I was young and did not have access to soldering irons. So I bridged the two pins with aluminium foil and sticky tape.
It would slowly peel off and my controller would suddenly stop working mid game. I couldn’t reboot the console because I couldn’t save (no VMUs). So I’d fix it live – I’d leave the screws out of the case, jiggle my fingers in there and fix it.
This was fine, worked for most of a year. Until I killed the console by accidentally touching the controller PCB to another PCB whilst doing this fix. I still have the corpse somewhere, to this day I still feel awful about it.
Live modding, huh? 😂 Takes me right back to my first PC, whose loudspeaker prevented me from covertly playing games when I was supposed to be sleeping. 😇
So I opened up the case and figured out that the PC speaker lead had a detachable connector. And the case was flexible enough that if I didn’t put all the the screws back in, I could just reach in and plug or unplug the speaker. 👌
Worked great, except for that one time I got shocked while blindly trying to finagle in the connector⚡🤯 (probably by the CRT assembly; this was one of those PCs that had everything incorporated in the case).
Thankfully, it must have been all volts and no amps so I was OK, even though I let out quite the yelp. 😁
Thankfully, it must have been all volts and no amps so I was OK, even though I let out quite the yelp. 😁
Complete myth. Please don’t repeat this. It’s not even remotely close to a generalisation, it’s completely wrong and dangerous.
(Sorry, pet peeve of mine. Have had family members happy to play with mains wires but terrified to touch car batteries for fear of death)
100mA through someone can be harmless. 1mA through someone can be fatal. Lethal conditions occur under certain complex circumstances involving not just voltage/current, but frequency, exact waveforms, duration, contact points and the individual’s physical parameters (human skin resistance varies a LOT, it’s not an insignificant factor).
The most commonly encountered electrical hazards involve 50/60Hz 120/230V mains and hand/foot dermal contacts. This is a lethal combination that can cause heart fibrillation. Even 5mA or 100VAC can cause this (sometimes you will see lower numbers cited, “it depends”). Death can occur a day later, see immediate medical attention if you believe you have been shocked by mains wiring.
At very high frequencies our nervous system is not sensitive, so we can pass larger amounts of current or deal with higher voltages without much harm. I’ll still hedge this with “it depends”, you can get thermal burns (which if on the eyes includes blindness) and pathways through the body vary with contact points, changing the risks.
Static electricity discharges can be crazily high voltages and currents (many amps, sometimes hundreds of amps). Yet they are not a hazard.
The high voltages in your CRT will supply very high currents when applied to dermal contact points on the human body. This will likely induce involuntary muscle contraction. Prolonged contact could cause burns and unwanted chemical reactions to occur internally, but is unlikely to cause heart fibrillation because of the non-repeating DC nature.
From memory, it felt like the electrostatic discharge that used to happen whenever I was touching my car. Annoying but harmless. The CRT part was speculation as I was reaching around blindly and don’t ultimately know which exposed contact shocked me.
Interestingly, the PC suffered no damage at all and didn’t blow its internal fuse, either.
From memory, it felt like the electrostatic discharge that used to happen whenever I was touching my car.
That’s likely a valid comparison. Some parts of the tube might give you the same style of event as static electricity discharge when you touch them. Other parts would give you something more though :D so please don’t take this as a generalisation.
Interestingly, the PC suffered no damage at all and didn’t blow its internal fuse, either.
Fuses are OK as fire prevention devices, but mostly useless as electrocution prevention. They blow based off power draw and time. Many human-electric interactions don’t actually draw that much power or last that long when compared to normal circuit power draws & timescales.
I did not know, that you could turn off the sound of a PC. But I needed Sim Tower to run overnight, to have enough money for the next floor the next day. That were some bad weeks without sleep as a ~11yo 😅
That “bing, bing” and the sound of the elevators the whole night.
I was young and did not have access to soldering irons. So I bridged the two pins with aluminium foil and sticky tape.
It would slowly peel off and my controller would suddenly stop working mid game. I couldn’t reboot the console because I couldn’t save (no VMUs). So I’d fix it live – I’d leave the screws out of the case, jiggle my fingers in there and fix it.
This was fine, worked for most of a year. Until I killed the console by accidentally touching the controller PCB to another PCB whilst doing this fix. I still have the corpse somewhere, to this day I still feel awful about it.
Live modding, huh? 😂 Takes me right back to my first PC, whose loudspeaker prevented me from covertly playing games when I was supposed to be sleeping. 😇
So I opened up the case and figured out that the PC speaker lead had a detachable connector. And the case was flexible enough that if I didn’t put all the the screws back in, I could just reach in and plug or unplug the speaker. 👌
Worked great, except for that one time I got shocked while blindly trying to finagle in the connector⚡🤯 (probably by the CRT assembly; this was one of those PCs that had everything incorporated in the case).
Thankfully, it must have been all volts and no amps so I was OK, even though I let out quite the yelp. 😁
Complete myth. Please don’t repeat this. It’s not even remotely close to a generalisation, it’s completely wrong and dangerous.
(Sorry, pet peeve of mine. Have had family members happy to play with mains wires but terrified to touch car batteries for fear of death)
100mA through someone can be harmless. 1mA through someone can be fatal. Lethal conditions occur under certain complex circumstances involving not just voltage/current, but frequency, exact waveforms, duration, contact points and the individual’s physical parameters (human skin resistance varies a LOT, it’s not an insignificant factor).
The most commonly encountered electrical hazards involve 50/60Hz 120/230V mains and hand/foot dermal contacts. This is a lethal combination that can cause heart fibrillation. Even 5mA or 100VAC can cause this (sometimes you will see lower numbers cited, “it depends”). Death can occur a day later, see immediate medical attention if you believe you have been shocked by mains wiring.
At very high frequencies our nervous system is not sensitive, so we can pass larger amounts of current or deal with higher voltages without much harm. I’ll still hedge this with “it depends”, you can get thermal burns (which if on the eyes includes blindness) and pathways through the body vary with contact points, changing the risks.
Static electricity discharges can be crazily high voltages and currents (many amps, sometimes hundreds of amps). Yet they are not a hazard.
The high voltages in your CRT will supply very high currents when applied to dermal contact points on the human body. This will likely induce involuntary muscle contraction. Prolonged contact could cause burns and unwanted chemical reactions to occur internally, but is unlikely to cause heart fibrillation because of the non-repeating DC nature.
Thanks for the warning.
From memory, it felt like the electrostatic discharge that used to happen whenever I was touching my car. Annoying but harmless. The CRT part was speculation as I was reaching around blindly and don’t ultimately know which exposed contact shocked me.
Interestingly, the PC suffered no damage at all and didn’t blow its internal fuse, either.
Ty. Sorry it was a grumpy warning :(
That’s likely a valid comparison. Some parts of the tube might give you the same style of event as static electricity discharge when you touch them. Other parts would give you something more though :D so please don’t take this as a generalisation.
Fuses are OK as fire prevention devices, but mostly useless as electrocution prevention. They blow based off power draw and time. Many human-electric interactions don’t actually draw that much power or last that long when compared to normal circuit power draws & timescales.
I did not know, that you could turn off the sound of a PC. But I needed Sim Tower to run overnight, to have enough money for the next floor the next day. That were some bad weeks without sleep as a ~11yo 😅
That “bing, bing” and the sound of the elevators the whole night.