Safety Reminder....from the Opus of Amateur Radio Knowledge and Lore :)

Thread Starter

KL7AJ

Joined Nov 4, 2008
2,229
........Molten solder can be a hazard, as one might surmise. Not only is it hot, but it tends to roll around a bit. I sport——well, perhaps sport is an inaccurate verb——a small scar on my “procreative utensil” as a reminder never to perform soldering operations at two in the morning whilst clad in pajamas. Many seasoned hams can relate other painful realities——yet it never causes most of us to abandon the hobby altogether. We simply apply more caution——or clothing. For the most part, these injuries are more insulting than life-threatening, but as with all hot objects and substances, due caution is advised.


:D

Eric
 

bertus

Joined Apr 5, 2008
22,270
Hello eric,

Just like what me was told.
I was about 5 years old and my father also has electronics as a hobby.
He had the soldering iron placed on the kitchen blade to cool down.
I was told NOT to touch it.
I grabbed in the hot part of the soldering iron with my full hand.
That hurts a lot. Because I was told not to touch it I didi not dare to cry.

Greetings,
Bertus
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
One of the first kits I built was a simple VOM. I was in my early teens. I was so engrossed in my work I grabbed the wrong end of my soldering iron. Funny thing, it didn't hurt at the time, it just bubbled. Pain came later.
 

someonesdad

Joined Jul 7, 2009
1,583
Another bit of advice is about working alone. When I was a student, I had a key to the school labs because I was a TA. One evening I was curious about what was inside a CB radio a friend had loaned me so that we could talk between our apartments. (This was a vacuum tube device, so there were voltages higher than a solid state device would likely have.) I was in a deserted lab poking around inside the radio when I heard this big clunk! and the next thing I know I'm staring up at the ceiling fluorescent lights and laying on my back on the floor. I had touched something that had a significant voltage on it and had a little white dot on my left index finger from it. The clunk I had heard was the table banging on the floor -- my knees had jerked up and my thighs lifted this heavy wooden table off the ground. This all happened in a couple of seconds. This happened many years ago, but the memory and lesson are burned deep into me.

Needless to say, it was a belated epiphany -- and I don't work alone like that anymore. At the very least I ask my wife to check on me or, if I'm doing something a bit hazardous, ask her to be in the room with me and instruct her in what to do if something goes wrong.
 

ELECTRONERD

Joined May 26, 2009
1,147
Another bit of advice is about working alone. When I was a student, I had a key to the school labs because I was a TA. One evening I was curious about what was inside a CB radio a friend had loaned me so that we could talk between our apartments. (This was a vacuum tube device, so there were voltages higher than a solid state device would likely have.) I was in a deserted lab poking around inside the radio when I heard this big clunk! and the next thing I know I'm staring up at the ceiling fluorescent lights and laying on my back on the floor. I had touched something that had a significant voltage on it and had a little white dot on my left index finger from it. The clunk I had heard was the table banging on the floor -- my knees had jerked up and my thighs lifted this heavy wooden table off the ground. This all happened in a couple of seconds. This happened many years ago, but the memory and lesson are burned deep into me.

Needless to say, it was a belated epiphany -- and I don't work alone like that anymore. At the very least I ask my wife to check on me or, if I'm doing something a bit hazardous, ask her to be in the room with me and instruct her in what to do if something goes wrong.
Very good, your a cautious man which I respect. I should probably be far more cautious than I am...things don't always go the way you intended them to. I should consider surrounding objects that are hazardeous and imagine what could happen under varying conditions and then try to keep those hazards at a minimal level
 
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