This is topic Most electrifying experience in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Freddie Dobbs (Member # 915) on 09-25-2001, 12:42 PM:
I was just curious, what’s the worst shock you have received? I will never forget mine came at the Cinema 8 on the parkway in Huntsville, I was replacing a motor cap on the bottom of the door on a FP20 console. It was close to the wall and there was just enough room to open the door. I was on my knees bent over wedged between the door and the wall. After a few minuets my neck got tired so I lowered my head and BAM.....I looked like Kramer, I thought I would beat myself to death before I could get un-wedged and out.. When I bent over I had put my head on the two 220 leads on the transformer.
Guess this explains a lot for you guys..........
Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 09-25-2001, 01:16 PM:
The biggest shock I received happened when i had a brief stint as a video game repair tech. I was working on a CRT after I thought I had discharged it. I somehow brushed against the flyback transformer and then found myself on the floor clutching my chest. From that point on, I discharged monitors numerous times before working on them. As far as the projectors are concerned, I have only been hit with major static shocks when breaking down prints in the winter.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-25-2001, 01:45 PM:
The worse for me was when I got plowed with the ignition pulse from a Xetron XH lamphouse. It threw mw across the booth without my feet touching the floor, and plastered me on the wall like a fly that was nailed with a fly swatter. Then I slid down the wall like a blob of jelly. (this is what the projectionsit said, anyway)Myhair stood on end for two days after that, and I could not comb or brush it down. It looked like a *foof* hairdo.
Paul
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-25-2001, 02:08 PM:
Let me count the ways 
.These have a real "kick":
25 kilovolts from a charged color TV CRT
Automobile ignition wire
Lawnmower ignition wire
Xenon igniter
These can have real "holding power":
500 volt B+ vacuum tube plate voltage
120 VAC line voltage to ground
These are "burning issues" that can "jump at you":
AC from flyback transformer (Plate lead on 1B3GT or 3A3B rectifier tubes)
Neon lamp transformer discharge
RF output of home-brew 50 watt radio transmitter
Fortunately, I have been careful (or lucky) enough to never have significant current find its way through vital organs. And most of these accidents occurred before I turned 20.
------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-25-2001, 02:18 PM:
I worked in a TV repair shop while I was a senior in high school. I was working on a 19" B&W Zenith and forgot about the ground strap connection that was missing between the chassis and the tuner chassis after it was pulle dout of its cabinet. Well, I completed the circuit with my left and right hands sending 285 volts DC right through me. Well, Kramer didn't exist then so I don't know if I looked like him or not after it happened, but it sure made me feel really bad for a couple of days. BTW: another guy in the shop pulled the plug so I could let go! DC is nasty stuff. Have not gotten bit that bad since although I persist at working on live circuits all the time. Last to go was my Fluke DVM. Slipped and a lead fell into the 6KV focus circuit of an old RCA 721TS tv that I was restoring. Well, the Fluke is dead but the RCA is running like a champ again after nearly 40 years of sitting idle.
Mark @ GTS
Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 09-25-2001, 02:32 PM:
I was doing some casual labor once and the job was to replace some rotten wood gutters on a house. Eventually we worked around to the point were the power lines come in from the pole. We were two stories up on one of those aluminum planks in between two aluminum ladders. I was on all fours trying go underneath the wires and I guess I wasn't low enough. Funny how fast you can be flattened out. I was killed instantly.
------------------
Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut http://www.muellersatomics.com/
Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 09-25-2001, 04:25 PM:
My worst shock was coming home from a service call & caught my wife(now ex-wife) in bed with a plummer, whooaaa weeee--now that was a shock!!! Especially when I wasn't getting it....True story, My worst electrical shock was working on a TV in electronic class & touch the back of the CRT....WHOOOAAA WEEEEE....I know not to do that again.....That Hurt !!
Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 09-25-2001, 04:51 PM:
A cousin of mine was killed by a powerline shock back when I was a kid. It wasn't an easy death. I've been extra careful since then, although I have been knocked across the room by capacitors.
