CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Tim in Phoenix]

Two years ago.......


I was replacing a green tube in a customer's ceiling mounted Marquee. He helped me get the tube up into position, then sat and watched while I mounted the lens and fired up the power, then he began to head outside to leave for a meeting. I did not realize at the moment but the tube bolts I selected both had stripped ends, they were barely holding the 35 pounds of weight.
I loosened one of the bolts slightly to pivot the tube, and it fell into my hands, fully lit!
There I stood on a ladder, holding this lit tube, wondering if I was about to electrocute myself. I screamed "Jeff" as loud as I could, he came running back into the room and asked, "what the hell are you doing?", for which I had no good answer.........if I had yelled three seconds later I would have been left there alone with one option, and that was a very bad and verrrrrry expensive crash. I told some guys about this later that day and they laughed so hard they almost peed themselves.........



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[CIR Engineering]

OMG that gives me a pit in my stomach!

craigr

[wallace123456]

Well, not than I am any better, but in the words of one of my favorite comedians Bill Engvall, "Here's your sign".

wallace

[jeffslife]

Thats scary !

[Tim in Phoenix]

[Tinman]

Wow.... talk about one of those once in a lifetime moments.

So how WAS your life as it flashed before your eyes?

Sorry.... LMFAO!!!

Marc

[Tim in Phoenix]

[Tinman]

[CIR Engineering]

One nice thing about Marquee is that fully enclosed tube. Having that plastic shell and a lot of air in between is probably what saved the day.

craigr

[jask]

Nice catch! I think I would have jumped backwards off the ladder...

[jbmeyer13]

Hey Tim,

What made you think of this now, 2-years after the fact? Hope know Marquees blew up in your shop;-)

[Tim in Phoenix]

I dunno, my job here is to provide the occasional laugh


.

[Curt Palme]

About the only thing close (other than turning off a new VDC blue tube with the white wire on the wrong G2 pin and spot burning it) to that was me putting a 9500 on its side on my rollaround table (back when 9500s were about $6K or so), having a bit too much energy, and literally rolling it right off the 3' bench onto the concrete floor.

Thanks to the build quality of the Marquee, no tubes were harmed in this 'experiment', but I did lose an HD10L lens that took the hit.

[Curt Palme]

About the only thing close (other than turning off a new VDC blue tube with the white wire on the wrong G2 pin and spot burning it) to that was me putting a 9500 on its side on my rollaround table (back when 9500s were about $6K or so), having a bit too much energy, and literally rolling it right off the 3' bench onto the concrete floor.

Thanks to the build quality of the Marquee, no tubes were harmed in this 'experiment', but I did lose an HD10L lens that took the hit.

[macgyver655]

[HaydnG90]

[Jeremy112]

[Curt Palme]

Actually with CRT projectors, precious little. With tube TVs back in the day... oooh boy!

In high school I was a cheap bastard, and didn't buy a plastic backed mirror so I could see the CRT tube while working on the back. I was adjusting the focus control that was next to the H output tube anode cap, which had about a 500 volt spike on it. At an H frequency, even at 15Khz, that spike eats through skin VERY easily. 500 volts DC, not so much.

So I was leaning over the metal Zenith TV, was tweaking the focus pot with 1 hand, and my hand slipped, and hit the tube top. Muscles kicked in, and flung my hand onto the top of the inside of the cabinet, where I cut my wrist from the metal edge of the cabinet. Hand reflex took over, and fired downwards.. onto the anode cap again. Back up, another cut on the cabinet edge. After about 5 of these (in the course of about 3 seconds), I came to my senses and yanked my hand out.

The cuts weren't bad, and my hand had pinholes in it where the anode cap touched my hand.

[Curt Palme]

Actually with CRT projectors, precious little. With tube TVs back in the day... oooh boy!

In high school I was a cheap bastard, and didn't buy a plastic backed mirror so I could see the CRT tube while working on the back. I was adjusting the focus control that was next to the H output tube anode cap, which had about a 500 volt spike on it. At an H frequency, even at 15Khz, that spike eats through skin VERY easily. 500 volts DC, not so much.

So I was leaning over the metal Zenith TV, was tweaking the focus pot with 1 hand, and my hand slipped, and hit the tube top. Muscles kicked in, and flung my hand onto the top of the inside of the cabinet, where I cut my wrist from the metal edge of the cabinet. Hand reflex took over, and fired downwards.. onto the anode cap again. Back up, another cut on the cabinet edge. After about 5 of these (in the course of about 3 seconds), I came to my senses and yanked my hand out.

The cuts weren't bad, and my hand had pinholes in it where the anode cap touched my hand.

[Tinman]

Oh man! The VISUAL!!!

Oh, I have my own fond memories of working on Tube TV's.

And then there was this Muntz....