The All American Five

[Murphyv310]

With respect to comtempt of safety, if what we read about the Glenfell tower fire then if it was caused by an exploding fridge then the use of isobutane as a refrigeration gas is contempt of safety!!!!!!
There are around 5 deaths every year due to people having their heads planted on a mobile phone screen and not aware of their surroundings, more die through stupidity than got a fatal belt off a live chassis telly.

[Refugee]

Mobile phones are much more dangerous than live chassis kit.
If ever plans for speed cameras go thru I always go along the planning meeting and make sure they realise that the drivers will all be "dial watching" and that railings are needed to keep phone users off the road.
I think it would be called making a flat phone call if the caller did it too close to a speed camera.

[Terry]

In reality there were allegedly very few deaths caused by live chassis radios and TV'S. People back then seemed to be more aware of the risks.

I don't think it has anything to do with awareness - quite simply, most owners wouldn't dream of removing the back and fiddling inside!

There will always be the odd exception, of course, and I wonder how many got a non-fatal shock for their curiosity. I don't ever recall hearing of a fatality, though.

It would be interesting to see if this would be different now if there was a resurgence of live chassis equipment.

I think people would be even less likely to tamper with modern technology! After all, you can't take all the valves out and trot down to a local dealer to get them tested these days, can you?

Something I wouldn't like to put to the test is the strength of a modern plastic cabinet but I wonder how easily they might be damaged and expose live parts? As for removing the back, that in itself can be an interesting exercise in ingenuity! Even when you've found the fixings, how many of them will be recessed down deep holes that require a driver with a suitable tip to access the screws because there is no way that a multi-bit screwdriver will get down that little hole!

[Murphyv310]

Absolutely Terry.
I do think that it would be just about impossible to get a shock from a modern designed live chassis TV if there ever was one. So unlikely to ever happen though, more chance of an alien landing in your back garden.

[reset]

With respect to comtempt of safety, if what we read about the Glenfell tower fire then if it was caused by an exploding fridge then the use of isobutane as a refrigeration gas is contempt of safety!!!!!!
There are around 5 deaths every year due to people having their heads planted on a mobile phone screen and not aware of their surroundings, more die through stupidity than got a fatal belt off a live chassis telly.

Interesting! Years ago I worked with a chemical engineer who designed a car air conditioner system that used ammonia as the refrigerate. Using the heat from the exhaust system to perculate the ammonia would not require power like a compressor does. He couldn't get approval for the design because of safety issues. What if the car crashed, pinned the passengers and the ammonia leaked into the passenger compartment? At the time I wondered if the same could not happen with the freon system. Would breathing freon be ok? The advantage of ammonia over isobutane is it will not burn.

A man leaving work was talking to his wife on his cell phone as he put the key in the door to unlock it lightening struck the phone or the car (the CB radio whip on the bumper I think). It was fatal. The company had outlawed cell phones and said he was in violation of the policy. When that was seen as accepting liability they reversed their stand and said her had clocked out and was on his own time. The lawyers argued he was still on company property etc.

I think liability lawyers influence the safety rules to much these days. ( in the States ) I've worked in plants with 5 Kv terminal exposed inside motor control centers. When someone came to the shop to complain about the exposed hazards. My boss would ask "and just how did you get into my power center?". The doors were locked and there was a sign stating only qualified electricians were allow in the center.
Lack of common sense doesn't help either. The new engineer was planning a control center extension.  He had a new room built beside the old one. There were power panels mounted on the I beams outside the old center. He had the new center built against the I beams. Sandwiching the panel between the two buildings. When I needed access and couldn't get to the panel boss called him over to discuss the matter. He had his construction crew cut access panels in the wall of his shiny new center. Imagine reaching through a hole in the wall to access a panel mounted perpendicular to the wall with the access door hinged so it swings away from the panel! He got a attaboy and promotion. The guy was maintenance superintendent when I left the job.
We would remove the covers from the 5Kv distribution gear and check the load on the circuits. The same guy declared we couldn't work hot circuits anymore. It was entertaining watching boss trying to get him to tell us how we check the load balance on a running powerhouse without working it hot. His plan was kill power, install the amp probe, restore power, repeat on all three phases. He finally got the idea that killing power meant shutting down the complex and the reading would be useless when there was a shutdown and restart between reading.
The same guy had us cover the 5Kv terminals which lead to the screw going into a hot 5 Kv lead while reinstalling a cover but that's another story. Shortly after that I left the job.

