How Old Was You When You Became Interested In Electrics?

[telectrix]

Reminds me of the two old army guys sitting in the retirement home, one says to the other .
Remember that stuff they used to put in our tea in WW1 to stop us feeling randy... well I think it is starting to work.

WW1???? i knew you were old but......

 

[freddo]

oops oops oops !!
[automerge]1578007522[/automerge]
^ Well that didn't work! ^

Ever since I was very little I loved playing with wires and plugging things in. Likes taking things apart to see how they worked. I was 11 when I repaired my first TV and by the end of secondary school I had repaired a huge number of brown goods. I'm 31 now and almost obsessed with wiring and repairing and restoring things. I'd rather be doing something electrical or mechanical rather than doing anything else. Had a few shocks as a school boy, quickly learned that when you remove a bulb from a series string of xmas lights the voltage across the bulb holder is no longer 12V! I still remember the bang and the blinding flash when I connected my multimeter across the mains with the leads in the current measuring position.

Age 7 it was clocks (I'll say that carefully)

I've just started to get interested in clocks (master and slave clocks and their associated controls) fascinating stuff. Not that I need any more interests)

plastecine + wire = Non approved methods.

I remember using stripped insulation as sleeves to hold wires on to components before I got a soldering iron.

Only thing I ever caught with burglar alarm was
.. Cat or sister

I also remember playing with stuff like that, got an old alarm PIR from an abandoned building. It was a Racal guardall IR77 mkii. How on earth I remember that...

I still have a collection of 5A round pin somewhere !

I have always loved playing with electrical things, I have a collection of vintage electrical things that is probably larger than is healthy, some really odd stuff too. Plenty of light bulbs also. Discharge lighting is fantastic, and old theatre lighting is just something else! LED lights are so boring. Nothing like the 2000W metal halide fittings I'm currently refurbishing.
I don't have any photos of me playing with electrical stuff from years ago, though I think my mother has one or two at home, so have a photo of my 2 master clocks.

 

[Edtwozeronine]

I attempted to perform electrolysis at 15/16 with a friend as we wanted to make hydrogen gas and collect it to make explosive balloons. What actually happened was that we put the negative of a 240v 2 core down into a science flask full of water, then put the positive down into it and all the electric went off.

 

[MJPD29]

I had absolutely zero interest until the 3rd year if my apprenticeship. It was just a means to make money until then. I suppose once I had a decent understanding of how things worked I realised I actually liked it.

 

[Mark42]

My dad got me an electronics kit when I was about 7 or 8...a Phillips Electronic Engineer kit, to make Morse buzzer, radios etc. ...

Wow, how lovely to see that again. I was given mine in about 1967.

I can remember every detail of it now: germanium AC126 and AF116 transistors packed individually in their Mullard boxes, beautiful polyester caps, shiny blue Philips electrolytics, and those weird hairclip and spring terminals, which fitted into the hardboard base. I absolutely loved that kit and spent hours with it, making and remaking the circuits.

I'd been taking things to pieces ever since I could hold a screwdriver: my father was often infuriated but it rarely stopped me. Mains shocks were routine in those days, and nobody thought it a big deal then.

 

[littlespark]

I guess I was about 8.
my gran had a collection of old C and D battery’s that she left in a toy box for me and my brother when we visited. (Why she thought they were suitable toys, I’ll never know)
One day I realised these were the battery’s from a torch, and went about making the circuit between battery, wires and the spare torch bulb.
Took every technical subject at school I could, and actually wanted to be a joiner/ cabinet maker but realised I couldn’t cut a straight line with a saw. (Left handed, could be the reason)
Still use my o grade woodwork coffee table after near 30 years.

I tried to fix electronics when I was a teenager...radios, cassette players, and toys.... even took apart things that weren’t technically broken to see how they worked.

Electrician apprenticeship at 16.

Always had an interest in that magical flow of unseen electrons.

 

[static zap]

I attempted to perform electrolysis..

Been there , rectified from a 10A 18V transformer ... Discovered what burnt me tasted of .. Holding a twisted joint!
..Carbon rods and washing soda ..not very effective ...
(Made a small quanity of the real stuff one day by other means - so violent , left ears ringing -fearful of cracking thick glass -meat spread pot) ... I later did chemistry - abysmally at school -Physics favourite .
..had telcom links from father .. took a telephone dial speed tester to school as a how many cycles can you clock challenge !

