Ok, I have to put my 1-cent worth in, too I have a particular friend who always seemed to be present with me when either I or he would have some kind of accident. Here are just a couple of examples: #1) He asked me to help him build a high-current DC power supply using a large transformer which he bought at a hamfest. So, I proceeded to wire up a circuit using the venerable LM723 and we hooked it up in his room, right on the carpeted floor (we were about 14 or 15 years old), and we used wire which was way too thin (about 22 AWG). Well, as usual, it didn't work correctly, so we tried to troubleshoot it. Just then, one of us hit something and the circuit shorted right after the bridge rectifier. The insulation on the wire instantly caught fire and a huge cloud of blinding, choking smoke emmanated from the whole contraption. After pulling the plug and assesing the damage, the smoke had time to diffuse down the stairs and his mother caught a wiff of it. She said "Lou, are you soldering up there again?!" he replied "No, Ma!". If she only knew ;-) #2) We used to participate in a rocketry contest for high school students at a local junior college. I don't think the people who insured the college would have been too happy if they witnessed even a few minutes of these events. The prof who ran the thing took a kinda laid-back attitude toward the whole event. Just to give you an idea, we had people whose "rockets" consisted of 2-liter soda bottles, partially filled with black powder and a solid fuel motor stuck in the end . One of these contraptions was "launched" and only got about 10 feet off the ground, at which point it plopped back down onto the ground and started smoldering. A few people began to approach cauciously when the constructor of the rocket yelled "NO! Get away, it's gunna blow!". Sure enough, a few seconds later, it blew apart. At one contest, I launched my rocket and it had a very disappointing performance (the idea was to stay airborne the longest without drifting out of visual range). So, I decided to whip something up out of spare parts and enter it as a last minute entry. Well, I took the 1st stage of a rocket (which is only about 3 inches long), loaded it with an engine, and taped a plastic bag to the top as a "parachute". When I asked if I could enter it, the prof. started laughing and said "yes"!!! At the last minute I put it on the launch rod and hit the fire button. As soon as it came off the rail it went TOTALLY out of control, exactly as you would expect, and drew a round of applause from the crowd ;-) At the same contest, my friend took a rocket in which he was using a very cheap E engine. He had trouble starting these cheap engines, so he added black powder to it to "help" it start. For some unknown reason, the local news station decided to use his launch for the coverage of the event. He launched his rocket and it climbed up to about 500 feet, at which point it exploded with a loud report! He, as well as the entire company of rocketeers, burst out in hysterical laughter. The news camera was closed-up on my friend's face the whole time, so the TV viewers saw no rational explanation, only a countdown "5..4..3..2..1..launch!" folllowed by his head tilting back, and then hysterical laughter Yes, this is the same contest where (as I already told on this list once before) one of my friend's rockets lost it's fins, went horizontal, and smashed into a telephone pole with a huge bang, right above an unsuspecting groundskeeper! Sean At 04:49 PM 4/27/00 -0600, you wrote: >I remember a time in 7th grade power/shop class when we were disassebling >and reassembling small 2-stroke lawn-mower engines. The engines we were | | Sean Breheny | Amateur Radio Callsign: KA3YXM | Electrical Engineering Student \--------------=---------------- Save lives, please look at http://www.all.org Personal page: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/shb7 mailto:shb7@cornell.edu ICQ #: 3329174