Near death experiences!
You never really appreciate your eyeballs or beating heart until you come into close contact with something that threatens one of them. In the last week, I’ve had an almost comical run of close enounters of the grievous-bodily-harm kind. Sure, there’s been the usual run of near death traffic experiences (not my fault - this time anyway!). And we’ll discount the potential artery clogging that might come with the start of my Christmas cooking spree.
In reverse order: Two days ago, there was an almighty “BANG!” in my office. I’m talking the window rattering, jump out of your seat, ear ringing kind. Okay, I’m not certain the windows rattled, but it scared the devil out of me, consciensciously and studiously working as I was. There’s the smell of burning electrical equipment, and a disturbing gurgling, fizzing and bubbling noise coming from within one of the power boxes in my room. Turns out a ballast exploded - a device which limits the current to a fluorescent light, and can also sometimes provide an initial voltage spike to get the fluorescent tube started. It also blew a fuse - but eventually it was all repaired. I’d never heard of a ballast (d’oh!) so this particular incident only really hurt my pride, and any years the initial fright took off me. Oh, and maybe hitting my head on the ceiling when I jumped! (Incidentally, did you know that a plasma, like what you find in a fluoro tube, has less and less resistance the more current that flows? If it weren’t for the ballast, providing a base resistance, the current in the fluoro would keep increasing until something blows!)
My second experience was again light bulb related - being the helpful, generous and caring grandson that I am, I went round to my grandparents place to help change a high and stuck lightbulb. Light switch is off? Yep. I took out the troublesome bulb, which much twisting and wiggling (and of the bulb, too) Go to put the next one in - and it suddenly lights up. Hmmm. Turns out, there was a second switch at the other end of the hall which also controls the light, and that configuration meant the light was on. I presume there really is minimal danger, so again no harm done, except for slightly elevated blood pressure. (What would a simple circuit allowing two switches to control one light bulb look like? It’s a fun one to think about - here’s one solution)
And I’m actually going to save my third experience for tomorrow - it’ll make a good post in and of itself 