Date   : Sat, 23 Jul 2005 10:24:42 +0100
From   : Tim Fardell <tim.fardell@...>
Subject: Re: floppy discs

Colin wrote:
> Ah yes, I remember that from my days of fixing/replacing capacitors in my
> reel to reel tape recorder after it became obsolete (bought several
> second-hand and stored them in the loft for spares - I'm on the last one now
> :-)
> . They had huge things like a "C" size battery in them and you had to
> dischrge them by shorting them out with a screwdriver (not to be advised
> where chips are concerned of course). I only ever had one shock but a friend
> who was helping (and was a telecommunications engineer and should have known
> better) got a nasty one which knocked him accross the room.

Sorry this is getting a bit off-topic, but I'll never forget when I was walking 
past a skip with a friend, and he spotted a nice-looking power-supply PCB in 
the skip,  reached in and lifted it out. His whole body suddely spasmed, and he 
hurled the power-supply back into the skip!

I took it out of the skip again (being careful not to touch the bottom of the 
PCB) and shorted the big capacitor out on some nearby railings, and a nice 
spark was produced :-) I can only assume that the PSU had only recently been 
thrown away!

I guess you had to be there really, but I was chuckling to myself about that 
for days afterwards :-)

(Incidentally, me and the aforementioned friend are both telecomms engineers as 
well - is there a pattern forming here?)

Tim.