HA! HA! HA! HA! Yeah! Laugh up now funny boy! Want to stall my
> engine while pumping that gas! HA HA HA HA!!!
>
> ------------------
>
> Damn! Twenty years of therapy all thrown away in one email! Who says the net
> is a good place??!?
>
> -Zonn (giggling manically in the corner of the room in a fetal position)
>
> (For those who don't know me: The story of the jock is true. The bitterness is
> made up -- well for the most part... hee hee hee... :^D )

You had one of these too? In college there was this one student that
would offer to shake hands. You had to check where the other hand
was first, though, because it was usually connected to the picture tube
of an OPERATING TV set!

We had these parts that you could breadboard to build electronic
circuits. One of the parts was a light bulb socket with two tall terminals
that could hold wire clips (for providing power to the bulb). He'd
have the bulb running off 120 volts and pick up the whole thing with two
fingers gripping the power terminals.

Needless to say, the teachers tried to discourage anyone from doing
this. The said the only thing protecting him was his callouses (from
doing farm work).

When operating, a monitor can generate at least 1 milliamp of high
voltage current. This is in excess of 20 watts, which can easily be
lethal. However, when turned off the discharge can be very nasty
but (as long as it doesn't go through your heart) not particularly
lethal, though it may make you wish it had killed you.

Assuming 25,000 volts and a CRT capacitance of 2000 pF,
the discharge is 25,000 x 25,000 x 2E-9 watt-seconds.
That's only 1.25 watt-seconds, less that the flash of a camera.
But do you want THAT hitting you on a fingertip? It's going to
hurt, and it's going to make you jerk you arm. Whatever gets
thrown or whatever skin gets scrapped off during that reaction
could be much worse. Or if the reaction happens to cause the
CRT to get broken and you learn what implosion can mean at
point blank range, well, you get the idea.

Personally, I don't like things arcing. There IS a no-arc way to
discharge the tube. Stick a high-voltage probe in there and let
it slowly bleed the charge. It shouldn't take very long and the
meter will tell you what's happening.

There are a LOT of really stupid people out there. It doesn't
matter how much warning you give them, there are still people
that break CDROM drives by using them as a cup holder or
people that lost fingers using a lawn mower to trim a hedge.

There is money to be made here, though. I can see it now,
"The Complete Idiots Guide to Monitor Repair". Any authors
out there?
Received on Mon May 10 14:40:07 1999