 

[edexlab]

For me it was a combination of watching my older brother wire up the bedroom door handle from a light switch with a old meccano screwdriver to stop our sister coming in, no one actually got shocked luckily

The 2nd thing was an unhealthy interest in fire and explosives started with weed killer and graduated to bell wire ,doorbell switch , 12v battery and Rocket ignitors stolen from the school science club we experimented with crushed Rocket motors and found a chemistry book with a good section on mixing your own blends etc had some fun making instant crop circles

But with 11 year olds appreciation of safety we used to test different circuit set ups with lamps first before doing the dangerous stuff

 

[static zap]

I still remember the bang and the blinding flash when I connected my multimeter across the mains with the leads in the current measuring position.

Memories like this have got me to buy my 1st mft , for when I get a bit older / more absent minded ,and still have the urge to dabble !

 

[Mark42]

... unhealthy interest in fire and explosives started with weed killer ...

Ha Ha! The days when a 12 y/o could walk into 'Boots the Chemist' or Woolworths, buy a 7lb tin of (unsuppressed) Sodium chlorate weedkiller, a pack of icing sugar, a box of 12 AG3B flash bulbs, a roll of bell wire, and a torch battery, all at the same time, from the same check-out, and no one said anything.
Happy days. Which, incidentally, informed my entire subsequent main career.

ps: And then film the whole ridiculous and dangerous process on my father's 8mm cine camera. Here's a still, which, until this thread got me reminiscing on a happy childhood, I forgot I had

Note the prepared device in the milk bottle. And who else remembers 'Savbit' solder?

And check out that massively cool LED watch

 

[Mike Johnson]

You forgot to say "And still have change from a shilling"

Good grief, you had a watch, you where lucky.

View: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Multicore-Size-Savbit-Alloy-Solder/dp/B0002JT3OS

 

[ruston]

Ha Ha! The days when a 12 y/o could walk into 'Boots the Chemist' or Woolworths, buy a 7lb tin of (unsuppressed) Sodium chlorate weedkiller, a pack of icing sugar, a box of 12 AG3B flash bulbs, a roll of bell wire, and a torch battery, all at the same time, from the same check-out, and no one said anything.
Happy days. Which, incidentally, informed my entire subsequent main career.

Do you work in a Quarry lol?

 

[littlespark]

Sounds like he works in H&S to me

 

[ruston]

I think he might be more of a hands on man with his enthusiasm

 

[Mark42]

Sounds like he works in H&S to me

Naa. I work in bomb disposal. Which is ironic really.
(With electrics on the side when I need some additional excitement.)

 

[ruston]

A bit of respect due there Mark.

 

[littlespark]

Naa. I work in bomb disposal. Which is ironic really.
(With electrics on the side when I need some additional excitement.)

Bloody hell. There’s a career I wouldn’t want to make a mistake in.

reminds me of the time I worked on an RAF base. Nothing special, still needed civvies to change a lightbulb.... but we were workingin the missile section. Every new building we worked in, we had to have an induction/ safety brief.
Fire safety in this place was: “If you discover a fire, first raise the alarm. Then see if you can run away as fast as I can!”

 

[Mark42]

... working in the missile section. ... Fire safety in this place was: "... see if you can run away as fast as I can!”

Yup. AKA 'If you see me running, do try to keep up.'

Although the one a US smallarms specialist once told me was I think even more fun:
'Navy seal sniper: Don't bother running, you'll only die tired.'

 

[Pete999]

I was 7. I painstakingly removed 2 screws from a power socket with a small pair of scissors and then tried to unscrew the live in the same fashion.
This is how I became painfully became interested in them, how about you?

Was never really interested in electrics, just wanted an Apprenticeship wood butchery did appeal initially, once I got into Sparkying I sort of gelled, morphed if you like, enjoyed it never looked back, never been out of work or without employment,

 

[Mark42]

Bloody hell. There’s a career I wouldn’t want to make a mistake in.

Not at all. It's not actually dangerous if you remain alert. And if you do make a mistake so what, because you'll never know about it.
Whereas with you electrickery guys, make a mistake through inattention and you might well kill someone else, which is far worse, and with all the tedious repercussions that would bring. I'm not joking.