Good video and hopefully youtube gets the message and stops spreading deadly impressions. Having worked with HV in both hobby and work related capacities, I don’t know why anyone would mess a microwave transformer without a very good reason and serious safety prep.
When discussing electricity it’s helpful to appreciate how volts, amps, resistance and power relate (Ohms Law). The warnings stress the high voltage aspect (2kV in typical microwave transformer) - but the most dangerous thing is that it’s 2kV at up to nearly an amp. A 20kV neon sign transformer can usually only supply a few tens of milliamps - (which can still kill you via fibrillation if it gets across the heart), but is not going to cause instantaneous flesh combustion like this lunacy.
Especially your heart. Use your right hand as much as possible, since for most people the ventricles of the heart are mostly just left of center. The taller you are, the more vertical the heart hangs in the chest. If you’re short, it can be pointed almost from right shoulder to left armpit.
My engineer dad emphasized to us at a young age, not that we were handling any sort of high voltage, but before we knew how to use a multimeter, we knew not to let our body complete a circuit, especially through the heart.
Playing around with 2,000 volts is an unfathomably bad idea. Plain old European wall current at 220 V is already dangerous enough. I’m cautious with even 50 volts (four car batteries in series).
But that’s thee thing, what may be an insulator at 12v (your car battery) or 110v (house current) could be a conductor at these voltages, including a table top with humid air, so many more things can complete the circuit, things you wouldn’''t expect. That’s the problem with voltage. Plus you can’t see voltage, or amps for that matter, unless there’s really a lot of them.
When I was five, I was playing around with a little portable record player my parents gave us. It was plugged into the wall with an extension cord. I, being the genius five-year-old I was, decided I wanted to see if I could make the record spin with my finger at exactly the same speed as the record player. I put the place where it plugged into the extension cord into my mouth and put my finger on the record lightly to match the speed. Then I yanked the extension cord away while biting down on the record player plug.
I had trouble talking to my mom for about an hour after that to explain why I screamed. My mouth was numb, my teeth rattling in my head.
This sort of stuff is insane. Even a five-year-old can learn that.
I have a question- so 34 or so people were killed attempting these projects -do you think there are any injuries too, or is this a “you’re fine until you’re dead” proposition?
According to the Big Clive video posted above, if you have an accident with the microwave transformer and jumper cable rig there’s a 70% likelihood of lethal injury. Victims in the lucky 30% suffer life-changing burns and cardiac damage.
I’m glad I hadn’t run across these videos. I’m stupid enough to have tried it and clumsy enough to have done myself in.
Is there any reason this info shouldn’t be on a cooking channel? This is a deadly stupid idea. If I found out about something like this “trick” I would feel obliged to tell people not to do it, especially if I knew I had a large audience that would spread the warning even further afield. I will agree that the progression from tips on using fondant to debunking bad info has been interesting to watch.
Not all of the equipment required to perform fractal burning is homemade, there are some commercial products on the market. That said it is no more safe with commercially available equipment.
The American Association of Woodturners (of which I am a member) takes a strong stand against this practice.
that is the smartest thing i have ever read. i am not afraid of electricity, but i am not going to find out how much i don’t know about it either.
edit: ok i am afraid of electricity.
I followed a few links yesterday to find out more about this practice, and came across one woman’s account of what happened to her. I won’t link to it, you can probably find it yourself if you care to. Her description is bad enough, but the images of her utterly destroyed hands are something I will never get out of my head.
The more you know about electricity, the more scared you are of it.
Even before I did my electrical engineering classes, growing up I had the example of my uncle, who had been up an aluminium ladder and accidentally brushed the mains entry box on the front of a house. That was before I was born. I always just knew him as the nice man with lots of scars, two prosthetic feet, two fingers on one hand (one of which used to be his big toe), and a hook instead of the other hand.
And that’s not even going into the horror stories told by friends who had worked in high-power radio transmission, and the voltages and frequencies involved there.
There was just enough illustration in the OP to keep me from looking for more. I have a few shop accidents and a motorcycle crash (none mine, thankfully) that have been living rent-free upstairs the last 20 years and they do not need another roommate.
Even that great safety video advises at 6:05 to short the big capacitor in the microwave with a screwdriver. Better to short with a big resistor so as not to cause a spark or blow up the cap. Better yet just steer clear.
I also had an uncle who was working on an aluminum plank on a ladder, barefoot when he accidentally touched the mains entry wires whose insulation had failed. It was life changing for him.
