Thought For The Day (tech tip)

[PRR]

EW, May 1964

[MadMax]

Sounds about right. My first electrical experiment was to strip both ends of a power cord, plug it in and touch the ends together (Hey, I was eight). That, by the way, blows the fuse in a properly protected circuit, and scares the crap out of the little scientist! But in the 40 years since, I've never lost the respect I learned for electricity that day.
-Mad Max-

[shooter]

About the same here, by ten I was soldering and knew 60cycles was in the audible frequency range soooo... a speaker, lamp cord....  I still have a few small scars where the solder imbedded in my chest and you never forget that SMELL

[BobRuth]

Yeah, when I was about 6 maybe 7, a teen age kid two blocks over gave me just the handset part of a phone.... coiled cord....the other end crudely stripped with wires hanging out......

He told me that, if I would go home and plug those in to the "place int he wall"    just "stick them in there"... that I could talk to people.

And talk I did !!!!!    To mom and dad for about a solid half hour.   It left a black-smoked streak on the wall above the A/C wall socket I stuck the wires into....        made an interesting sound......   although, I too made a sound that was almost equally interesting.....

his name...... was Curtis....  and I will never forget it!

[kagliostro]

Whan I was 6 or 7 I had the great idea to pull a plug from the wall wart (220v) using a totally steel table knife

I was lucky because the blade touched the two pins simultaneously and immediately  fuses blow, the knife a little less of me, two deep cuts on the blade which remained remember

If I remember correctly, Structo, member at AmpGarage, some time ago had an avatar with a child having the same experience

Franco

[pinkphiloyd]

When I was a sophomore in high school, my best friend was a senior.  To this day, the smartest guy I've ever known.  But that's neither here nor there.
He had built several high voltage projects and one day I borrowed a Jacob's Ladder to take home and play with.  Somehow I got my right hand too close to an arc, and bam.  It was like a cartoon.  I swear the visual came first.  I saw through my damn hand.  Like an x-ray.  I SWEAR I saw the damn bones in my hand.  Then I felt that massive electrical thump all the way up to about halfway up my upper arm.  Then the overpowering smell of ozone.  Then it was over.  It could have been a lot worse.

[thelonious]

When I was a teenager I was running a new circuit to a room in our barn, stapling romex to the oak beams (hey, that was allowed out in the sticks!). I noticed an old run of wire that was missing a staple and thought I might as well fix that, too... only I forgot that I had only turned off the new circuit breaker, not any of the old ones. I misaligned the staple and sent it straight through the live wire, scaring the crap out of myself and permanently destroying an old TV that had been plugged into that circuit.


Now I use conduit. 

[bnwitt]

When I was 11 my navy radar tech father helped me repair an old vacuum tube Hallicrafters short wave radio.  A few years later I would listen to a Mohammed Ali fight on it in my room.  Life was good

[JJones]

Many years ago, I was working on an old Traynor amp because I was sick of stepping up to the microphone and getting a nasty blue spark that would split my lip open.  One hand in the amp, I found out how bad the "B+" felt as my arm touch the chassis.  Lesson learned and major respect.  Don't do it....