>>308077 (OP)
Just replaced the PSU in mine with the one in the picture.

I think there's something fishy going on in this story.

While it is true that you can have a significant voltage in your PSU after it's been unplugged, it's only stored in a little 200-or-so µF capacitor. That's not a whole lot of energy at all. I strongly doubt that it'd be enough to cause electrical burns inside your body. I think it's more likely that the cable was plugged into the wall when he died, and that someone's memory is a bit foggy.

It doesn't say that electrocution is the cause of death. I could see getting a small electrical burn on your hand under the right conditions but not a sustained one, or enough to kill someone. Something fishy indeed.

>>308081
same here.

One nice shock + weak heart + bad luck?
But yeah, doesn't sound that convincing.

Kid must have been on meth and had a heart condition

Regardless of the circumstances, I think its worth discussing just how easy it is to kill yourself.

I used to do a lot of stupid stuff. The event that really made me more cautious was this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/nyregion/yale-student-dies-in-machine-shop-accident.html

The realization that getting my sleeve caught in a piece of machinery could end in death has made me much more careful.

It just takes one tiny mistake to lose fingers or limbs, to start a fire, or even die.
I can't even imagine how horrifying it would be to watch someone's face get sucked into a lathe.

>>308120
Mind that electrocution means "death by electric shock". You can't be electrocuted without dying.

i like the /diy/ input, /g/ was all rage and i think it ended in a PC vs Mac thread.

So what is it then? can you or cant you die from messing with the PSU? (in normal conditions, no weak heart and alike)

When I was a long haired teen, I got it caught in an electric drill. Not the tip but the air intakes near the bushings. It coiled up my hair and I had a drill "stuck" to my forehead. No one in the house at the time. No one in town I could phone for help. I twisted the shaft and pulled it away from me then cut it off. Drill never worked at well afterwards.

>>308174
PSU plugged in? Yes, no question.
PSU unpluged... I'd be surprised.

I saw the /g/ train wreck. We don't know the brand, do we. There are some Chinese brand PSUs that are made of fail. They have a reputation to spontaneously burst into flame.

>>308177
if the psu was recently unplugged and the shock went thru both arms and the chest then yes, death is easy.

File: 1349823598212.jpg-(32 KB, 400x400, Steve Irwin.jpg)

If a piece of metal punctured his skin near his heart and completed the circuit, It might be possible.

Lets think about this rationally. In a PSU you have two distinct sides. The high voltage primary side and the secondary low voltage side. The low voltage side could not have hurt him unless he licked it. Even putting your finger directly on the leads of the primary 12v filter cap would only very slowly discharge it. So anything lethal would have to had come from the primary side and since it was reportedly 'unplugged' it would had to have been from a stored charge. Primary side wise there is little more than rectification and filtering before inverting. Those filter caps are rated for 200v at 200-250uf and there are normally 2 to 4 depending on PSU wattage. So around 500uf (0.0005f) after primary rectification. That's 0.000499755 amp seconds/volts. Since there is ~180 volts after rectification we're left with 0.00000277 amp seconds at 180 volts. Lethal? I highly doubt it. They're going to find that this 'unplugged' PSU wasn't as unplugged as once thought.

Note I didn't account for any kind of charge stored in the transformers or other inductors as they would have dissipated before the cover came off.

File: 1349827317708.png-(74 KB, 1002x1275, Electrocution.png)

>>308238
Your numbers are off because we don't know what the caps and internals are in the PSU he was stripping.

It also depends on how the caps are connected to each other. It is obvious it can be lethal.

>pic only related to the subject and not entirely the post I'm replying to.

This is why you need to discharge everything before plunging into stripping stuff down. It is habit for me to to it. I just use a pair of needle nosed pliers to short across caps. There's actually a chunk removed out of it from one discharging where it welded the pliers to the cap and melted part of the pliers tip.

Seems like it was unplugged but he opened up the actual PSU.

Never open:
A power supply.
A CRT.

It's dangerous.

>>308246
For primary side filtering the capacitors are connected in parallel for increased capacitance. There is not a lot of difference in designs between PSU's. They are all switched-mode power supply. Estimates can be made.

one well grounded amp is enough to kill you. one hand on the case one hand on the tool working on the power supply.

>lel kansas
>stripping the family computer down for parts
>that's my sex box and her name is sonee

File: 1349830049372.gif-(869 KB, 500x256, 1347068429947.gif)

>>308264
>Estimates can be made.

And errors in this can be death.

Never assume anything, unless of course you assume you'll die if you do something stupid, in which case you can assume that all you want.

>>308263
>mfw I have microwave, PSU and CRT parts strewn all over my workshops.

