When I went to the Midwest Reprap festival, for some reason power was being a bit flakey. The guy who's sitting across me had 2 printers using ATX power supplies.
Suddenly, the PSU sparks out and then outgasses a stream of smoke pillar 4 foot in diameter for the next 2-3 minutes. Near the top of the building perhaps 3 stories up, it looks like a mini-Hiroshima with mushroom cloud going.
Speaking of consumer electrics: around here universities have obsolete views of how students work, limited budget, and old buildings. This results in a shortage of wall plugs, and the smartest folks bring powerstrips, plug them into wall sockets, then into other power strips, and recursively until there's enough plugs for everyone's laptop. Cables turn seriously damn hot, and a burnt plastic smell crosses the room. Authority reaction: ban powerstrips because someone might trip on them.
Luckily energy management outpaced student equipment rate, and laptops now last a good part of the day without needing a plug.
My first (indeed, only) experience with the smell of burnt human flesh and hair was when a friend of mine flipped the switch on a PSU to 110v when it plugged in to 220v. He was fine, but the PSU didn't make it. RIP.
When I went to the Midwest Reprap festival, for some reason power was being a bit flakey. The guy who's sitting across me had 2 printers using ATX power supplies.
Suddenly, the PSU sparks out and then outgasses a stream of smoke pillar 4 foot in diameter for the next 2-3 minutes. Near the top of the building perhaps 3 stories up, it looks like a mini-Hiroshima with mushroom cloud going.
And that was from a dinky ATX PSU.