The most deadly project on the Internet

I'll share my experience for those that think its trivial to play with high voltage. My high voltage gloves got partially pierced by a metal splinter on a ground transformer and allowed a path to ground on a 13.8KV line. It was only 20-30 seconds of time slowing down to where a second feels like a minute. You feel fear and a great sense of dread as your heart goes into afib because of confused messages from the vagal nerve trying to override your SA node. About three second in all your muscles start to cramp and burn(literally) along the path to ground. You cant make yourself let go and you cant think of why, but you definitely know you are being electrocuted. About ten second in you start to smell burning pork and your vision starts to close in around the edges because your heart cant pump blood. You feel as dizzy and high as you have ever felt as the color starts to leave your vision. About fifteen seconds in you start to miss your wife and kids because as your vision fades slowly out you understand you are dying. As your world fades from view, and a blackness so deep it envelops all of your being smothers you, you are left with a great sense of sorrow and pain that stretches to eternity, or in my case, when I woke up in the ICU a month later missing the small parts of me that made up the ground path. There was only sorrow and fear and pain the entire time from my grounding to my waking. It felt like I was gone for twenty years, like when you visit your childhood home after your parents are gone. Without perception of time, time has no meaning. The lack of perception is eternity. So yeah, as a ex lineman, I can assure you that you will feel more in those few seconds than you ever have before.

It's gotten so bad that the American woodworkers association has banned anyone from mentioning this on their website or blog.

about a year ago my uncle died trying to do this woodburning stuff off some youtube tutorial using a microwave. thanks for spreading more awareness and the explanation

Revisiting this video after a year. It's a great reminder to treat electricity with the utmost respect. Clive, you definitely deserve your soon-to-be 1 million subs.

To quote AvE's sticker. Not only will this thing kill you it will hurt the whole time you're dying.

My dad (tv repair man) always told us to be extra careful when tinkering with transformers. To give more weight to his warnings, he zapped both me and my brother with a supertiny transformer and an AA battery, and then drew a schematic to explain what just happened. Times have changed, but transformers haven't.

Back in 1970, I was a US Navy electronics technician, I was making an adjustment inside an amplifier power supply. My screwdriver slipped and 2kv at about 1.5 amps went from my hand and out my elbow into another transmitter drawer, it blew a hole out my elbow, and my arm was in pain for about a month. I was lucky, if it had gone through my chest, I wouldn't have made it to 74 years old. Stay away from high voltage! I later worked on more than 10kv at an industrial plant, one of my co-workers died when he got across a 480-volt buss, professionals die in the trade, there are signs don't be stupid. Good show Clive.

I used to work with repair of household appliances. Most of these repairs was done in the costumers home. Over the years I've had several costumers ask me if the job I did was something they could have done them self. I always told the costumer that most machines you can repair or change components on your self as long as you are somewhat competent and make absolute sure that the power is not connected. I always made a very clear point that there are two things you should NOT try to repair yourself. Nr 1 being microwaves; They are extremely dangerous, and can very possibly kill you. The highest voltage output I've seen on a microwave was over 6kV. Nr 2 is fridge and freezers, as the refrigerant system is often made confined in copper and/or aluminum tubes that are a PAIN to fix and/or repair, and secondly, the refringent liquid is something that would instantly evaporate leaving the product useless. And in worst case, some of the gasses used in fridges today are flammable, so you could potentially burn down your house. In short; don't touch microwave ovens and fridges.

Reminds me of a school teacher who flatly told us, we arbitralily assign words like conductor and insulator. But with enough voltage anything will conduct, and if you get to that point, hope you have a method of disabling it that doesn't rely on yourself as by then it's probably too late...

Literally 2 days after you posted this video a couple in Wisconsin was electrocuted to death trying fractal wood burning. It's crazy to think if they stumbled on to this video it could have saved their lives.

My grandfather was an electrician and he has some stories about when he was young and first starting and some dumb stuff he did. He always told me to respect electricity because it kills you when you stop paying attention. I built a guitar amp once and because of his stories I was terrified of the filter capacitors.

My dad was an electrical engineer, several times as a kid he caught me taking things apart and would stop me from taking anything dangerous apart, he taught me about the dangers of capacitors even on something that hasn’t been plugged in forever

I don’t usually post in comments, but this one hits home. This kind of accident happened to a friend at our local Makerspace. He is a very competent machinist/fabricator and VERY safety conscious. Having said that, during a demonstration, a mistake was made and he made contact with the electrodes. It stopped his heart instantly. Fortunately someone was able to start CPR and call for help. Several resuscitation attempts were performed on the way to the hospital by paramedics. Early on his prognosis was not good. His brain function was minimal. He did survive and fortunately after a rather lengthy recovery he is doing fine. Needless to say, that device was immediately removed from the Makerspace. You often think of a death occurring with large, powerful industrial equipment. Rest assured everyone, this little silent device can drop you like a sack of hammers. Stay safe everyone!

Things I learned even in VERY amateur welding and electronics work: - NO WATER, ANYWHERE, EVER. - Heavy gloves, dry rubber-sole boots. - Never grab uninsulated wires... or any wires-not-intended-to-be-grabbed at all for that case. - Know which parts of the circuit are 'hot', and always give a second thought whenever you're about to interact with the Hot side. - Find and discharge ALL capacitors before mucking around in electronics - if you don't know, wear gloves until you can probe and confirm the entire thing's de-powered. - Triple-check these rules when you're about to use anything that has to be powered on during operation. I wanna die fighting a radioactive mutant Grizzly Bear shirtless on a mountain with a K-bar..... not 'bzzt owie zappie ded'. What a trivial way to go :(

I've got a strange collection of experience that overlaps really closely with this topic. I've done woodturning, I've worked professionally with high voltage, and I've worked on servicing and repairing industrial microwaves. This even involved sometimes, and carefully, working with microwaves that were connected while I worked on them. All that specific knowledge gives me is a clear understanding of why I would absolutely not try making lichtenberg figures in any of my woodwork. I love the idea of saying "I'm not saying no, but..." and then giving advice on how to do it more safely. I think that if I were ever to consider this, my basic minimum would be set up so that I'm not even in the room while the power is on. Much more managable these days with webcams and many options for remote power switches. Just stay far away from it.

I am a master electrician, 29 years in the trade. I would advise against doing this unless you are very well versed/trained in the process and have a safe piece of equiptment, on/off indicators, contained in a proper cabinet or mounted, not laying on the floor with jacked up connections, proper voltage rated terminals and insulation rating on the wire. Pretty much what he said.

"Chances are you won't do that again. Full stop." As one of my Sergeants used to say, "That's non-habit forming behavior."

Just finished my electrical engineering degree. I tell people it was for the money and opportunities but between us, it was so I could finally understand what’s going on in your videos and the circuit diagrams

An Australian YouTuber, Ann Reardon, has also made a video about this. It is so ridiculously unsafe. In addition to the mutilation of their hands, survivors' hearts are often permanently damaged. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge to hopefully make more people aware and prevent their deaths.