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What's the worst shock you've received so far in your life? (electrical)

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LAN_403

Tetris

Sat Jul 23 2011, 09:15PM

Registered Member #4016 Joined: Thu Jul 21 2011, 01:52AM
Location: Gainesville, FL
Posts: 660

Heh heh quite a few. I will rate the 10 worst ones I have ever recieved:

10: (one of the least) 9 volts don't hurt if you use the connectors. They actually made us touch 9V to our toungue in a 3 week EE course I took recently. I later grabbed 8 9V and connected them in series, and then tested it with a multimeter. It read 73.3V. I touched one of the terminals, grabbed one probe, and touched the other probe to the other terminal. I held my finger there for about a minute, just pondering the fact I had what the meter read as 71.4 volts thr.. ACROSS me, as the teacher keeps correcting. Then we got called out for break. It felt good, but then it started to feel a little weird, then it started to feel as if it was cooking my fingers. It probably was.

9: I was messing around with an AC adapter, doing electrolysis/electroplating experiments. Due to my limited resources, I made a long aluminum thing for one terminal, and another for the other. I made a very salty water solution. I put a penny on one, and paper clips on the other. I checked on it once in a while, and saw it turn a disgusting shade of green. I wanted to check on it, if it really did electroplate, and found out two things--my paper clips almost entirely dissolved and that my penny fell in. So I got both hands wet trying to pull the penny out. I then subconsciously grabbed both aluminum things at the same time. 12v, 500ma DC. I have no idea what my conductivity is, but it goes to say more, that voltage doesn't matter, current does. It hurt, and after I let go after about a second or two, I fell back on the floor. I was like... oops, got up, dried my hands, and went back to the computer.

8: I was messing with yet another AC adapter, a different one, a Universal adapter. I was very curious, and took it apart. For fun, I plugged it in, without the plastic thing on it. When taking it out, I accidentally touched the input points with a finger. It didn't hurt much. At all. But I still knew that that's mains through my finger. luckily my finger was dry.

7: I was messing with (yet another) AC adapter. This one did not have a rectifier. So it was 12V AC at I think 500ma. I had a 9V connector, and out of total curiosity, without thinking, I touched the two probes to either end of the wire, and touched my toungue to the connector. Ah, I cannot tell you the pain. And somehow I heard a pretty loud 60Hz hum in my ear. It felt as if an elephant sat on my tongue. Owie. Left me with the thought "Why the F did I just do that?"

6: I went to stay in Europe a summer ago, in this place in Austria, called Zell am See. My dad at the time had a job there, so we had a pretty little apartment. However, the outlets are differently shaped. so we needed plughole adapters. Unfortunately once you put one in, it is extremely hard to take out for some reason. This happened two times and I discovered a fun way to zap a bug. Note to self. Unplug whatever is plugged into the adapter first. It comes out much easier than your sweaty hand that is trying to overcome great friction. 220V. Through my finger. A lot of people have told me that they have received similar shocks, but with 110V. They describe it with a lot more pain than what I felt. And my hands were sweaty. They describe it as pain up to shoulders for days. I just spazzed for a second, with the word "oops" in my head, shook my finger, then told dad what I accidentally just did.

5: This one was on purpose. Same trip. I went through a phase that lasted about a year, still sort of in it, though urges not as strong and often, in which I wanted to zap myself. In the middle of the night, I took (I think this is boring you now) the AC adapter for my mom's laptop, licked my forearm, and put water in the little knob in such a way that I could access the positive part inside. I pushed that against my arm. I held it there, for I didn't feel much. All of a sudden, this sharp pain shot through my arm. But I continued to hold it there. I lay there on the bed with the high current flowing into me. It wasn't arm to arm so I thought it won't kill me. It hurt a LOT, though. It felt painful and weird. I held it there for about one and half minutes, at which point I couldn't stand the pain anymore. I got up, went to the bathroom, and turn on the light, to find out that I had burned a "hole" in my hand. it was sort of bleeding. I yelped, and tried to cover it. LOL I had hid the mark for a few days, but then when we went to Venice, my parents noticed. I told them it was a burn mark from when I was cooking, and they believed it. I still have the mark a year later.

