Spoilt my day.

[dr pepper]

Take care with USB cables.

While working on an off line switcher I'm developing yesterday I was messing around with one of the leads on one of my USB devices to my gateway laptop.
Said lead got caught under something, pulled out of my hands and the outer shell landed on the +320v dc bus on the switcher (burn mark to prove), 'bang' house in darkness.
The switching supply is still ok but my laptop said 'bang' when this happened, I'm going to have a look at it tonite when the staff go home, I think theres a good chance its dead, it doesnt power up on mains or battery, its 19v power supply is still ok, if I'm lucky it'll just be a blown track, but I'm thinking more like a black blob regulator has had its lid blown off.

 

[ronsimpson]

Several times I have been a place (with a power supply) where there is a big bang, smoke, parts flying across the room, and every thing goes black. My first thought, Am I dead. The preacher said I am going to a very dark place.

I hope your laptop is not in hell.

 

[dr pepper]

I wasnt really worried about blowing myself up this time, I am a bit sick of the fact my laptop has blown up though.
The supply being worked on has a high tech current limiter in line with the supply - piece of wood with 13a socket and 100w lightbulb on, I dont get why so much harm has been done, I will double check that the bulb is in fact inline with the live not the neutral when I get home.

 

[Mike odom]

Take care with USB cables.

... and the outer shell landed on the +320v dc bus on the switcher

The supply being worked on has a high tech current limiter in line with the supply - piece of wood with 13a socket and 100w lightbulb on, I dont get why so much harm has been done, I will double check that the bulb is in fact inline with the live not the neutral when I get home.

No matter how it trickles in to the supply, I'll bet that bus has some caps on it...

 

[dr pepper]

Yes that makes sense, the other end could have gone through mains neutral via one of the rectifier diodes, my current limiter rig has 2 bulb sockets to get extra current to the load, maybe I should put one in live and the other in the neutral.

One other thing that is likely is that the power supply brick for the laptop has its - end strapped to mains earth, this is one time an isolation transformer didnt save the day.

 

[kinarfi]

most electronic devices will protect the attached fuse, that said, maybe a usb hub might protect the laptop next time. when I had a 'bang', I only lost the hub and the usb port, but the laptop recovered from it's shut down.

 

[dr pepper]

I'm thinking esp if I have to replace the laptop of getting or building a usb isolation device, this isnt the first time something like this has happened, but its the first time its been this bad.

 

[kinarfi]

I'm thinking esp if I have to replace the laptop of getting or building a usb isolation device, this isnt the first time something like this has happened, but its the first time its been this bad.

If you come up with something good, let me know

 

[kinarfi]

I use my laptop with a DSO2150 oscilloscope and it was attached and running when I had a 'bang' from discharging a cap which killed the DSO2150, the usb port, and shut down the computer.
a USB isolator would be nice to have.

 

[dr pepper]

I cant exactly say hah serves you right can I.
An isoltaor would of course need a 5v supply too.

 

[audioguru]

I also thought that I died when I was working in a huge new computer room with some of the raised flooring missing when the electricity failed at night. It was pitch black.
I couldn't crawl across the flooring because I would fall where it was missing. So I used the dial light of my digital watch to see where I was crawling and I GOT OUTA DARE!

 

[dr pepper]

Well I've got the laptop apart.
Dead.
There are 2 smd fuses in series with + and - of the supply, not having anything to loose I linked these, theres now 19v to the fet main power switch on the power supply section.
Linking the power fet switch applies power to the main smps chip but its not interested and just sits there pulling a couple of amps.
Not happy.
I too have a pc 'scope, it was plugged in to the pc when all this happened, I was releived when I realised that the probes were not connected to anything (I use a very old analogue 'scope for dodgy high voltage stuff), however my releif was premature I tried the 'scope on another computer, its dead too, removing the lid theres no tracks blown, but there is what looks like a dc dc converter with no number on, I bet thats blown.
Very expensive mistake.
Not doing that again.
R.I.P. (rest in pieces).

 

[Mike odom]

Not doing that again.

Oh, you say that now!

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Hindsight is 20/20.

I remember vividly two instances, I would rater forget. I was working on a very expensive digital thermocouple thermometer (about 2K) and it was static sensitive, so I placed it on a piece of aluminum foil, circuit side down. I accidentally powered it up. No damage because a fuse blew and the aluminum foil acted as a fuse too.

