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setting fire to components? Ha!

A

atari2600a

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May 26, 2006
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has anyone ever accidentally set fire to something & get it working directly after?

Today, I brought a 13" composite "monomatic" TV from my mothers house to put in my room. (Directly after trading 6 Genesis & 3 2600 games for a Macintosh Plus *Craigslist Rulez*) (Terry, this shouldn't affect our deal, if you can send some photos that is ;))

To fix the problem of the horrid 1 speaker of death & depression, I grabbed my (probably) 30 year-old Amp/tuner I found in a dumpster ~5 years back, along with some (Really good; not 30 year-old crappy) speakers from the attic. The amp had a broken power switch, but it could still work if you kind of budged it w/ some pliers... I stripped the ends of 2 RCA cables to hook the speakers up, & then watched an episode of Knight Rider from my DVD Box set of the first season & played some Super Mario Sunshine. (It sounds AWESOME now that I hear it w/ stereo sound w/ the speakers more than 3' apart! :p)

After trying to turn it off, the switch completely fell apart! I opened it up, eventually decided to strip the wires, twist them together & insulate them w/ electrical tape (you know, that whole standard procedure...) & to use a power strip as a switch. The problem was, I idiotically wired it backwards! A diode caught fire, nothing serious. I rewired it (correctly), & bypassed the diode. I marked the polarity on the power cable by putting a piece of electrical tape on the top. Everything works fine now!

Well, that's my somewhat-long & simple story of my self-idiocy & super-basic electronics repair skills. Anyone else have a similar story?

EDIT: There was also a busted heavy sixer Atari 2600 in that craigslist deal...
 
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Sure!

st251burned.jpg


Notice the uber-thick trace that's burned up right by the motor.

I was copying all of our family's old data from this ST-251 drive, with the HDD just lying haphazardly in the opened case, and I noticed smoke welling up from the drive after a copy operation. I moved the drive around so the trace wasn't shorting to the case or whatever and finished the copying. It still works just fine!
 
I slipped with my fat Volt Ohm meter probe and shorted the +12 and -12 traces together. Did you know that they are right next to each other on the S100 bus? The entire trace vaporized in my face. I had to dig up some #22 wire and solder it on the board to replace the missing copper. Glad those were the 4Mhz days of the Z-80. Didn't seem to have any effect on the computer's performance.
 
That one kinda reminds me of the time I blew up the outlet in my room & tripped the circuit breaker to the outlet! (It was ~2 years ago; trying to get my lava lamp working again...)

(Both still work! :p)
 
bbcmicro said:
Ditto, but I haven't really been messing long enough, or with the mains :D
Click to expand...

Yeah, but in Europe, It's less safe(-er) to mess w/ the mains. I've been electrocuted by 120V countless times, but when I got electrocuted over in Egypt (they use European outlets & voltage) I cried slightly for ~15 seconds! 220V messes w/ your head more easily!

(On another note, I was once electrocuted by a Cap in a projection TV. It didn't hurt, but some blood somehow seeped through my uncut skin 30 seconds later!)

Anyways, Come on Terry, you have to had screwn up at least once! :p
 
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atari2600a said:
Yeah, but in Europe, It's as safe(-er) to mess w/ the mains. I've been electrocuted by 120V countless times, but when I got electrocuted over in Egypt (they use European outlets & voltage) I cried slightly for ~15 seconds! 220V messes w/ your head more easily!
Click to expand...

Ahem, in the UK it's 230/40v. Can't play pokey forkey with Tv's in the UK then. Shoot.
 
atari2600a said:
Wow, I should contact Webster to add it to their 2007 print! :p

Anyways, while you're online, have you ever blown out/smoked/fired anything?
Click to expand...

It wasn't a computer component, but I will let you know for a good laugh.

I had a really nice yamaha cr-2020, 105wpc, very nice receiver.
I was checking the mV rating and accidentally crossed the terminals with my volt meter tip.
The right channel I/C became a fireworks display.
The fuse never blew...lol, wasn't the right fuse, pervious owner stuck a way to highly rated fuse in there..errr.
Anywho, I spent $50 on parts and 4 hours fixing it, and sold it.
I don't commonly smoke anything, but that was a huge mistake..lol
 
I could write a book on what not to do...

I could write a book on what not to do...

How about pulling a submerseble 220v well pump out of the well casing and just noticing that there was only two wires to the pump ,,,just as you drop it on the lawn.... (small fire and the lawn will grow back) and a thought that I could have been the part to make a complete circuit.....Forget to kill the breakers will I was testing it...
 
Probably the most memorable thing was a Dell 325p 386 system that I bought for $8 bux at the thrift store. They were trying to get rid of it because the keyboard did not work, I found out why when I got home.

I popped open the cover, turned the machine on, and suddenly I watched as little electrons with flashlights were wandering around the Keyboard address line area, it looked kind of like the overhead view of Melee Island from Monkey Island, all these little faint traces and little beams of light traveling around em, it turns out the CMOS battery had released it's contents onto the motherboard while they had it stored out back (probably from Alabama heat). How was this my fault, I could have maybe saved it if I had not started it up and left it running. By that point the traces were too burned up by battery acid reacting with electricity to work.

Same thing happened to a Deskpro 286 I had in storage too, except that time the darned thing would not even POST.
 
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