"Rich Andrews" wrote in message
.44...
(Nothing40) wrote in
om:
"Shiva" wrote in message
. ..
Well, I finally decided to move in with my GF, and everything's rosy &
bright, but... A5 yr old boy, who gets into everything, and his older
sis. There's some basement space, so all things sharp & nasty could be
there, but anyone (with kids) have any advice on settin' up a fairly
child-friendly shop?
Thanks in advance,
-dim
Definatly keep it locked when you aren't around,It will save all
parties alot of grief. ;-) I can relate to the "Solder sculptures"..My
little cousin has run around in my workshop once or twice..Odd balls
of clay (where'd *that* come from?) with resistors,caps,and miles of
solder sticking out..maybe a screw or two,and a nut for good
measure..or maybe make "additions" to your newest project..
Keeping a clean shop,and keeping dangerous things out of thier reach
is definatly a good idea.
And let them know whats dangerous when they are around.. Heavy items
up on shelves,High voltage,hot things (tubes,soldering irons) sharp
things (razor knives,etc..)
But it's gonna be up to you to make sure they don't,and can't get into
that stuff,atleast without your supervision.
If they seem interested,it might be good to educate them a bit about
the basics..Maybe get them one of those 200-in-1
springy-connector-board-kits,if they seem really interested,and want
to play around.I think it would be good to kind of mentor them in
electronics,if they end up enjoying it.
My friends are scared to go into my workshop..they are scared that
something is going to zap them!
Bwhahahaa!
Wonder what gave them that idea? couldn't be the high voltage
projects,and occasional capacitor discharge,could it? Not to mention
those darn 3-legged silicon firecrackers going off now and then.. :-)
Every once in a while the kids would beg me to sit and watch me work. I
told
them they had to sit in a chair and not get down. I might even clear a
section of bench and set up something that they could play with for a
while.
An audio oscillator, a cheap o'scope, bits of wire, some switches and a
few
leds provided some level of entertainment for them. After a bit they
would
figure out it was "way boring" and they wanted to leave. Any
demonstration
that I could provide would only fuel their desire to make stuff explode,
burn, etc. The best it got was to discharge a 80@450 charged to about 700
volts with a piece of solder thus welding the solder to the ends of the
cap.
The snap amd spark got to them.
Speaking of exploding caps, many years ago I was visiting a friend who
owned
a TV repair shop. One nice summer morning we were drinking coffee and
shooting the breeze just inside the back door of the shop. Suddenly a
bang
drew my attention to a 80@450 that is sailing in our direction from over a
6ft high wall smoking and fizzling. This now airborne projectile,
formerly
known as a capacitor, landed near our feet. My friend calmly got up and
kicked it out the door. He then hollered to one of the techs working and
said, "Experimenting again Jerry?" and continued with our conversation
like
this was a normal everyday occurance. I nearly died laughing.
I still don't know if that was a 'bit' or not.
r
Yeah. exploadin' caps. Just ran across a lot of 300@360V caps, *tiny*.
Decent Q (pretty snappy), buyt the guy gave me a parting warning never to
jump them with a screwdriver - makes sense - when you discharge a cap
through a 0 R, i guess it'll be the cap that heats up, thus ... blamo... I
think a scrap 10Ohm 5W is high 'nuff - since the time is so short, it'll
take it.
-dim