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shocking!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 2463
  • Start date Start date
D

Deleted member 2463

No not the Bond one liner, although a good one.

Last night at the club; I stupidly put my hand into an old game that was powered up and gave myself a good juicing at 220V luckily the breaker tripped otherwise someone might be here writing my obituary:

"Neil was a c**t but we loved him and now he is dead"

followed by everyone trying to figure out how to get their money back for the Open and making low ball offers on my Stern Classics, @strobey would be the owner of a MMR (which is in my will now btw).

these games have a lot of voltage in them, be careful and if you can't be careful tell your wife I've got first dibs on your games.

Neil.
 
I’m an electrician, the worst shock I’ve ever had was pulling a power adapter (12v) from a wall socket. The outer case came away and I touched the 230v supply, nearly killed me. Burnt my fingers and that buzzing shaking feeling was huge. You got to laugh as I have worked on some big 3 phase supply’s and that nearly got me, Chinese crap!

Never put your hands in a powered up pinball especially if you are ‘sweaty’ 😂
 
Neil McRae said:
"Neil was a c**t but we loved him and now he is dead"
Click to expand...

Possibly the best thing you have ever posted ;)

On the topic of shocks - I got a nasty belt changing the main game fuse , game off but switched on at wall. The fuse holder was a bit flaky kept popping out and I was fiddling about with it and obvs made contact with fuse . Swore loudly and smashed my hand hard on the machine as I instinctively recoiled.

I’m super cautious now - switching off at the wall .

 
You don't say how old the game was, but EM games have mains voltage all over the place - I've ben buzzed several times

Worst are Gottlieb who were using a mains voltage switch behind a metal start button on a metal front door well into the 1970's - you are only protected by a thin piece of insulating strip (fish paper) - if even a tiny hole gets worn through on this you can get a shock as I found out many years ago

Many later games have an on off switch near the front door which is mains voltage - it starts out being protected by a piece of cardboard (or later a plastic cover) but this is often missing exposing the live lugs
 
Worst shocks are from neutrals because you really aren’t expecting them, lost count of the number of belts I’ve had over the years mostly down to complacency which will bite you on the **** every time!
 
Also remember that on 1990's games (and maybe later) if you pull the plug out of the wall socket and then touch the pins you can get a shock from that - that has caught me out a couple of times too
 
David_Vi said:
A good lesson!
I hadn't considered the 220v, usually the worst I get is from a coil lug and it's not pleasant.
Where can you easily touch 220v ? 😲



Wow you are self aware 🤣
Click to expand...

of course I am - that's what makes some of the replies on here so funny.
 
That’s why i always wear my pinball wellies whenever my games are turned on.

Back in the 70s they used to sell electrical goods without a plug. I got a cassette player from my 10th birthday and figured I didn’t need a plug as I could just poke the bare wires of the lead onto the wall socket holes. Problem was they had little shutters over the holes that only opened when the earth prong was inserted. No problem I figured, I’ll use a pen knife to poke them open and shove the wires in.

Bang.
 
The DMD/Alphanumeric plasma driver boards / display boards them self can carry pretty high voltage as well which will give you a bit of a zap!
 
If I'm working on a machine which is supposed to be OFF I prefer to see the plug unplugged on the floor, not always practical but it's a habit now.

Glad you're well though Neil, your moving obituary brought a tear to my eye :D
 
If Neil got smoked....
I can imagine the covert condolence calls to his Mrs..
Whilst dropping mega low ball offers on his collection....lol
 
Sgt GrizZ said:
Possibly the best thing you have ever posted ;)

On the topic of shocks - I got a nasty belt changing the main game fuse , game off but switched on at wall. The fuse holder was a bit flaky kept popping out and I was fiddling about with it and obvs made contact with fuse . Swore loudly and smashed my hand hard on the machine as I instinctively recoiled.

I’m super cautious now - switching off at the wall .

Click to expand...
+1 one from me on this also. But i actually pulled out the fuse with the juice on to test it. doh!

You only do it once - my arm was dead at the top for a good week.
 
With an electronic game, if circuit board checks are likely the advice is to leave it plugged in but turned off, so that the ground path is present. And touch the side rails or any good ground before reaching into the back box.

There was a good reason the old Bally solenoid driver/voltage reg. board had a plastic cover over the HV display voltage reg; the heat-sink was in circuit, and carrying a high dc voltage.
 
We learn from our mistakes - bet you'll check games are off in future!

I learnt the hard way when a japanese PC make all the racks in a data suite 'live' back in the 90s and a cockup when building it meant the earthing didn't ever get connected.

So many of us had been in and out and unknowingly got away with it. Then one poor bugger touched the rack and flew across the room with a bolt of lightning and massive noise, breaker didn't trip and he hit the oppsite rack and got another jolt. Had a worrying few seconds wondering how the hell I'd get him out when the halon fire protection system activated, but luckily the breakers that tripped after the second jolt also disabled the halon.

They did a lot of rewiring after that...
 
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