Heathkit service tech pranks

[Fred Wittman]

At Fairchild we also tried the trick of blowing tobacco smoke through a tube
hidden behind what was being breadboarded, shoulda seen 'em jump...

Then there was the trick of Krylon sprayed on the power plug prongs - took a
newbee forever to get the gear working...

Enough...

Fred Wittman - KG6NYK

----- Original Message -----
From: "Multi-Volti" <murray at MULTI-VOLTI.COM>
To: <HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV>
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 5:51 PM
Subject: Heathkit service tech pranks


> 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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