hi everyone welcome to Mr Carlson's shop
I guess you could say it's part of Mr
Carlson's lab for those of you that are
new to this channel normally I'm in Mr
Carlson's a lot but today I'm out in the
shop and I have a story to share with
you I get the question many times Paul
tell us a little bit more about your
life or Mr Carlson Mr C whatever tell me
more about your life you can call me
Paul by the way
so nice to meet you if you're new to the
channel and if you're returning welcome
back
so this is a story how I got shocked
within an inch of my life all right this
is a really bad electric shock that I
got when I was a lot younger so I'm very
very careful around electricity and I
always have been careful around
electricity in my teens I was building
high-powered RF amplifiers with a pull
Pig Transformers so those are the
Transformers that are on the pole
outside of your house and basically
they're hooked in Reverse so you put in
240 and you get high voltage out of the
secondary I used to build RF amps with
those things and I used to wind my own
filament Transformers and and things
like that as well so I've been doing
this for a long time
so I was working on a DAC radio so this
is a citizens band radio this is what
the radio looks like here all right so
that's a DAC it's not the exact deck
that uh that bit me but uh this is what
the radio looks like
so this radio had failed and it's kind
of a calm and failure point with those
capacitors go bad doubts go bad in the
power supply
and what ends up happening is the
Transformer goes away inside so since
the Transformer went away in this I
wanted to substitute the Transformer
with a power supply that I had just to
do some testing on it and that is this
power supply right here you'll see in
the back it's a Lambda power supply it's
got the two meters on it kind of Center
screen right there
so that was attached into this radio and
I'm sitting at my workbench and the DAC
radio was attached to a dummy load at
the time which is a fake antenna for
those of you that don't know what a
dummy load is
so basically it's it's a just a
resistive load that's attached to the
coaxial Jack in the back
so that's all attached in the back of
the radio and I've got the power supply
attached into the back of the radio and
all these wires going in there and I
have a microphone on that radio as well
so the microphone is a d104 or a
lollipop style microphone with a push to
talk switch on the side this is one of
the earlier ones that didn't have the
push to talk on the base it was just on
the side of the d104 or for those of you
that are into CB radios the d10 for uh
microphone all right so
anyways
so I'm working on the radio I grabbed
the microphone and all of a sudden
my body's humming all right it feels
like if you've ever heard 60 or 120
cycle hum
your body feels like it's vibrating like
that even when you have DC pass through
you your body feels like it's vibrating
at a fast rate it feels like feels like
I guess what you would hear when you
hear 60 cycle hum it's kind of hard to
explain or or maybe 120 cycle hum at
this point it really doesn't matter but
there's DC going through me somehow
and I'm holding onto the microphone and
I can feel this in my whole body shaking
I can think perfectly clear as this is
happening and I'm I'm being shocked
incredibly bad and I'm thinking that to
myself at this time I'm thinking wow
this is a really incredible shock I have
to let go of this microphone
I'm thinking that at that point I'm
thinking it's coming through the mic
because I'm I don't know where the
connection is
so I try to let go of the of the d104
and I can't let go of the mic
which is unusual for direct current
right you know AC makes you makes your
muscles tense up like that so this is
very unusual
so I'm holding onto the microphone I'm
thinking if I don't let go of this thing
I'm I'm not going to live and I can feel
it right if I'm shaking and I can I can
it feels like there's ants all over your
body it feels like you're just covered
in bugs and they're just crawling all
over you as this is happening it's a
really very strange sensation uh and of
course this was going across my heart so
I don't know where the other connection
was to this day but it did burn hole in
my hand that microphone from that
microphone it burnt a hole I have a
cartilage ball in my hand right here so
it's it's it's quite the ball
and anyways so I'm honest man you know I
I'm holding onto this mic and I'm like I
gotta get I gotta like oh there's
something what am I going to do you know
what I'm thinking this I don't know what
am I going to do and I'm just sitting
there I'm convulsing and I'm thinking
I'm gonna pass and then now keep in mind
that nothing is around me I'm completely
alone at this point something shoved me
out of the chair I was sitting in and I
don't know what it was
but something pushed me right out of the
chair I went flying uh I pulled the
radio the D the actual DAC came down and
you saw how big that radio is it's a big
radio it came off the bench I pulled the
d104 down I had I was using it was very
common for me to use Old Tube caddies as
tool kits back then because they're
great tool kits so my tube caddy with
with some tools on it was on the floor
beside me and they you know how they
fold open you can put the tubes on each
side of it and they kind of fold shut
like this so the doors were open I fell
on it I busted the doors right off of my
tool kit
and um
I I landed
kind of I guess my chest was on the
toolkit like over top of it so I kind of
I guess I busted one door off here and
one door with my my arms here because I
kind of landed over at Crossways
and as I'm on the ground
I'm just I I don't know what he's
probably semi-conscious and and I my
whole body as I was disconnected it
didn't feel like I was disconnected I
was still buzzing as I was on the ground
and I'm not hooked up to anything and I
was still buzzing and then that buzzing
subsided and I could feel my my heart
wasn't beating I could actually feel
that that's a very strange sensation I
could feel a quivering in my chest but
it wasn't my heart and then all of a
sudden as I'm laying there and I'm just
about to pass out you can probably hear
this because my mic's on my chest my
heart was just shaking
and it raced incredibly fast my heart
went incredibly fast and I'm like
gasping for air I'm on the I'm on the
floor and I and my vision's blurry I'm
gasping for air and I laid there and I
kind of got my senses straight I managed
to pick myself up and I walked down the
hall to the washroom looked in the
mirror and I was white as a sheet of
paper just completely white my hands