4: It was the first time I opened up a disposable flash camera. I was chatting with Killa-X over the G-Mail IM at the time. I was horrible at opening them then. I had accidentally pushed the button earlier, and didn't know the slap trick to discharge the capacitor. While opening it, my finger went inside the thing, and just happens to land on the fully charged capacitor leads. I had two burn marks for about a month. I then told Killa what happened. He told me then that it could be a second or third degree burn, and boy did it feel like one. My finger hurt for weeks afterwards.

3: This time it was still with a flash board, but a modified one without the capacitor. I was having fun with it, sparking it ans seeing the teeniest blue spark and stuff. Later, when I pulled out the same flash board, I forgot that it uses a AAA battery, not AA. I was trying to jam the battery in the holder. As soon as it made contact, I was holding the metal part of the holder at the time, this painful jolt traveled up my arm, and making me make weird noises. It hurt more than touching the capacitor itself.

2: I was in India, in my mom's birthplace. It is a little village in the middle of nowhere, a pleasant place but its extremely nasty for the land, air, and water pollution. Elsewhere you would add noise pollution. Anyways, there is this particular outlet that an old CRT monitor is plugged in that isn't grounded. I had then touched the screen, and lost all control of my arm. It didn't necessarily hurt, but it felt so odd. I sort of liked the feeling, so I kept touching the monitor. Later, someone came and fixed the grounding problem, but the ground is just a stick, like that you would do for your HV projects when you aren't near the plumbing or the house ground. The only thing is, the sand is exceptionally dry, so when it doesn't rain, and it rarely does, you still get zapped. Barely any of the outlets are grounded. This one time, my little 3 year old cousin touched something ungrounded, with her middle finger, and ended up accidentally flipping everyone off. I started laughing when she did that, so now anytime I see her, she flips me off, but not knowing its a bad thing.

1: Now you may now think, that this shock is just static. But static hurts. And that too think of its voltage. Voltage stuns. I was walking through an Albertsons with my mom, riding the cart end. I was sort of lazy to walk at the time. I saw this scratch and sniff air freshener, and got down to scratch the sticker of one. As I brought my finger closer, all of a sudden, this huge surge of electricity went through me, causing my arms to stick out straight my eyes to jitter, and my whole body to shake. I also made this weird noise too. My finger was about 3-4 inches from the metal part. I do not know, I couldn't see the spark as I was thrust spread eagle standing. But it was at least that length. I told my mom standing 5 feet away that I got zapped, but she didn;t seem to care. I don't think she saw me, and she probably thought it was small sparks. I now zap people in school by charging myself up to a similar voltage and sparking to their ear, arm, or thigh. It is so funny, as you expect it, they don't, you both feel it, but they feel it more, and you laugh.

Biggest Zap: I was chatting with Salvatore at the time. I told him I was bored and really wanted to see sparks, as there was no lightning for a while, which is strange saying I live in FL. There's even lightning going on as I type. So he had asked me if I had an old CRT TV, which I do, about 2 1/2 to 3 feet in diagonal. He told me to put aluminum foil on the screen. I did that. At the time, I didn't have tape, so I relied on the static cling to hold it there. I sparked to my finger, some metal and other things. I learned, because the power button cover fell off, that I shouldn't press the button just like that, by experience. So I decided I will just pull the plug. Strangely, the TV doesn't have a grounding pin on the plug. The sheet keeps falling, so I held it there, and sort of put my weight on it. I grabbed the wire, and pulled it out of the outlet. It was something I wish I didn't do, because my hands were sort of sweaty too. Complete hand to hand contact. The current went through me, into the wire, and arced to the ground pin of the outlet. I was thrown spread eagle again, this time, with pain ten times as much as the last instance. It literally nearly knocked me out, especially since I wasn't expecting it. I fell to the floor, and was too surprised to get up for about three minutes. Very shakily, I got up, and went and told Sal what happened. I didn't tell my parents what happened, otherwise they'd freak. At least I think it didn't do any damage, I hope, but it's a story to tell.