[Pat Pending]

Of COURSE there were fatalities linked with these sets, in fact the heyday for electrocution in the home was between 1962 and 1972 (source: John Peckham. IET) with an average of seventy deaths per year, and by 1972 10% of those fatalities caused by "faulty" domestic brown goods, but as I stated, they were more likely mostly attributable to carelessness or stupidity on the part of the owners, rather than solely the fact that they had live chassis. The design faults of live screws, bare metalwork and inadequate back covers, would at most, unless the victim was very unlucky, just give a nasty "nip".

The protection from shock with them however was minimal, and any tomfoolery could be rewarded with a wooden overcoat. As time progressed, safety for the consumer was improved, with regards access to live parts, and by the time the "widow makers" were being pensioned off in the seventies the domestic electrocutions were thankfully beginning to drop across the board.

Because there was not so much nannying in those days I think people took more care, but that's not to say there weren't the idiots. Some of the reasons for the fatalities were the ones that persist today, for instance, using mains powered radios in the bathroom is almost universally know to be a bad idea, but people still do it, whether or not it was a live chassis design is immaterial, dropped in the bath it would still kill. The latest trend is using the mobile in the bath whilst plugged into a charger on an extension lead! (Yes there have been deaths).

Back in the day customers would extend mains leads, often a set with a three core lead as fitted by the manufacturer would be augmented by a few yards of twisted twin clear bell wire, and a two pin plug with the connection knotted and insulated, if you were lucky, with some zinc surgical tape!

Another cause of danger of course is sets that catch fire. Having sets positioned to close to curtains (hence name curtain burners), or some cases of people drying washing over the back of sets was a common cause of fire, we had one lady who was the owner of an old G6 who did this regularly against advice, even ignoring the safety aspect she seemed unable to comprehend that she was the cause of the sets worse than usual unreliability. Of course service personnel lost some of it's number (one or two per year during the seventies), for obvious reasons, though we always used isolation transformers in case of accident, and to enable the use of earthed test gear. When visiting customers homes however it was easy to forget that the protection wasn't there.

We would never place our old sets against the soft furnishings, or leave it switched on and unattended, but unfortunately that seems to be the norm now with nearly every available socket replete with a PSU or charger, sitting there waiting to catch light.

The attempt to make the modern world foolproof is only producing a different breed of fool, add to that the worrying trend for some of the modern kit to apparently be worse than our beloved old TVs and radios, (regards overheating at least), means that the deaths will continue.

You shouldn't however think that vintage equipment is in some way safer than modern equipment that is correctly built,  nor should anyone promote the idea that old fashioned attitudes to safety are adequate to protect against misfortune, if you practice them, it may be more than your head that's buried in the sand. The basic level of as new shock protection in most old receivers may be good enough for a sensible adult user, but working on the internals is a different mater, and I would urge everyone, especially newcomers to the hobby to read this http://www.bvws.org.uk/405alive/tech/safety.html

Enter the head kickers.

Live on and enjoy your hobby!
Andy.

[Murphyv310]

Ah but. You cannot attribute the peak of the deaths to live chassis radios and TV'S. We had a Vatric vacuum cleaner with a metal case and I remember my mother getting a belt from it.
There was a lot of sloppiness in electrical wiring and other issues like taped joints, light sockets used for the iron or even the TV so you had a 50% chance of having a live chassis.
This makes interesting reading http://www.theiet.org/forums/forum/messa...?catid=205&threadid=61494

[Terry]

So ...

What's the matter with this ...?

Suspect link removed

[Murphyv310]

Speechless Terry.

[Refugee]

I am pretty sure I have seen that one before in something like top 10 idiots or something like that.
It does not show the connection with the out door extension lead.
I bet that is a match stick job.