Planet Arduino

Hello readers

Instead of a normal day involving fun and learning with electronics, I got the scare of my life and a very sore back. You’re probably thinking it was something to do with the bedroom, but (un)fortunately no. It was revenge of the cheap plug pack. (In Australia we call wall warts plug packs).

In the recent past I wrote about a couple of cheap plug packs from eBay – here. Foolishly I kept using the other working plug pack. Not any more!

Consider this photo:

Notice how there is the adaptor with the Australia pins – this slides on and off relatively easily. Today I went to unplug the whole thing, by gripping the small adaptor which would pull the lot out at once. However my grip was not strong enough and my fingers slipped, pushed down and pulled at the plugpack itself – just enough to leave a gap and the pins exposed. (see below) At which point my fingers slipped and grabbed the live pins.

Although I consider myself to be a large physical specimen (185cm tall, 120kg) the shock was amazing (in a bad way). I fell arse over and ended up flat on the floor, and some strange feelings in my chest. After a few moments I sat up and had a walk around. Luckily my doctor is only ten minutes walk away so she gave me a once-over and told me to relax for the rest of the day.

So – the morals of today’s story:

One – don’t cut corners on safety by using substandard equipment

Two – no matter how familiar you are with electronics or electrical work – ELECTRICITY CAN KILL YOU!

Three – always see a doctor, even for the slightest shock.

If you have a tale of woe to share, please leave a comment below or in our Google Group.

As always, thank you for reading and I look forward to your comments and so on. Please subscribe using one of the methods at the top-right of this web page to receive updates on new posts.

Otherwise, have fun, be good to each other, stay safe – and make something!