# My! How times have changed!



## ELHEAD (Oct 10, 2019)




----------



## fixit (Oct 10, 2019)

me also


----------



## vtcnc (Oct 10, 2019)

That picture is great.

You might be surprised to find not much has changed though. When my now 10 year old was 2 or 3, I will never forget driving up our street on my way home from work and seeing him laying in the middle of a puddle blowing mud bubbles. Having the time of his life!


----------



## Bi11Hudson (Oct 11, 2019)

I personally don't remember the incident. My father told this repeatedly at family gatherings. It seems he returned from work one afternoon and asked Mom where I was. She was blind. Replying that I had been quiet for a while I probably required looking for. Pop found me behind the couch with a screwdriver. Seems I had removed the cover and wall plug from the wall and was just starting to remove the wires when he found me. I was, at most, three years old.(1954) 

I always considered it to be the start of my career as an electrical engineer. The bottom line, for almost all children, is what they have to play with. All I had at the time was a screwdriver I had beat an uncle out of.  I found something the driver would undo whereupon I found a couple more. Natural curiosity and trying to learn, nothing more. It would be the same for more modern kids and what they have to play with.

..


----------



## ELHEAD (Oct 11, 2019)

Bi11, I ,at 6, found out what has inside a recepticle , by probing with my little pen knife. Suprised I am still alive, now that I'm on the eve of 70 yrs.
Dave


----------



## Tim9 (Oct 11, 2019)

That’s the beauty of 110 volt systems IMO. They don’t bite as hard. Especially if you aren’t grounded. Looks like Edison was exaggerating when he said A/C was super deadly and he fried that poor elephant.


----------



## Bi11Hudson (Oct 12, 2019)

One side of 120 volt circuits is at ground potential, even in 1954. I guess I was fortunate to have started on the neutral side. Or possibly, with a wooden building, wasn't grounded and didn't cross anything. It occured in Falls Church, Virginia way back when that was in the deep boonies and the building probably had the old timey cloth bound romex and no ground wire.

As far as the muscle retraction goes, 240 volts DC "bites" a lot! harder than 240 VAC. After 50 years in the field, I'd much rather tangle with AC. Oh, and Tommy Edison was a good salesman, but no engineer.

.


----------



## ezduzit (Oct 12, 2019)

When a toddler I found a bobby pin on the floor and stuck both prongs into a 110-volt outlet. There was a helluva flash/bang and I got taken to the hospital to bandage my hand to treat the burns. Never did _that_ again!


----------



## T Bredehoft (Oct 12, 2019)

About that age, during WWII, we had an old Christmas Tree holder that had light sockets in it for colored lights. I have memories that one of them really bit you if you put your finger in it. I couldn't have been as much as four.


----------



## Eddyde (Oct 12, 2019)

Funny how many of us had early "electrical outlet experiences". Mine was around 5 when I got an electrical experimenters kit for Christmas, It had a small bell that was normally powered by the kits D batteries. Well, I figured I could make it ring real loud if I simply put the wires into the wall outlet... first electric shock, first third degree burn and first time blowing a fuse and suddenly being plunged into darkness.


----------



## ELHEAD (Oct 12, 2019)

ezduzit said:


> When a toddler I found a bobby pin on the floor and stuck both prongs into a 110-volt outlet. There was a helluva flash/bang and I got taken to the hospital to bandage my hand to treat the burns. Never did _that_ again!


Once was enough for me too.


----------



## eugene13 (Oct 12, 2019)

During my last year of high school I had to live with relatives and was assigned the chore of doing the dishes.  I quickly discovered that if you stuck your hands in both sinks at the same time you got a substantial shock, to the amusement of the rest of the family.  The strange thing was, the garbage disposal that was causing the problem still worked.  I disconnected the disposal and washed the dishes happily ever after.


----------



## savarin (Oct 12, 2019)

I reckon we all stuck something into wall outlets when we were young.
My trick was I stuck a short length of wire in each hole and placed a bar of metal across them.
I remember sticking the wires in but no more, according to my father it threw me across the room.


----------



## vtcnc (Oct 17, 2019)

ezduzit said:


> When a toddler I found a bobby pin on the floor and stuck both prongs into a 110-volt outlet. There was a helluva flash/bang and I got taken to the hospital to bandage my hand to treat the burns. Never did _that_ again!



Same. Was probably 2 yrs old. I remember the incident with some detail. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## ELHEAD (Oct 17, 2019)

Sounds like a number of our bunch were en-lightened at an early age.
Dave


----------



## savarin (Oct 17, 2019)

it was a shocking experience and I didnt know watt to do.