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 09-25-2001, 06:21 PM:
My worst one? Probably when I got my fingers across some screen voltage (about 800VDC) while aligning a Barco video projector. Left some nice pinhole burns in my finger tips that stayed for a long while afterward. Another memorable one happened while working on a three-phase motor circuit used to sync the three Christies we used on an Elvis tribute show at the Las Vegas Hilton in the summer of 1988. The circuit ran from the backstage pair of machines to a single machine up on the balcony; we were occasionally losing sync and I had decided to check and tighten all of the twistlock connectors in that run. Shut the circuit down and tagged it, then went up into the antipro to work on the first pair of connectors. Someone energized the circuit (even though it was tagged) while I had the connector opened up. My partner says I did quite a dance up there on the metal catwalk of the 2nd AP. To say nothing of the lyrics I sang 
That tingle tells ya...
Back to packing boxes,
Paul
Specializing in B&W projection, all black or all white
SMPTE Hollywood Section
Long Beach until next Thursday
Las Vegas from next Thursday
PS: Who was it here that had this signature line:
Theater alignment in progress. Caution: High levels of pink noise and blue language...
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-25-2001, 09:07 PM:
Mark, remember those damn metal picture tubes? Those got my knuckles on many ocassions. Well, I'll tell you.....after a zap or two, the shop "Martinis" become "Martoonys".
Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 09-26-2001, 01:20 AM:
Damn metal picture tube!21AXP22 metal tube in a Motorola color TV.
I was changing a tube on this set when I brushed the tube with the back of my hand. I heard a faint crackle, then was knocked about 2 feet against a steam radiator. They dont have much padding... The homeowner was pissed that I could have bled on her carpet.
I charged her extra.
Sony Trinitrons have a nice 600 volt boost circuit on the CRT socket. That one can be fun, too.
I have fond memories of making body connections with 1B3, and 3A3 tubes.
B+ voltage in a tube amp hurts and seems to hold you in place while it tickles your innards.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-26-2001, 01:50 AM:
Bruce, how about a 5C-22/HT415 Thyratron? That was in the APG-51B radar used in the F3H-2 Navy Issue Demon Fighter Aircraft. With a plate voltage of 18KV before a trigger fires it, it will definately cause your eyeballs to roll around just a little. I have seen a co-worker in the USN make contact with that plate cap before the PFN discharged, and it threw him across the room and up on the bench. After urinating and crapping in his britches, we called an ambulance. Lucky for him, he survived.
Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 09-26-2001, 03:03 AM:
I'm sure all of you have read about my latest zapping. I'ev been belted from end of the garage to the other by a Lumenition system on my Range Rover, my HT tester read about 35,000 volts if I remember right. No current of course.One time I was 12 feet up a ladder, changing a light bulb, I know I'd isolated the lights in that corridor, but some dumb dumb must've come along and turned it back on. Next thing I know there's a big bang and a flash, and I'm lying on the concrete floor, light fitting in one hand, light bulb in the other, wandering what the hell just happened. The only good thing to come out of this was that the singularly most attractive usherette came rushing to my aid. I'd half a mind to pretent to have stopped breathing so she'd have to carry out mouth to mouth....
My uncle once took an overhead power line and survived, god knows how. He'd been sailing on a loch in a little 14' boat, the boat got stuck in some reeds at the side, so he had one hand in the water, pushign it out of the reeds, and the other hand on the aluminium mast. The mast touch an overhead line and it went to earth through him. His lifejacket caught fire and the top of the mast melted. This line was 11,000 volts, and would carry one hell of a current. Miraculously he's still walking around to day. Oddly enough he gave up sailing after that.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-26-2001, 09:28 AM:
Hi Paul,
I didn't run across any sets with the metal CRT's in them when I worked in the service shop and I was probably only 3 or 4 Y.O. when they were being sold. Since I collect and restore pre 1950's sets with round CRT's only I have seen a few, but have passed on them as too may have lost vaccum over the years due to their large glass to metal seal. They also cannot be rebuilt by anyone anymore. But its another story for all glass old CRT's...you can still get a 10BP4 rebuilt and occasionally find them brand new. The large glass to metal seals is also one of the main problems in restoring the original RCA Color set (CTC-1?) that had the 15" round tubes in them. Most have lost vacuum. There are only 3 or 4 in this country that can still produce a picture.
