Sometimes you get lucky - back when I was a student I did lab work with a color-blind student.
I assembled a project around three breadboards of TTL chips. Didn't work. After over an hour of checking every connection, someone noticed it was taking a lot of current - and then that he's connected the black wire to the PSU +5v and the red wire to the 0v. Swapped the wires over and... it worked perfectly!
OTOH, my colleague who put a replacement PCB mains transformer into a Lindos LA100 test set backwards was not so lucky.
Steve
On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 at 17:17, Jason Proctor <jason@redfish.net> wrote:
I wired up the transformer in an 1176 build the wrong way. I thought
the smell was it just warming up... well it warmed up all right.
On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 at 03:33, Roman via Synth-diy
<synth-diy@synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
> My most spectacular fail was exploding 8A-rated rectifier brigde wrongly connected to 400W transformer.
>
>
> Roman
>
>
>
> ---- Użytkownik crystal via Synth-diy napisał ----
>
> Nice one Don. I've melted resistors, blown up chips and caps, but, haven't ignited an inductor...yet.
>
> Maybe i need to try harder? ;-}
>
> Adam, glad it wasn't a tube circuit!
>
> Richie, no doubt, pyrotechnics and all.
>
>
> Crystal Chris~
>
>
> On 1/23/2026 1:11 PM, rburnett@richieburnett.co.uk wrote:
>
> Made me chuckle, Adam. Glad you lived to tell the tale though! :-)
>
> Every day is a learning day in electronics.
>
>
> -Richie,
>
>
> On 2026-01-23 09:39, Adam (synthDIY) wrote:
>
> ROFL
> thx Don
> we've all had those "learning" experiences, haven't we?
>
> Like when I absent-mindedly started soldering a board in my SH-2000 with the mains still on....
>
> A
>
> On 23 Jan 2026, at 18:05, Donald Tillman <don@till.com> wrote:
>
> Got a ways to go...
>
> https://x.com/beneater/status/2012988790709928305
>
>
> -- Don
> --
> Donald Tillman, Palo Alto, California
> https://till.com
>
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