Heathkit service tech pranks

[rayfri]

We used to do something similar at the Radio Shack service center I worked at
for a couple of years.    Only we added a little bit of a twist to it.....
we'd take a small wire wound resistor... the kind that wasnt encased in the
ceramic..
so you saw the wire wound around the body...   we'd wire it up to a DC power
supply behind the tech's panel.... and we'd add a small firecracker...   taped
so that the fuse was touching the wire of the resistor....   The resistor was of
such a value that it would glow for a few seconds before it would open...  and
the value had to be such that it would open before the circuit breaker would
open...
     Tech would turn on the DC supply...  the wire wound resistor would glow...
igniting the fuse on the firecracker...    a few seconds later....   BOOM.  as
the
firecracker went off....
     I remember the look on at least one techs face..... and the "expletive
deleted" that came out of his mouth......   priceless...
Not sure... but he may have almost needed to change his shorts....  HI HI



Multi-Volti wrote:

> At Heath factory service, sometimes techs would take some 2W carbon
> composition resistors sized for a 'slow burn' at 120 vac, wire them to one
> of those fused Heath AC plugs and plug it into a power-strip outlet on a new
> tech's bench. The tech would turn on the main bench switch in the morning
> and panic over the stench emanating from behind whatever he was
> troubleshooting later that afternoon.
>
> Nice, huh?
>
> Murray
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Glen Zook <gzook at YAHOO.COM>
> To: <HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV>
> Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 3:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Old Filter Caps
>
> > When I was in high school, a couple of the "problem
> > children" students would take the electrolytics from
> > old TV sets that had the two insulated leads from the
> > same end and plug them into an AC outlet.  It took
> > about 30 seconds to a minute on average, and the
> > capacitor would explode giving off a bad smell and
> > lots of smoke and debris.  They would do this in
> > school bathrooms, classrooms, etc.  We had a pretty
> > good idea as to just who was doing this, but they
> > never got caught.  However, over a couple of years I
> > suspect that they set off at least 50 capacitors
> > (about one per week).
> >
> > Glen, K9STH
> >
> >
> > --- Neil Morrison <neilsmorr at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > It's not too corrosive, but if you've ever seen one
> > explode, DAMN, it's messy!
> >
> >
> > =====
> > Glen, K9STH
> >
> > Web sites
> >
> > http://home.attbi.com/~k9sth
> > http://home.attbi.com/~zcomco
> >
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