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The Laws of Electronics

Created by me and a friend (Andre - testing_h+yahoo+com) on IRC...

First Law of Electronics: Capacitors have a voltage rating. It is best not to exceed this rating, unless one wishes to experience the pleasure of having shrapnel extracted from his or her skin in the local hospital.

Second Law of Electronics: Resistors have a maximum voltage AND a maximum power rating. Exceeding one or both is likely to result in treatment for burns at the local hospital.

Third Law of Electronics: The penalty for attempting to break Ohm's Law is electrocution.

Fourth Law of Electronics: Wear gloves while etching PCBs, unless one enjoys the smirks and sneers of his or her workmates after they see one's bright yellow hand.

Fifth Law of Electronics: Beware the thunder that lurks in CRTs, even after they have been powered off for many an hour. Forgetting this rule will likely result in an unpleasant experience involving a defibrillator in an ambulance.

Sixth Law of Electronics: Tesla Coils are not toys. If one values his or her life, stand well clear of the discharge terminal.

Seventh Law of Electronics: High power lasers are not toys. It is not funny to point an energised 20W CO2 laser at a workmate, especially one who is seven feet tall and built like a gorilla.

Eighth Law of Electronics: Short circuit large batteries and lithium-ion packs at your peril. Many a fire or explosion has been caused by the careless application of a spanner on a car battery.

Ninth Law of Electronics. Testing IC's and power transistors by putting one's finger on top of them is a really bad idea. Better to use a thermometer. [submitted by Andre]

Anyone want to add to this?

Later,

--
Phil.
philpem@despammed.com
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
Reply to
Philip Pemberton
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Tenth Law of Electronics. That red color on the collector plate of a transmitting tube is not paint. Remove power immediately.

Al

Reply to
Al

| Anyone want to add to this?

First theorem of electronic operation: All electronic devices are powered by magic smoke, and will stop working if you let too much of the magic smoke out.

(It's not really a law, so theorem it is!)

--
Doug McLaren, dougmc@frenzy.com
My mail reader can beat up your mail reader.
Reply to
Doug McLaren

and you haven't seen the Electronic Smoke recharging kits being sold on EBay ?

--
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5
Reply to
Jamie

Jamie wrote:

It's a ripoff. The smoke must have a specific density. Altering the density by replacing it with smoke of a different resonant frequency will cause circuits to behave differently.

For RF circuits, if you let BLUE smoke out and replace it with RED smoke, the resultant resonant freq will be lower. Throws off tuning dials.

Audiophile AF circuits have individual hermetic canisters filled with smoke at a specific density. The best ones have 31 different densities (1/3 octave each).

Guitar amps for blues players, typically will have smoke from hickory wood and swamp ash. Amps designed for heavy metal players will have smoke from mercury or lead.

A lot of current day "60's retro" guitar amps have smoke from imported hemp. The tone of these amps doesn't even come close to the tone of original 60's amps with Colombian cannibis smoke.

Lump

Reply to
Lumpy

Some more...

Transistors are available with the legs in different orders (CBE, EBC etc). In fact every permutation is available except the one you used for the PCB layout.

20 year old oscilloscopes always work when the boss visits the lab.

Soldering irons that heat up "instantly" take too long to heat up.

Tiny SMD components make you sneeze.

Never let an electrician measure your IQ with a mega.

Reply to
CWatters

Not to encourage drift, or anything (who, ME?), but has anyone tried one of those little "Cold Heat" soldering gadgets which have been showing up on the late-night-TV informercials and such? Something like that would be really nice to toss into the travel bag, but being a naturally cheap sort I'm loathe to fork over the $19.95 to try one out sight-unseen...

Bob M.

Reply to
Bob Myers

Oddly enough, Colin did.

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Reply to
JeffM

Yes, I bit. The wire stripper that came with it works really good on most wires. 22G or less solid wire will just be severed.

I put 4 rechargable batteries in mine. It works OK when you can put both sides of the electrode onto the conductive surface. I pushed a little too hard and broke off the tip of the carbon (??) electrode. It works OK for desoldering, but there is no way you can "tin" it for soldering.

If the wire stripper doesn't come with it, forget about it.

Al

Reply to
Al

OK, thanks to Al and Jeff for the responses; looks like my first instinctive reaction (which is never to buy anything from infomercials) was right...

Bob M.

Reply to
Bob Myers

There is no such thing as a purely digital circuit. Electromagnetic compliance testing proves this daily.

Cheers

PeteS

Reply to
PeteS

In response to what PeteS posted in news: snipped-for-privacy@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Amplifiers oscillate. Oscillators don't.

--
Joe Soap.
JUNK is stuff that you keep for 20 years,
then throw away a week before you need it.
Reply to
Joe Soap

That's Murphy's Law of amplifiers and oscillators. :-)

Tom

Reply to
Tom MacIntyre

You will be wearing shorts when you slap you knees together to catch the molten solder ball rolling off the bench.

--

    Boris Mohar
Reply to
Boris Mohar

The recoil from a solder sucker is inversly proportional to size of the item being desoldered.

Reply to
CWatters

When replacing a small SMD part by hand (such as a 0402 resistor or cap), the success of the operation varies inversely with the correctness of the replacement part.

Cheers

PeteS

Reply to
PeteS

Good stuff... :-)

Don't put your solder station next to the telephone...when you drop the iron, don't try to catch it, let it hit the floor...never tongue-test a wall-wart. Hope I haven't repeated anybody's thoughts. :-)

Tom

Reply to
Tom MacIntyre

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