Got bit by the Electron Gremlin yesterday

mgreen

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Was installing a recently purchased monitor that would not power up in my Taito cabinet. Grabed a second chasis and did the discharge on the flyback and installed a known good chasis. Game was having some issues and I realized that the ring around the back of the monitor had come loose from it because the rubber banding had broken. Fixed that and the known good chasis worked. Decided to try the other chasis again while moving it into position the chasis arced to the frame of the monitor and scared the bahjezuses out of me. Figured ah must have been a cap and grabbed the board to look at the back of it when whamoo the large 1000 mf cap that arced earlier to the chasis zapped my finger. Hurt like hell but I was glad that it had discharged to the monitor frame earlier or it would have REALLY hurt.

How did I not remember all the caps on the chasis that obviously would have held a charge. I must have been really lucky in the past on my other chasis rebuilds.
:lazy2:
 
I have not started working on monitors yet but the beginning is near and I dread instances like this one. I have been working around electricity and electronics for 20+ years and avoid getting shocked at all costs because I really do not take to it well!

Anytime you get shocked like that, you should get checked out. Believe it or not you could fall dead of a heart attack with the littlest of jolts after the fact. Just a word of advice.

So glad it was not worse. I am surprised that I am not hearing of more instances from people who have not worked on monitors before getting zapped due to lack of experience. But I always learned to get the best experience from learning the hard way!

I still learn something new everyday whether technical or in life in general. Instead of using the screwdriver lampcord trick to discharge monitors, my best friend has a monitor probe that actually reads the voltage of the anode to tell you there is nothing there and discharges it at the same time. We use that when we are doing monitor work because I am a scardy cat.

Be careful.
 
Was installing a recently purchased monitor that would not power up in my Taito cabinet. Grabed a second chasis and did the discharge on the flyback and installed a known good chasis. Game was having some issues and I realized that the ring around the back of the monitor had come loose from it because the rubber banding had broken. Fixed that and the known good chasis worked. Decided to try the other chasis again while moving it into position the chasis arced to the frame of the monitor and scared the bahjezuses out of me. Figured ah must have been a cap and grabbed the board to look at the back of it when whamoo the large 1000 mf cap that arced earlier to the chasis zapped my finger. Hurt like hell but I was glad that it had discharged to the monitor frame earlier or it would have REALLY hurt.

How did I not remember all the caps on the chasis that obviously would have held a charge. I must have been really lucky in the past on my other chasis rebuilds.
:lazy2:


The power supply filter cap (big honking gray cap) on GO7 chassis holds enough charge to fry you several times. Ask me how i know :)
 
The G07 filter cap has bitten me so many times that it isn't even funny. I think it got me 5 or 6 times before I specifically discharged it on the last G07 chassis I had that was attacking me.
 
The G07 filter cap has bitten me so many times that it isn't even funny. I think it got me 5 or 6 times before I specifically discharged it on the last G07 chassis I had that was attacking me.

So you should always discharge it as well?

I vaguely remember hearing that it could bite you but only if another component somewhere (can't remember what) had failed.
 
So you should always discharge it as well?

I vaguely remember hearing that it could bite you but only if another component somewhere (can't remember what) had failed.

It is a fuse. If a fuse fails the then the filter cap will hold a charge. You can discharge it with a light bulb. It bit me so many times because I had probably worked on 2 dozen monitors before I ever touched my first G-07.
 
I forgot to discharge a 4600 that was in a former Zaxxon I had. I pulled the anode cap off, grabbed the frame, then went to pull the monitor out and the anode hit my arm and put me on my ass.
 
gng

got bit working on my gng pin. i am used to it. as a kid woring on cars always got zapped by a bad spark plug wire. get the same jolt. except 20 yrs later like posted earlier could trigger a heart attack. not the way i wanna go. have ems pull up and my head insde a gng pin- this would be very embarassing!
 
I have been shocked by filter caps, flybacks, live voltage, etc...

Never once have I been knocked off my feet, or even shocked to the point of severe hurt. Lucky, I guess...
 
My most common shock is working on pinball. Since I just turned it off, there is still the incoming wall voltage going to the switch that my elbow often bumps into on early Bally's.
 
I would have to say no. That would not guarantee that you would not get shocked. The current has to go somewhere. Either through your body, arm, legs, fingers what have you to get to ground. If perhaps say you might stand on a rubber mat or have rubber shoes on, and you have a wrist strap on connected to ground, then it would still go through your arm to get to the chassis that you probably would have the wrist strap clipped to. Anytime that you discharge a monitor, you should put one hand in your pocket. This ensures that you are not touching anything else such as a chassis or wire that could create a ground path for the electricity to go. Using your body as a resistor.

THose wrist straps are to prevent static electricity from harming CMOS chips and other types of static sensitive chips from being destroyed while you are handling them. That is their only function. Not to ground you from High voltages and currents.

Again, as I said before, if you get hit like that, it would be a good idea to go get checked out.
 
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