Me too. It was Mike Harrison's design. I was new to all of this and had
never had my fingers into anything resembling high voltage before. I'd
grown used to be able to reach my screwdriver into the powered circuit
and adjust various pots, trying to get brightness of neon the same as
those of nixie, etc.. Well, anyways, once I tilted my head a bit to the
left for a better look.
**ZAP**
My left temple had touched the case of the ultrasound machine sitting on
the bench and apparently the total impedance of the circuit (through my
skull) to ground via this path was much lower than it had previously
been before my head touched a grounded chassis.
I've tried to be careful since then, but I must admit that one of the
primary reasons for switching to isolated high voltage supplies in all
of my nixie clocks after the 3rd or 4th one was due to the occasional
electric shock. My wife has grown accustomed to my occasional mutters of
"Wow, that'll wake you up."
I have to admit that I grew somewhat careless after a while. More
recently, when I had a nerve-conductance study done, I licked my lips
and said, "Hm.. 250v, 30ma?"
Of course, now that the high voltage I work on is my swan transceiver,
which most definitely holds enough current and voltage to kill me stone
dead, I am boringly careful. The fact that I'm still here to type this
message means that I haven't grown careless with the plate supply on my
finals yet.
As a side note, a few years back my car was totalled in a rear-end
collision on the 520. My tektronix analog scope was in the trunk. I
assumed it was toast. I crowbarred the trunk open and retrieved the
scope which was surprisingly in good shape. When I powered it on,
however, the scope trace was strange and skewed. I decided to open it up
and see if there were any loose connections which could be re-seated.
Before I did so, however, I called my dad and asked what I should know.
"I hear that there is a lot of potential on those scope tubes, dad.. is
this safe? It's been unplugged for a long time. What should I know?", I
said. My dad told me that probably the bleeder resistors will have
cleared the HV caps by now, but short them to be sure, etc... and then
finished with, "It's only a couple kilovolts in there anyways. That'll
maybe through you across the room, but it won't kill you. It's nothing
like the old color TV tubes, that's for sure.. I got bit with one of
those once, they really hurt.".. and then went on to casually recommend
that maybe I should have someone in the room who could start CPR & call
911, "Just in case".
It was with true caution that I approached that scope, I can tell you.
It's worth adding that the only thing wrong with the scope was that the
yoke connector on the CRT was unseated. After reseating it, the scope
worked fine. I still use it.
-Adam AJ9D
On 10/20/2011 3:58 PM, Jonathan Peakall wrote:
We feel your joy, Nixie brother!
I'll always remember how pleased I was when I lit my first nixie. It
was a B5750.
Jonathan
got all my tubes they all lit what fun
mike
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