One place I did work VERY CAREFULLY was at the transmitter back when I worked in television. The TTU-110 that we ran had 6 huge air cooled High Voltage cubicles that you literally had to crawl into and vacuum out every couple of months. Too much dust caused failures and sometimes a small fire so we kept them spotless. All six operated at around 20KV and in parallel to produce a whopping 18 amps continous to the Klystrons. You could smell the HV in the main transmitter room when it was operating normally. Most of the problems were water leaks as the human sized Klystrons shook a tiny bit under operation due to the boiling water they produced! Too much copper plumbing in those things! Lotsa fun.
Mark @ GTS
Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 09-26-2001, 09:39 AM:
Paul G. Thompson wrote:"After urinating and crapping in his britches, we called an ambulance. "
Geese, you Navy guys were mean, weren't you!?!
Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 09-26-2001, 03:03 PM:
My worst, on several occasions, was when the insulation used to break down on the old Brockliss floor changeover switches which was a large box with a bar plunger! You could do a changeover and there would be a god almighty bang with sparks flying, you felt your foot had been blown off, as well as the mental shock! As the new chief projectionist in this West End cinema needless to say I didn’t put up with this for long. The two house engineers (such luxury in those days) and myself installed new Zipper changeovers with wall press buttons on the three projectors.
____________________________________________________________________The most funny one I heard was when a 3 phase extract fan was repaired, and the engineer connected it back wrong, and it ran in reverse without anyone realising. Now this was a very big fan in a 2,500 seater cine-variety theatre. Apparently the manager was faced with a huge cleaning bill, when the most affected customers in the front circle were all looking like AL JOLSON!
Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 09-26-2001, 04:37 PM:
Back in my high school days I worked at the local Dairy Queen. Sunday nights after church let out was especially busy and the compressors on the ice cream machines couldn't keep up with the demand.
My manager at the time figured out if you wedged a pop-cicle stick under the relay of the compressor to keep it closed, it would force the compressor to run constantly. One night when he wasn't there, the machines started acting up and I decided to use a screwdriver to hold the relay closed - not even considering it was metal. Needless to say I was thrown across the front line and hit the wall of the drive-thru window. Never did that again!!I also figured out what would happen if you wired the 6 volt framing lamps of a Simplex XL to 120 volts. Ticked me off too... I had just replaced all the bulbs!!
------------------
Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Nashville, Tennessee
(Drive-In Theatre - Start-Up)
Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 09-26-2001, 05:03 PM:
This actually took place when I was in college studying aviation maintenance. I have been a licensed mechanic since about 1988 with both civilian and military heavy and light aircraft experience.One of my classmates was stupid enough to bet others that a magneto with an impulse coupling did not put out that much juce! Others dared him to drop his pants, hook it up to his pecker and give it a whirl! He took them up on the dare/bet!
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-26-2001, 07:25 PM:
I can only pray that it wasn't the guy that changed the starter on the 737 last time I went on a flight. He did have a funny look that seemed to be etched onto his face though. It was hard to tell if it could have been the shock that did it or getting caught in the blast of a JT8. Both however I'm sure must give one about the same effects!
Mark @ GTS
Posted by Kristin Wahlund (Member # 922) on 09-26-2001, 08:22 PM:
When I was younger, my friends and I went bowling. While I was trying to find the switch for the light for the score keeper (not those fancy computer ones) I touched some bare wires, that hurt! Maybe that is where this curly hair comes from!
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-26-2001, 09:50 PM:
Jeeze, Jerry. Isn't it amazing how a single sentence be taken two completely different ways?
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-26-2001, 10:16 PM:
Hey, Bruce...Did you ever use the 1B3 or the 3A3 and a screwdriver as a cigarette lighter?
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-26-2001, 10:25 PM:
Mark, I had a digital voltmeter connected to the voltage monitor points on an ORC lamphouse when the ignition pulse hit the lamp. The meter said "KA-CHING" and read 007 on any scale or mode I put it in. I sent the meter back for warrenty, and after three weeks, they sent me a brand new one with a note that said to the effect:
"We don't exactly know what you hit this thing with, but you did such a good job screwing it up that we could not even fix it. So, here is a new meter to replace the one you toasted"
Now, THAT'S what I call a good warrenty. 
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-27-2001, 12:22 AM:
Paul & Mark: Remember the old saying, "If it works, it's a FLUKE!"Will: ROFL! I can't IMAGINE somebody would be so stupid as to hook a magneto up to his schwantz! Betcha' he has a permanent woody, now!