Ha ha, all this happened within the last three years. And I am 14. Now I think after about 10 years, I will need to update this list, LOL.

steve516

Sun Jul 24 2011, 12:16AM

Registered Member #3832 Joined: Thu Apr 14 2011, 11:57PM
Location: Downtown Chicago, IL
Posts: 37

Well, got several 370V DC shocks across the chest from my homebrew transmitter, (why I took it apart) and the worst was probably a microwave cap I didn't know was charged. Right across the chest. I think I leaped about 5 feet in the air.

Frosty90

Tue Jul 26 2011, 11:04AM

Registered Member #1617 Joined: Fri Aug 01 2008, 07:31AM
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Posts: 139

Worst I ever had was a few years ago: I had one hand on the metal (earthed) knob of a variac, plugged in to a regular power outlet (240v 50Hz here). I flipped the switch with the other hand and though I was going to die: I got a huge jolt, right across from one hand to the other. The total time would have been half a second or less, Im not sure. I was the most painful sensation, you can feel the muscle contraction.
Im not sure exactly why it happened, the power point was in good condition and the RCD didnt trip... since then I never touch two things at once when swtiching on/off mains powered things! A couple of years ago the instructor in the power lab at university specifically told us dont touch anything, like the earthed metal cabinet, with your other hand while you flip a breaker (especially important, since this lab comntained DC supplies too (415 volts), there is no 'zero-crossing' of the current hence the muscle contraction with DC!

It is interesting though, I distinctly remember feeling the 50Hz (or 100Hz) pulsation of the current! I had the same feeling with a shock across the thumb from rectified mains before, you can actually feel the 50/100Hz pusation in the muscle contractions.

haxor5354

Tue Jul 26 2011, 04:57PM

Registered Member #2063 Joined: Sat Apr 04 2009, 03:16PM
Location: Toronto
Posts: 352

speaking of un-grounded outlets, last year when I went back to China for summer vacation, I was putting together a computer and I could feel a slight tingling in my hand when I touch the computer case even though I was wearing dry flip-flops at the time.

then I decided to do an experiment, I was holding 1 pin of a LED and let the other pin touch the case and it lights up! same thing happens when I get 2 LEDs and connect them in anti-parallel, so it must be an AC current from the outlet.

Forty

Wed Jul 27 2011, 04:36PM

Registered Member #3888 Joined: Sun May 15 2011, 09:50PM
Location: Erie, PA
Posts: 649

my buddy got hit by lightning last week while in the shower.

JC1

Fri Aug 26 2011, 02:38AM

Registered Member #3139 Joined: Wed Aug 25 2010, 02:20AM
Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posts: 6

Quite a few years ago I was messing around with a VDG in my project room for about an hour. I got bored, shut it off and put it away. I decided to clean up some stuff and picked up a monochrome CRT tube I had ripped out of an old serial terminal weeks before. It felt like my arm had been whacked by a big breaker bar and hurt for a few days afterwards. Apparently the VDG was happily charging the CRT halfway across the room.

IntraWinding

Sun Aug 28 2011, 11:17AM

Registered Member #2261 Joined: Mon Aug 03 2009, 01:19AM
Location: London, UK
Posts: 581

I can't remember the exact details, but I got a few hundred volts from a few hundred uF electrolytic when I was about 10. It let me know who was boss - scared me shitless. Had to lie down for a while.

Thomas W

Sun Aug 28 2011, 12:01PM

Registered Member #3324 Joined: Sun Oct 17 2010, 06:57PM
Location:
Posts: 1276

i got one from one from a bank of photoflash capacitors

2Spoons

Sun Aug 28 2011, 11:45PM

Registered Member #2939 Joined: Fri Jun 25 2010, 04:25AM
Location:
Posts: 615

Got hit by the insides of the fence energiser I was designing: 900V DC, 27J , arm to arm. Burnt holes in my fingers. I count myself lucky to have survived that one. Put neons and a bleed R across the cap bank after that.

Hotwired

Mon Aug 29 2011, 09:38PM

Registered Member #4049 Joined: Sun Aug 07 2011, 03:50AM
Location: UK
Posts: 14

Less than 10yrs, pushed a broken plug into a live 240V socket.

Was touching the terminals on the back of the plug when it went in.

Ended up some distance back from it with painful burns on two fingers.

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