If you want to blow something up...

[simpo two]

... get one of these!

www.electricstuff.co.uk/destructotron.html

[meeja]

What fantastic fun......

Reminds me of being a child with a railway line at the end of the back garden..... used to put 1p or 2p coins on the line and tray and find the flattened results after a train had been past....

[unlicensed]

Thats sooo awesome. Great Find

[dontlift]

You reckon that thing would work on a gatso????

[Roadrage]

dontlift said:

You reckon that thing would work on a gatso????

now where my soldering iron go

[wedg1e]

4Kv? Pah. Kiddies' voltages... !

I've got a 160Kv full-wave DC generator in the back of my van.... poke that down an X-ray head and turn it into MeV (Mega-ElectronVolts) and it will let you 'see' through 38mm of steel....
Alternatively, try looking down the primary beam for a few minutes and report to the Department of Radiation Injuries... you'd probably have long enough to fill in the forms
Reminds me; we built a machine last year to irradiate assorted live critters: 320kV at full blast for 30 seconds is enough to give you and me a life-threatening condition: what do you reckon it does to rats and mice in 5 minutes?
Standing by waiting for the animal rights lentilist green whingeing twats to have a go at me now....


Ian

[margo]

YOU **** HOW DARE YOU IRRADIATE GOD'S TINY CREATURES


























but seriously, why would you want to irradiate mice ???


>> Edited by margo on Monday 15th March 21:48

[HarryW]

Like Wedgie have worked with many extremely high voltage bits of kit over the years. Capacitors as big as Tea chests and circuits that will vaporise 1/2" rods in a flash. Seen the safety earth stick (sheppards crook) that was designed to earth them out prior to you undoing the terminal nuts disapear in a flash , certainly gives you confidence to put your hand in there NOT.
Theory now, milli-amps will kill you, mega amps will burn but not necessary kill you. I have seen people thrown across compartments by 45Kv and only have minor burns , others have their heart stopped by next to nothing.
As the site alludes too, do not play with electricity, it really is very dangerous even if you think you know what you are doing.

Harry

PS didn't mean to sound like your mother in the last sentence

[wedg1e]

Margo: the equipment was built for a research facility that looks into cancer effects. Quick way to cause cell damage: fat dose of rads. We do know that they have access to plenty of God's other creatures as well, but rodents were specified (and we designed the door to be as small as possible so they couldn't get monkeys or dogs in...). The doses involved would be lethal by themselves, however the critters are anaesthetized for the irradiation and then killed a short time after for dissection. There is another similar unit in the pipeline which we understand will be used to give the doses over longer periods, but for what purpose we aren't advised. One can only hope that mankind will benefit from all this. Personally I'd like to see the Huntleys and Bradys of this world used for experiments....

Harry: X-ray sets have earthing bars as well. They don't generally tend to get vapourised, but they can stick in the up position or get burned through arcing, with the result that the HV output retains some fire....
HV cables are also known for acting like big capacitors: I've had a few belts even weeks after the cable last saw action!

Ian

[HarryW]

wedg1e said:

.... HV cables are also known for acting like big capacitors: I've had a few belts even weeks after the cable last saw action! Ian

A very simple fact, learnt the hard way , was that when the big capititors are left disconnected from the cct, for say 24hrs+, they will happily charge themselves up to about 50% of their rating , have measured a 35KV cct big boy one reach 17KV over a weekend just from the air . Trick used to be when they were taken out of cct, was to link/short the terminals together.
Haven't had 'hands on' for a few years now, so I would probably kill myself in short order now if I tried again .

Harry

[zumbruk]

margo said:

but seriously, why would you want to irradiate mice ???

I used to work on river blindness, a rather nasty parasitic disease endemic in Africa. There is no good mammalian animal model for this, so we used to irradiate rats in order to suppress their immune systems so we could infect them. Although we used to use a cobalt-80 source rather than X-rays.

(Note to Animal Rights types; This was 30 years ago. I work in IT now...)

[puggti]

margo said:

but seriously, why would you want to irradiate mice ???

You ever tried eating them raw???

[simpo two]

zumbruk said:

Although we used to use a cobalt-80 source rather than X-rays.

Nothing stays the same these days does it? It used to be Cobalt-60. I suppose it's breaking down with time... gamma rays, yummy.

[top fuel]

"Warning! High voltage capacitors are ridiculously dangerous things."

haha!!

[simpo two]

My favourite was:

[DustyC]

HarryW said:

wedg1e said: .... HV cables are also known for acting like big capacitors: I've had a few belts even weeks after the cable last saw action! Ian A very simple fact, learnt the hard way , was that when the big capititors are left disconnected from the cct, for say 24hrs+, they will happily charge themselves up to about 50% of their rating , have measured a 35KV cct big boy one reach 17KV over a weekend just from the air . Trick used to be when they were taken out of cct, was to link/short the terminals together. Haven't had 'hands on' for a few years now, so I would probably kill myself in short order now if I tried again . Harry

I used to work at a refinery as a sparky up to 100KV.
Any disconnected cables were always earthed to save anyone getting belts. If they werent earthed it didnt even matter if these cables were disconnected for years beacuse due to the length of the runs a voltage high enough to be dangerous could be induced in them by the cables run next to it.

I wonder why the guy how has the website (initial post) builds these things. It wouldnt suprise me if he is a maintenance sparky with a lot of time on his hands at work!
Beats playing cards in the substation I suppose!

HarryW said:

Haven't had 'hands on' for a few years now, so I would probably kill myself in short order now if I tried again .

Same here!


>> Edited by DustyC on Friday 19th March 13:17

[zumbruk]

simpo two said:

zumbruk said: Although we used to use a cobalt-80 source rather than X-rays. Nothing stays the same these days does it? It used to be Cobalt-60. I suppose it's breaking down with time... gamma rays, yummy.

Damn.

Oh, well, like I said it was a l-o-o-o-ng ago.