I came up with this question right after I wanted to take apart a microwave to see why it wasn’t heating anything before I remembered that that’s a very, VERY bad idea
If you’re gonna take a washing machine apart and you cut all the wires, make sure you cut the main electrical plug off as well or your dumbass son (me) will plug it in and electrocute himself with it.
and electrocute himself with it.
Um, aktschully, you shocked yourself. If you electrocuted yourself, you would be dead.
WAIT. UNLESS YOU DID DIE. DOES THAT MAKE YOU A GHOST?!!! A GHOST THAT CAN TYPE ON KEYBOARDS!!! AMAZING!!!
Yes, I am a ghost, I don’t type I just yell at it I till something happens, it’s exhausting.
You poor thing… :(
It’s not all bad tho, fuckin with people is fun.
Lol, I bet.
You are doing it the hard way. You can shrink yourself down and enter the keyboard. By flying underneath the key membranes you can short out the contacts and make the keys trigger. So I’ve heard.
Old CRT monitors. Particularly if they’ve been recently unplugged. There’s a cable in there my old teacher used to call “the superman cable”.
This is why we have specialized people who you call to handle these things.
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Desktop computer power supplies. Don’t open them.
How else am I supposed to put the magic smoke back in?
BS. Just drain capacitors. I’ve repaired a few (worthwhile ones) by replacing caps. You just need to know how. As with anything, read up.
kids today don’t know about the scary suction cup on crts
CRT TVs.
Seconded, they are basically eldritch as far as I am concerned
I heard once that old smoke detectors have some radioactive isotopes in them. Not sure how true or dangerous but sounds bad.
Ionization chamber smoke detectors have a tiny grain of Americium in them, which is radioactive. However, the radiation is almost entirely alpha particles which are relatively low risk as they don’t penetrate skin particularly well.
They are also still sold, though you should buy the other kind (which use light beams instead) because they’re significantly better at their jobs.
They’re low risk unless you ingest them, because then they’re hitting internal organs directly.
Also if you pool the Americium from 100 detectors together they become pretty dangerous.
I forget the details, but each design has a use-case.
Though for most people, the newer design is likely the better choice.
Current smoke detectors still do, and usually have some warning on them stating such.
Microwave
Old arcade machines. Giant capacitors + little knowledge on the subject = a very bad time.
As with anything it can be done safely if you know how. People still play those and they obviously need repairs/maintenance sometimes.
Anything with large capacitors?
Not a large capacitor in my case, but I took apart my old camera after it stopped working, and accidentally touched the capacitor for the flash. A memorable moment.
And people don’t realize how long they can hold power after the device has been “off”.
Edit - I forgot to add my thing! A good example of something that doesn’t sound scary is a TV, but it has large capacitors that can end you (or make a bad day).
Word for word my answer
I had a problem with the control panel in my Panasonic microwave and was able to fix it pretty easily. Everything I needed to get to was inside the right front of the microwave; the control pad membrane and the sticker that goes on the front of it.
I too was going to say microwave before reading the post body. Honestly though anything with a large capacitor, I can’t give you examples unfortunately because I study physics not electrical engineering but some of those fat fucking capacitors will fry you and they hold their charge.
Holy shit, how has no one mentioned rechargable batteries?
Lithium Ion batteries, commonly used in phones and the like, rapidly catches fire and emits acidic smoke that will melt your lungs when the battery is punctured.
I’ll expand the microwave to anything that can carry a large electrical charge without you really knowing. I had a UPC that started acting weird, that was one I just sent right back to the manufacturer. I’ll swap out batteries, but I’m not cracking open something with that much potential energy stored in it without me fully understanding everything about it - and unless I helped build the thing I do not know enough about it.