were white my face was white everything
was white and kind of felt peaked so I
sat down and I kind of settled off for a
little while just just sat there and
just relaxed now this is early in the
morning it's been common for me most of
my life to work late into the evenings
and at this point when I was really
young I was working late into the
evenings and uh
after this had I kind of I guess came to
and you know uh what would the word be
settled settle down
uh drank a big loss of water and I was
scared to go to sleep it was that bad
and you know of course I looked at my
hand and I have a hole it wasn't
bleeding but as cauterized hole in my
hand and now there's a a big cartilage
ball I don't you can't really can't see
that on camera I'm too far away but it's
quite the ball and it's still in there I
can feel it
and um anyway so you know I'm looking at
my hand I'm going wow and to this day
I still don't know where
the actual shock came from I I would I
don't know other than holding that d104
there had to be a path through my body
now the chair that I was sitting in it
was kind of a a red red kind of a cloth
coverage here but it had metal on it and
there was metal around the bottom kind
of like where my feet are here there's
going to metal down there you know
so maybe my leg was interlocked into
that and an alligator clip from the
power supply or something fell down and
touched that
because again I couldn't let go and I
couldn't move I was just stuck and
that's the only one time I've ever been
electrocuted and I've been I guess I
should say shocked the only time I've
ever been shocked and I've actually been
stuck like I couldn't let go of the mic
I couldn't move it was just holding me
there and that was a very scary feeling
so you always wonder on my channel many
of you always want to run my channel why
do I talk about safety so much and warn
everybody about the you know the dangers
of being shocked when working on
electronics now you know why and that's
only one story I have a bunch of other
close calls that I've had and uh they're
pretty serious as well again remember I
used to build very large high-powered RF
amplifiers and I've you know dealing
with very large Transformers that Supply
an immense amount of current at 7 500
volts things like that and they have
huge filter Banks of capacitors one of
the amplifiers I built had two
capacitors that were this big and had
two big porcelain insulators on the top
big capacitors Big Oil filled caps in
the in the bottom of the actual uh of
the amplifier so anyways if you know the
the amount of current and the amount of
storage that's in those capacitors alone
is is very very scary
so a couple of close calls this is the
the one really really bad one I would
say that um again just about took my
life so that's why I talk about safety
so much and I push it I talk a lot about
safety I warn every time I'm in a video
and I'm working on something I always
warn people to be very very safe and
that's why I know some of you say oh
Paul you know we don't need to hear this
again you know you're you're too over
cautious well if you've ever been
shocked within an inch of your life
you'd be probably saying the same thing
as well and again I have more stories
and I have some stories about just other
things in life that I had some very
close calls with um just not dealing
with electricity but dealing with
mechanical objects as well
so I will share some of those stories in
another shop talk episode so I hope you
enjoyed this little story and uh a
little bit more about my life when I was
younger so now I'm extremely careful as
I was extremely careful back then I
still don't know how that happened but
uh now I'm I'm way more cautious even
still I can't tell you the last time I
was shocked it's been such a long time
so I'm very very careful and I talk a
lot about that everywhere even I have an
Electronics course on patreon and I push
you know the safety up there as well as
down here so you know if you're not
going to hear it here you're going to
hear it there there's just no if y's or
buts I've built some high voltage power
supplies up there as well with plans and
everything and I've even printed right
on the circuit boards that I've designed
high voltage with an arrow pointing to
the point so uh yeah I'm I'm very
cautious now and I will keep being
cautious and I will keep warning all of
you about electricity if you're playing
with anything that's any vacuum tube
gear any of the stuff that you see
around me here all this stuff is high
voltage inside of it all these old
radios up that you see up on the top and
all of these oscilloscopes and this test
gear all of it has extremely high
voltage in it and at some pretty high
currents as well so this is the stuff
that I deal with on this channel and of
course I design modern stuff as well
you've seen the capacitor tests that
have designed and the foil side tester
and I've designed the
CNC sip the signal injection probe and
the super probe and all that stuff I've
designed all that stuff too I designed
solid state and vacuum tube stuff so at
any rate but I really like working on
the old stuff I don't know maybe I'm
just a glutton for punishment I really
don't know
so at any rate I hope you enjoyed the
story and if you want to learn more
about electronics and have access to my
inventions and Designs which are uh
while they're out there you can fund
many of my inventions and Designs online
all over the place you can find people
talking about them and all that stuff
but if you want the plans and and all
the information about my designs or if
you just want to take part in an
Electronics course and learn maybe some
things about electronics that you don't
know
or if you just want to support the
channel definitely check out patreon
there's many levels up there and levels
that will also give you direct access to
my personal email as well so if you're
in a very big project and you need some
help with your project you can only sign
up to that level and I'll talk to you
via email
so anyways that's all over there you can
check that out there's also about 170
videos there for you to enjoy as well
all right I'll put the video or the link
to a patreon just below this video under
the description and I'll also pin the
link at the uh at the top of the comment
section you can click on that and
that'll take you directly to patreon you
can check it out if you like
all right until next time hope you
enjoyed this and I'll have many more
stories I have lots and lots of
interesting stories some of the crazy
things that I did when I was younger and
uh not so long ago as well