4 ms·
I think the people replying to you to nitpick are missing the forest for the trees. You (and many people) have to wait until university to learn this stuff if
by effingwewt 4y ago
I think the people replying to you to nitpick are missing the forest for the trees.
You (and many people) have to wait until university to learn this stuff if you didn't seek it out yourself (how-to's and electives in school). This kind of knowledge should be taught at a young age to demystify it.
A few hours in uni (and how many people never even go), to learn life-saving information
When I did appliance repair microwaves were treated as bombs. You didn't test your components live, you always unplugged first, etc.
Still walked into another tech working on one (cabinet-mounted up high), with the cover off, barely on a wobbly stove-dolly and his expensive Fluke multimeter out with leads in hand.
I noticed the plug still lifted up into the cabinet so I peeked in and sure enough it was plugged in.
Big red warning signs on the power cable, the covers inside and the cover outside all had warnings. Dude had been through the same training I had, and still thought it was a good idea. "I'll just stay away from the high side",he said.
edit to add this microwave had an external fuse. All you had to do was unscrew it and check the fuse inside- which was bad. He hadn't had to do any of the stuff he'd done prior to my arrival. They'd had an electrical surge when the power had gone out and the fuse had caught it. This tech had been on the job longer than I. end edit
Even people trained and with knowledge make mistakes and sometimes are just plain stupid.
People without knowledge can be dangers to themselves and others.
Texas had a rash of house explosions a few years ago from people raiding copper and power wires from empty houses with live gas lines.
I think the answer is educating and many people as possible, from as young an age as possible.
- hedora 4y agoA friend of a friend disassembled a microwave to repair it, and accidentally put one of the radiation shields back on backwards. It ended up killing his wife (lots of cancers) a few years later. So, yeah. Don't repair microwaves. It's really not worth the $100's you'll save on a replacement.
- Chris2048 4y agoHow would he know the microwave was the cause?
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y agoWhy was the cancer attributed to the microwave incident? After all, it's not ionizing radiation.
- JPLeRouzic 4y agoUltraviolet light causes skin cancer, yet it is not ionizing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation#Lower_frequencies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation#Lower_f...
- tailspin2019 4y agoFrom that link: > “2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) from the World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement adding RF electromagnetic fields (including microwave and millimetre waves) to their list of things which are possibly carcinogenic to humans.” WTF. This was the exact opposite of my understanding until today… ie that non-ionising radiation from the likes of microwaves was not carcinogenic. I don’t know how to keep up with this stuff.
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y agoPossibly carcinogenic. Some things we know for sure are carcinogenic, but even then what we know is that exposure increases risk in a population by so-and-so percent. It's much harder to work backwards from one individual case of cancer and finding out what the cause was. It's highly irresponsible and downright cruel to accuse the husband of killing his wife by botched microwave repair based on so little evidence. What was the location and extent of the original microwave injury? Did the cancer originate in the same spot? What is the proposed mechanism of action? How long is "a few years later"? Can it be ruled out that she didn't have cancer at the time of the microwave incident? What other causes has been considered, other known carcinogens, or a family history? Who made the claim in the first place, did the oncologist blame the husband?
- tailspin2019 4y ago