----------



## RJSakowski (Oct 17, 2019)

Bi11Hudson said:


> One side of 120 volt circuits is at ground potential, even in 1954. I guess I was fortunate to have started on the neutral side. Or possibly, with a wooden building, wasn't grounded and didn't cross anything. It occured in Falls Church, Virginia way back when that was in the deep boonies and the building probably had the old timey cloth bound romex and no ground wire.
> 
> As far as the muscle retraction goes, 240 volts DC "bites" a lot! harder than 240 VAC. After 50 years in the field, I'd much rather tangle with AC. Oh, and Tommy Edison was a good salesman, but no engineer.
> 
> .


The worst one that I ever got was 400 volts DC from a ham radio transmitter power supply.  The muscle contraction was so great that I pulled the supply to the floor, breaking the circuit which probably is why I am still alive today.  I had a serious burn on my wrist at the contact point.


----------



## vtcnc (Oct 17, 2019)

OK here is my other shocking story...

About 13 yrs old, working in the shop with my father and uncle. Hot summer day with the bay doors wide open. A cool summer storm provides some relief from the heat. The lightning storm starts to creep up on us...

I'm holding the rubber compressor hose and walking across the floor when out of nowhere - CRACK! - a strike to the nozzle on the end of the hose, a 2-3' ball of lightning then appears in front of me (for the briefest of moments) to find ground through the floor lift. Threw me back a few feet...whether that was the energy or me just reacting I have no idea. The strange part was how time slowed down - I think our minds adjust in moments of survival crisis and leave lasting impacts on our memory.

The look on my father's and uncle's face was probably the same as on mine...what just happened and am I ok? As luck would have it, I think I'm here today because I WASN'T holding onto that nozzle. Maybe I'm wrong but that's my story about _almost _getting hit by lightning.


----------



## kb58 (Oct 17, 2019)

RJSakowski said:


> The worst one that I ever got was 400 volts DC from a ham radio transmitter power supply.  The muscle contraction was so great that I pulled the supply to the floor, breaking the circuit which probably is why I am still alive today.  I had a serious burn on my wrist at the contact point.


I have virtually the same experience, from a large capacitor that remained charged after it was unplugged. Burned a hole in my finger it did.


----------



## RJSakowski (Oct 17, 2019)

My capacitor story goes bck to high school.  In physics class, we had a Wimshurst generator demo setup.  I don't recall what the voltage was but as I recall the spark gap was around two inches and at around 5,000 volts/cm, that would be in the neighborhood of 25KV.  During the class, we had charged up a number of Leyden jars (primitive capacitors)  

After class, a couple of students were standing around the machine discussing something and I absent mindedly picked up a Leyden jar and touched the ball at the the top to my lip.  Actually, it never touched my lip because the voltage jumped the distance first.  I put the Leyden jar down and was explaining what had happened, touching the ball in the process.  That is when I discovered residual charge.

Nowadays, whenever I discharge a capacitor, I always do it twice.


----------



## ezduzit (Oct 17, 2019)

On a hot summer day, wearing just a bathing suit, back when I was about 10-years old, I was straddled a wooden fence, holding a twin-cylinder outboard motor while my cousin tried to start it. On this old motor the spark plugs stuck out the sides with no cover over them. Well the motor was having a hard time starting, and our setup was pretty rickety, somehow I managed to get both spark plugs touching my bare inner thighs when my cousin pulled the rope starter, and the shock threw me and the outboard motor onto the ground.


----------



## Janderso (Oct 17, 2019)

Whenever I saw an ignition condenser on the break room table at the dealership, I never again touched it


----------



## rdean (Oct 17, 2019)

Did you ever pee on an electric fence just to see what would happen?
You won't do it again!

Ray


----------



## RJSakowski (Oct 17, 2019)

rdean said:


> Did you ever pee on an electric fence just to see what would happen?
> You won't do it again!
> 
> Ray


That's actually my third worst electrical experience after the above two.  My cousin who was a farm boy dared me to do it.  Not having personally touched an electric fence before, I did. Like Ray said, never again.


----------



## savarin (Oct 17, 2019)

When I was in junior school we were all called into assembly for a remembrance service for one of the boys who had recently died.
The reason why I remember it so well is his surname was Cockshooter. I kid you not.
He peed onto the live rail of the train line.


----------



## markba633csi (Oct 21, 2019)

When I was 3 I graduated to snails, having tasted all the neighborhood muds
mark


----------



## mcostello (Oct 21, 2019)

FIL went fishing at an out of town lake back when. It had a new fence on one side. He grabbed it and could not let go, Someone found a big branch and knocked Him loose. At that time no one had heard of an electric fence, and it was 110 volt wired direct.


----------

