There is a funeral going on, All are invited..

TC

I have been working on a project for about three months now. I was getting close to being done, and then the worst happened. Last night I was working with a VFD display, BS2p, NX-1000, and other parts. I was soldering on a wire to the display witch the other end of the wire was hooked to button 0 on the NX-1000. Then out of pure coincidence my ten year old soldering iron decided to quit on me. Now it would have been nice if it just quit making heat, but NNOOO!!!!. As I was soldering the wire to the pin, there was a large flash of blue/green light, and then there was no power in the room (no lights, no computer, nothing). I reset the breaker, and found out the wire nut that was in the iron had been touching the metal tube that gets hot, and shorted on the tube. My wife said “Try your project”. I did, the proto-board turned on then about 20 seconds later the LED’s dimmed to nothing and the heat sink got so hot you could not touch it. The BS2p was just as hot, and all the IC’s I had hooked up.
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When the iron shorted, it sent 110 Volts to the proto-board and smoked the power supply, and every IC on it, including my 5 year old BS2p, and the VFD display. Now the proto-board is now an organ donor.
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Your condolences are welcomed.
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The moral to this story, “Do not trust your soldering iron, unhook the thing you are soldering so you don’t have any problems.”

TC

PJAllen

One should never solder a live circuit -- except, maybe,·with an iron that heats on butane.· Just the same, you'd better be careful and isolated, too (e.g. soldering AC-Hot with a butane iron·in one hand and your solder in the other and resting your arm on chassis might be shocking.)· You should check your work and then power up.

TC

That was the bad part the power switch was off. But the wall wart was plugged in. I have learned my lesion that “Be ready for things that WILL happen, not what COULD happen”

Post Edited (TC) : 8/3/2006 2:02:36 AM GMT