The second instance involved a power failure, I was working when a power failure occurred and like most of us the soldering iron cord draped to the floor from the desk. Moving caused me to hurl the soldering iron to the floor. Dumb me, tried to catch it. I caught the wrong end. Now, the brain is trained to try to determine if it's worth trying to catch.

My worst mistake was when I was trying to seal red phosphorous and zinc in a quartz tube for synthesis in a furnace. The tube dropped. Red Phosphorous burns very nicely and violently. I was able to cover it up and extinguish the fire.

I never liked the "roof scare" . I was sitting on a pitched roof and started to slide. Physics tells me that the frictional force increases with area and static friction is higher than rolling friction. So, I just lied down.

I got shocked by 120 VAC once where I could not let go. I caught a flat frayed extension cord between my toes. Screaming diverted some nerve impulses, such that I could now pull away. The screaming was intentional and totally voluntary.

Once I had an engine fire because of a fuel leak. I was able to sacrifice the jacket I was wearing to smother the fire. Not too much damage to the jacket. Blankets are a good thing.

Yea, I'd invert in a USB isolator.

 

[dr pepper]

A lots happened to you then.

The only one there I can relate too is the engine fire, I had that on a boat - in a lock, very scary circumstances, however I was sensible enough to adhere to the safety certificate rules here in the UK, I had an automatic fire extinguisher over the engine/fuel tank, one time I was glad to have foresight.
Anyone who tells you diesel inst a fire risk is wrong, under the right circumstances it burns like petrol.

 

[Mike odom]

A lots happened to you then.

The only one there I can relate too is the engine fire, I had that on a boat - in a lock, very scary circumstances, however I was sensible enough to adhere to the safety certificate rules here in the UK, I had an automatic fire extinguisher over the engine/fuel tank, one time I was glad to have foresight.
Anyone who tells you diesel inst a fire risk is wrong, under the right circumstances it burns like petrol.

In the Navy, when we did firefighter training, they used a mock up of an engine room, complete with diesel in the bilges to burn... to start it burning, they poured in a cup of gasoline (er, petrol). Diesel is harder to get going, but once it starts burning, look out! This is why it's considered safer than gaso...er, petrol, and all ships changed to diesel instead of gasoline. Gasoline gives off flammable vapors at -73°F (it's green)... if you hold a match to the top it still lights!!! Diesel needs a whole lot of heat applied before it will ignite at that temperature (or +40, for that matter).

 

[dr pepper]

Sounds scary.
Yes petrol.
In my circumstance I had an injector pipe fracture, diesel sprayed all over the exhaust manifold at very high pressure, resulting in 'woof' then smoke from the engine bay, on my canal boat the tank was next to the engine, I quickly departed to the front of the boat (the helm was over the engine, I was literrally stood on the engine cover), but on the way heard the very reassuring sound of the auto extinguisher cap releasing, I was left with a white foamy blob of an engine but I was still pleased.

 

[dr pepper]

OK, so I got another computer, a desktop, ugh these things are cumbersome.

I took the old 2.5" sata hdd from my laptop and plugged it into my desktop, it reads the desktop hdd ok however I cant see the stuff that was on my desktop on the laptop.
The laptop died due to being blown up and I can read all non windows file on the disk, so it doesn't look like something is wrong with the laptops hdd.
It just that I cant find files that were in my desktop on the laptop, all my pic micro stuff was on there.
How do I read windows files from another computers hdd?
I have a backup, its 3 months old now so I'll lose some stuff.

I know theres a computer section on the forum, however apart from a couple of threads theres been no activity since November, and I really don't want to go on a computer geek forum.

 

[ghostman11]

I will ask LG in the morning, he has a program to recover files

 

[ChrisP58]

Files and shortcuts that are on the 'desktop' are also in a folder that can be found in a path from the root directory of the drive.

On my laptop that path is C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Desktop. The drive letter will be different for you as it is now a slave drive, and the UserName will be different, but the rest should be the same.

If not, you can search from the Drive root for some file name or extension that you remember of some file that you are looking for. Just searching for "Desktop" will probably take you to where you want to be.