"When I was young and had no sense..."
I guess I've been lucky, not to have been bitten badly. Just your basic stuff. Enough to make you swear but not enough to make you forget how to swear.
However, in Tech school, we ripped a choke coil out of an old TV and turned it into a 1,000:1 induction coil by putting a single turn of transformer wire as a secondary. We made a vibrator out of a DPST relay and hooked the whole thing up to a couple 6V lantern batteries. We took turns holding onto the secondary leads while another guy pressed the button. It was enough to make your teeth chatter!
Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 09-27-2001, 12:41 AM:
Paul: I did light paper with the
1B3's, but here's the way I did it:I had an old Olympic B/W set that never really did anything other than buzz while I had it. As a joke, I installed a 1B3 that had an air leak. Then I stuffed a bit of flash paper into the HV cage. A friend came over, and I showed him the set, and told him to watch it and see how good it looked. I turned it on, and left the room for a minute. There was a white flash from the back of the set, and a wet spot on the chair. He never came back. I have new friends now...
I never did that one again.
Mark G:
Is there not a replacement tube for the 15" RCA CTC-0001 anywhere?
As for the 21AXP22, I replaced many of them with 21FBP22, if the set had a safety glass, and 21FJP22A if it didn't have one. My 1961 RCA CTC-10C is still running, and looks good as long as you dont compare it to another set. It has a good high-voltage vertical boost source that got me once through a thought-to-be-insulated screwdriver. Made my arm numb for awhile.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-27-2001, 01:24 AM:
Bruce, I thought I was the only one that would pull a stunt like that on someone. Do you see that sly look in my eye in the picture to the left? Yes, those old Olympic B&W TV's can be a pig. Biggest problem I had with them was the horizontal drivers failed, and the feedback cap from the flyback went Horse s***. I can almost remember the C- designation in the schematic.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-27-2001, 01:45 AM:
And, Bruce, what are you doing with that wimpy 16mm POS you are standing with while you are drinking your Janitor Sweeping Compound (sorry, Brad) film guard?
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-27-2001, 10:05 AM:
Bruce,
The 15AXP22 was only made for a short time and probably less that 20,000 were made. It had a really oddball electron gun that no other tube used. It has some extra elements in it as the CTC-00000001 used I-Q color decoding just like the monitors do in studio operations. That was too expensive and complicated to build and align on a huge scale back then. To make matters worse, many of the first 15" RCA color sets were converted to 21 inchers with an upgrade kit that RCA sold. I don't know what CRT that used though as none of the more common 21 inch tubes are compatible. I assume they must ahve made a special run of 21 inch tubes that used the 15" gun assy. There is a small group of guys that are in the process of trying to get some of these guns built so they can restore their sets to working condition, going so far as to track down who bought the manufacturing equipment from RCA, and checking with them to see if they still have the tooling to make them. Last I checked their web site thay had made some good progress. I guess there are so few examples of these sets that it must be worth the effort. I don't know of any Motorola or Sylvania 15" color sets that are still operating either.
Mark @ GTS
Posted by Tom Sauter (Member # 616) on 09-27-2001, 11:41 AM:
I have seen musicians get zapped during outdoor concerts on rainy days by the 48VDC phantom power used for condenser mics. Now I only use consoles with individual phantom power on each channel!We were playing circuit breaker hunter at the radio station one day and my colleauge just dicided to ram a fork into the outlet. We found the breaker, alright.
Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 09-27-2001, 12:11 PM:
Tom, you reminded me that (back in the 60s when I was a musician) if we didn't have the polarity on our guitar amps and the PA system going the same way we'd get zapped on the lips, from the microphone. Talk about a tender place to get hit. It would take minutes to get your eyes uncrossed and stopped from watering------------------
Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/
Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-27-2001, 12:51 PM:
Ace Frehley, the lead guitarist for the rock group Kiss got the shock of his life back in 1976 when the band was on tour to support there album Rock N Roll Over......They were still using guitars with the cords going to the amps.....there stage setup featured stairways going down next to the drum riser....during the opening number he would walk down the stairs.....apparently a bad ground had developed and when his hand touched the stairway rail ZAP!!!!!the show stopped and they rushed him back stage after 20 mins. he came back out and the show resumed numb hands and all....this happened in Lakeland, Fl.
Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 09-27-2001, 01:14 PM:
Paul:I can see the diabolical look in your eyes...
WHY am I standing by the POS?
For now, it's all I have for a pic. Brad apparently ERASED the good one.
Besides, I am so drunk from FG that I was trying to run 35 on the dastardly Eiki. You can't see it, but, in the pic, I'm not wearing pants.
If it helps, that Eiki is gone with the wind.... I'm a-selling off the 16mm hardware FAST!
Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 09-28-2001, 08:09 PM:
Wasn't it Les Harvey of "Stone The Crows" that was electrocuted on-stage by a live mike in '72?A master electrician I often have the pleasure of working with, spent a good part of his life working with high-voltage stuff, yet he reports that the most serious shock he got was from 110vac.
He was at the home of a lady he knew (seems he spent a good part of his life at various homes of young ladies too).
Anyways, he was helping out by doing the laundry in the basement. As he switched on the light, it immediately blew out. He got a replacement bulb and, in stocking feet on a short aluminum ladder, and a slightly damp basement floor, proceeded to change the bulb.
An amature had wired the bulb such that the screw-in part of the socket was live (instead of neutral as it should have been).
He says that the shock "clamped" his hand, and it was only the fact that he passed out that saved his life. He woke up confused and damp on the basement floor.
Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 10-03-2001, 08:06 PM:
The practical joke I always liked was the toilet "shock treatment"!
Posted by Michael Pace (Member # 553) on 10-06-2001, 08:52 PM:
The older I get the worse they seem to get. I was working on a CFS console installing a time clock modification to the exhaust delay circuit but had turned the circuit breaker off at the main sub-board.It was a shock to get a shock as I was under the impression that there was no power. I had to sit down for quite a while to recover as it had grabbed hard. Thinking that I must have turned off the wrong breaker was the first thing that came to mind but that was soon ruled out. It turned out that there was a seperate 240volt supply to the console for the Fire Emergency shutdown to control the main contactor in the console.
The fuse for this is an open style fuseholder using a glass 3AG type fuse. Something that I did know but because I was working on a different section of the console it did not click in the memory bank.
Regards to all,
Michael.
Posted by Anthony Reid (Member # 1009) on 10-11-2001, 05:00 PM:
I was once rephasing a Vic-5 and had the power on!The allen key is was using came in contact with some "live" components.
I wont do that again. 
Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 12-04-2001, 05:27 PM:
15,000 voltsNeon sign transformers bit me when I bushed across one of the output terminals. *tingle*
luckily it was limited to 60ma
Josh
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 12-04-2001, 06:25 PM:
I was working on a CFS colsole a short time ago, replacing the mother board in the automation. I kept getting shocked, two or three times... "Damn!", I would shout and people thought I was nuts. I KNEW I had all the power shut off. I went back to the breaker panel to shut off ALL of the circuits and I found that somebody rewired the console to make it so the blowers ran full-time instead of on the timer. Instead of just bypassing the timer, they just put in another circuit. When they did that they left a few other things in there powered up that would have been dead but for this phantom power feed.Like I said before, it was enough to make me swear but not enough to make you forget how to swear!
Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 11-07-2004, 09:34 PM:
It has been 1069 days since the last post.
Posted by Jeffrey Korns (Member # 2791) on 11-07-2004, 09:34 PM:
Junior high school in the early 1980s. It had a state of the art 1929 light board, complete with knife switches that sparked every time you turned anything on. Flip it on and stand back fast, once the circuits were on you were ok (of course every control on the 6' tall board was metal).
Same Jr High, I decide to check out some of the pars and elipses we had by plugging them in, while holding the metal fixture in one hand and the plug in the other, of course the circuit was live at the time... (really tingly feeling when every muscle tenses up!)
Local community theatre group here takes over a 1928 movie theatre and during the renovation decides to eliminate the in stage foot lights. The electrician pulls every fuse in the light board, operates the controls to be sure the circuit is dead, then gets his bolt cutters to cut the cables. Too bad somebody had rewired the footlights to a breaker box in the lobby... ZAP! he survived, but his bolt cutters flew from the stage to the back of the auditorium (accompanied by some creative profanity).
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 11-07-2004, 10:34 PM:
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)