[Lowfer] Accidents (was LOWFER TAG)

[John Rabson]

Permit me to add a couple of cautionary tales of industrial accidents (in birth cases I was the recipient).

When I was an apprentice, I worked in a lab which had test sets for characterising high voltage semiconductors. One design of test set was equivalent to having an oscilloscope with a Variac to control the test voltage to the Device Under Test. Supposedly these Variacs were spring loaded.

One day I was trying out a new test set and found that the spring return did not work. As a resultI found myself grabbing hold of around 500 V DC. Steps were taken to prevent a recurrence.

In the second case I was working with an oscilloscope on low power electronics. When it came to a meal break, I put my hand along the side of my equipment to turn it off – and found myself draped across a chair awaiting the arrival of the first-aider. It turned out that a colleague had disconnected the earth from his scope because he wished to examine the waveform across a rectifying diode. I survived, but we never saw my colleague again.

73 John F5VLF