Not so electrical as electromechanical. When I was a service engineer, I was given my first pager. Kind of a cool one with the buzzer instead of a beep beep. Leaning over a system doing a repair (switched on of course), I jumped back thinking I had leaned into a fan or something, only to my embarassment it was the pager - first time paged ;) almost as embarrassing as the customer saying to me one day "Stop - don't move whatever you do" "Why not?" "I want to see how far that coffee is going to run up your tie..." Yep - customers with a sense of humour too... :) Jim -----Original Message----- From: pic microcontroller discussion list [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of James Newton, Host Sent: 04 March 2004 22:33 To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: ] More stupid electrical tricks... This will be hard to explain, but when I was in the Navy, I worked on the S3 "Hoover" jet. Hoover, not hover. Its not a VTOL; it just sounds like a vacuum cleaner http://www.mrprophead.com/Navy/VIK01.jpg Ask me later about the brilliant positioning of those turbofan intakes. It has a battery with the two terminals about an inch apart in a recessed space on the side, not the top, of the battery case. The space is a bit over an inch high and about 2 inches wide. I wish I had a picture of that thing, 'cause no one is going to believe that a design that stupid could have seen the light of day. But it was, I swear. US Navy uniforms pretty much all include a belt with a little metal buckle in the front. Here is a picture of it: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/nalc820/navybelt.jpg and that buckle is about, yep, an inch high and an inch and a half to 2 inches wide. And that battery is damn heavy. If you pick it up, you will end up holding it down at arms length, sort of resting on your upper thighs as you walk... ..and that just about perfectly aligns your belt buckle with the terminal posts. It is, of course, a military rated battery, with much power inside. And the belt is, of course, a military rated belt, designed to hold together no matter what. Now the new batteries are sent with a plastic plug over the terminals, and every shop manual, instructor and supervisor will repeatedly tell the AE worker bees to watch out for it. During the time I was in, no one that I ever heard about did it, but after I got out, a buddy of mine emailed me that one of the guys in his squadron did it. And it killed him. Massive 3rd degree burns all over his front along with acid burns and poisoning. Chlorine for the gene pool I guess. Or just a bad design. I've always had a healthy respect for batteries. You should see me sweating over a jump start! --- James. -----Original Message----- From: pic microcontroller discussion list [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Robert Ussery Sent: 2004 Mar 04, Thu 10:21 To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: [OT:] More stupid electrical tricks... Hi all. I just thought I'd relate a pitiful yet funny incident that I just experienced. Yesterday, I was debugging a circuit hooked up to my computer and powered from a 7AH 12V battery. I was happily plugging along, when I reached across the desk for my drink. Suddenly, I got a shooting pain in my wrist followed by some pretty severe heat. I dropped my drink and hopped around yelping for a couple of minutes before I finally realized what happened. What happened? In reaching for my drink, I accidentally bridged the contacts of the battery with my metal watchband... I now have a watchband with welded links, a couple of small burns on my wrist, and a very paranoid attitude about batteries. How many of you have experienced this same phenomena? Please say you've done the same thing so I'll stop feeling like such a moron... BTW, the watch still works! Timex - keeps a lickin' and keeps on tickin'! I was able to snap the links apart and wear it again after it cooled down. No real damage, except for a few stylish burn marks. Needless to say, as soon as I start using my 12V battery, the watch comes off. :O)) Stay safe out there, you guys (& gal or two)! - Robert -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.