DIY--Way To Make Popcorn In A Beer Can

too much work.....prep can, so on and so on....

put in nuclear reacting machine, hit button that CLEARLY says "popcorn" and wait under 2 minutes, and EAT....
 
Ingenious, OK. Easier than other methods that have been developed, and proved to be tried and true over the last 75 years or so?

Nah.
 
Ingenious, OK. Easier than other methods that have been developed, and proved to be tried and true over the last 75 years or so?

Nah.

since you worked for an electric utility, i suppose even an easier way to pop, popcorn,. would be to have a lineman fill his pockets and ground himself..???

sure, great popcorn, but a burnt employee..??

that's when you LET dummies do the dirty work...!!!...​(j/k)
 
since you worked for an electric utility, i suppose even an easier way to pop, popcorn,. would be to have a lineman fill his pockets and ground himself..???

sure, great popcorn, but a burnt employee..??

that's when you LET dummies do the dirty work...!!!...​(j/k)

About 10 years ago one of the linemen flunked a random UA and was fired. He got on with one of the contractors, as a foreman. One day they were working some underground, had a vault open, and one of the other linemen was having trouble putting a connector back on the buss. This guy reached out to give a hand, and one of his legs touched the cabinet above the vault, and the wire they were handling was hot. Apparently the guy wasn't using a hot stick (the other guy was), and he completed the circuit.

In and instant 12,500 volts went into his hands, through his body and out the calf of the leg that was touching the cabinet, on the way to ground. When that much electricity arcs through a human body like that it is a very violent moment. Even though it only lasts a millisecond or three, it does a lot of damage.

They guy lived, but he was wishing it had killed him.

As the electricity passed through his body if literally cooked him everywhere along the path it took from his hands to his leg. His heart was stopped, and one of the other guys gave him CPR until the aid crew arrived. The aid crew used a defibrillator to restart his heart, and he was transported via life flight to a hospital.

The last I heard he will never be able to work again. Even though he was able to make a near complete recovery there are problems with the part of his brain that control his motor skills. He can walk, talk, eat, etc. but he has periods when the signals get all crossed up and nothing will work like it should for a while.

Another guy in the substation group, about 25 years ago, was cleaning insulators on a switchgear house. A switchgear is a building in the substation with an aisle down one side that has control panels and monitoring equipment, and the other side has switches. The transmission voltage comes into the substation (115,000 volts in this case), passes through the transformers, then into the switchgear before being routed to the distribution circuits in the neighborhood (12,500 volts).

The electricity comes from the transformers into the switchgear through insulated bushings on the roof, then goes through the switches and the passes underground out of the substation and either up poles on the street into the distribution system, or continues underground if the neighborhood is all underground.

The insulators need to be kept clean, and the job is usually done hot, as there is adequate clearance between the circuits, and insulated gear is used. But this guy wasn't paying attention, and he somehow completed a short circuit phase to phase between 2 of the 3 bushings. The arc knocked him off the roof of the switchgear. There were other substation guys there and they gave him first aid until the aid car came and took him to the hospital.

He was much more lucky than the other guy, as the current only went into and out of one leg, like into his thigh and out of his foot. There was some muscle tissue damage and that was about it.

I've been in every substation that is part of the service area for the utility that I worked at, and also some of the BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) subs. The BPA subs are where the power from the many hydroelectric dams along the Columbia River passes as it moves through the transmission grid.

The BPA subs have 500,000 and 250,000 volts coming into and out of them, and the PUD (the utility I worked at) subs have 115,000 volts coming in and 12,500 volts going out.

That is a lot of electrical energy.

Couple that with the damp, humid days in the Pacific Northwet, and it can become a weird environment. The air sizzles and crackles as the electrical current moves along. Much of the switching is done remotely now, some even automated. So it can really give a person a start whe suddenly a set of switches open up.

This video is from a high voltage substation in the desert Southwest somewhere, while the circuit is being opened under load.

Imagine the same thing in a damp environment, rather than the dry one in the desert.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top