[Elecraft] Low Voltage Supply Danger

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Allen, KA5N wrote:

 ...Can you imagine what would happen if you accidently shorted a ring
across a fully charged ultracap of 20,000 Farads?  Goodbye finger(s).

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That's a legitimate concern with our present 13.8 supplies as well. Twenty
or thirty amps can be very dangerous if you get a piece of jewelry across
the contacts. If you're unlucky enough to fail to make good enough contact
to trip the crowbar or blow a fuse, you'll be frozen there as the ring (or
bracelet) melts into your flesh. 

Almost everyone who has worked around aircraft knows someone missing a ring
finger and sometimes a whole hand from just such mishaps. Working on a
fighter one night at Lockheed Aircraft, I heard a power cart groan and
looked at the next plane sitting wingtip to wingtip with the one I was in
and saw smoke billowing from a partially-opened canopy and a tech
unconscious inside. It turned out he had tried to replace a breaker without
disconnecting power and dropped this screwdriver where it contacted the
power bus bar and the side of the airplane. The metal shaft of the
screwdriver literally exploded into globules of molten metal that caused him
to jump up, smash his the back of his head on the canopy and knocked himself
out. Other than a concussion he wasn't seriously hurt but the plane was a
mess. 

That's one very good reason to be sure that 20 amp fuse Elecraft specifies
for the K2/100 is in the power line. 

Ron AC7AC