Safety When Diagnosing Audio Gear

Video Transcript

Hi I'm Larin Parker for Expert Village! We're going to talk a little bit about safety in fixing your own audio equipment, diagnosing problems. Number one is just, most of these things are going to operate with a power plug, whether it's a three prong plug or a two prong plug, you just want to make sure that the device is not only turned off but that it's unplugged before you open anything. A lot of service techs and a lot of people will make sure that they are holding on to this plug anytime they actually open up the chassis of something. If it is plugged in and you do open it up, here I'm opening up a lyndrome, which is a synthesizer/drum machine from the late seventies. See all of the components if it were plugged in and even if it were turned off, it might still be energized including this transformer, these capacitors here and there's a potential if I reach in there that I could get a nasty shock. If it's unplugged and I let it sit for a minute or two, there?s not going to be any residual energy in there to give me a shock. Please don't try and use any of these techniques on televisions or microwaves or major appliances, those are areas where large capacitors and tubes can store a charge for a long time especially televisions and microwaves. If you open them up, even if they have been unplugged for a week, there is still enough electricity in the circuits to do you some harm. Just be sure and make sure everything is unplugged before you start opening things up and then when you are testing things if you do have to have something plugged in make that you just use one hand and you might have a probe, you never want to touch anything. You might have a probe or a screwdriver to move something, but always use one hand, that way if there were any electricity to leach off, it?s less likely to go through your body. Whereas I'm holding on with two hands and I grab on to a live circuit, it's going to create a circuit going through my arms, and back to the electronic device again. My trick, I just leave my hand inside my pocket, or behind my back. If I need to probe, or make measurements on a piece of gear that is turned on and open.

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