As my electrical safety instructor said, "The reason we now have to teach the electrical safety course to all electricians at least twice per year is because some joe was bright enough to be the one person in the world who could figure out how to kill himself with a 9V battery."

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html

>>308177
>There are some Chinese brand PSUs that are made of fail. They have a reputation to spontaneously burst into flame.

I've had to deal with some that have done this literally. Most of them were a brand called Ultra.

The majority were cases of very bad solder work or thin wire gauge in the wrong places. I'm pretty sure a lot of components were way out of tolerance too. A couple also had caps burst and catch on fire.

I had a fan fail on a PSU but I didn't dare rip it open to replace it.

Guess I've been validated?

>>308081
>>308122

That's fine, the one in the picture isn't the one the dude tore into.

> As computer repair expert Dave Bradshaw told KCTV-5: "It's a $20 power supply. Why tear into it?

> He added: "You're taking your life into your own hands."

Corsair 650W is not $20

>>308367
If you don't know what you are doing, you've been validated.

>>308369

Sure as shit didn't, so I let it be.

>>308368

But he's a computer repair expert

>>308371

Sound judgement in any case you're dealing with electricity or machinery you don't understand. They can be incredibly dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

The fans inside PSUs, especially cheap ones, are often soldered to the PCB rather than plugged in via a molex connector. And even those that use connectors generally do not use the standard ones for CPU or case fans.

They should change the picture before Corsair gets up in that ass.

Seriously? You'd get a bit of a zap, sure, but dying? With electrical burns? God damn.

>>308289
>http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html

I just did a few searches through the USN's Navel Safety Center's website(http://www.public.navy.mil/navsafecen/Documents/Forms/MRAP%20Documents.aspx) and could find no publications that mentions 9 volt battery, multimeter, internal resistance, etc.

Since the Darwin Awards link itself calls it unconfirmed you should probably stop believing everything you read on the internet.

>>308424
>Website was redesigned in 2010. Doesn't have all the old docs.

So, if opening a PSU could theoretically kill you if it still has a charge, how would you disperse the charge so that it doesn't literally kill you. Electronic newfag here, and PC amateurfag.

I suppose I should ask the same about old TVs and monitors, too. I just don't want to died.

>>308263
Add most printers to that list, too. The basic rule is 'don't jam a screwdriver into a capacitor'.

>>308380
I wouldn't touch the inside of a PSU unless I could design one. If you're smart, you probably won't kill yourself, but it's really not a situation where you want a surprise.

>>308447
Put a resistor across the terminals, 100ohms and 1 or 2 watts should do the trick.
Don't use your bare hands to do it of course, use insulated probes.

>>308438
So because one probably can't find the primary source article in question (due to a site redesign that may or may not have affected content) the absurd clam it purported to make is assumed true? You just went full retarded. Keep on believing everything on the internettalented /diy/er

polite sage.

>>308447
Leave it on the shelf for a week or two, unplugged. That's what we do in the electro repair shop. You bring in a TV and we tell you we'll get in contact with you in 4 days. Folks ask if it really does take that long to fix their shitty CRT, and we tell them this is not for repair, this is for the caps to empty so that we wouldn't die when we go inside to investigate.

>>308467
9v, 100-1000 ohm resistance for the insides of a human body.

9/500 = 18ma? 8ma @ 9v across your heart doesn't have a good chance to make it contract and start spasming uncontrollably?

even 9/1000 = .9ma? crossing your heart? because, you know, blood, circulatory system, crossing from one arm to another, would go through THE HEART.

Maybe you read the article wrong? He stabbed electrodes INTO his skin, like with blood and shit, to measure his 'resistance.'

>>308467
cont.

He wasn't cooked or 'electrocuted' it made his heart fail. A defibrillator could have saved him.

>>308493
>leave it for 4 days unplugged
>caps must be discharged
>shiggy
Hope you guys short the caps with a resistor like you're supposed to...

>>308238
>>308264

Your calculations are wrong to begin with. Capacitor's charge and energy increases with increasing voltage. 500uF at 180V holds 8.1J (Ws) of energy and 90mC (mAs) of charge.

I can't be arsed to find the current vs. duration curves, but that amount of charge isn't certainly insignificant.

I was under the impression that with things like TVs and computers, caps could be discharged by holding the power button down for 30 seconds. Not true? True with some things? I remember being told to do this when I repaired my Xbox years ago.

>>308529
Not true I'd say.

>>308529
its true with some things.
but its best to just short shit out when you're working on it.

>>308529
Generally not true. However, by doing something like that, you can with some devices empty them enough for it not to be "doing" anything.

>>308095

It probably was unplugged after the fact.

Due to an insurance claim.

>>308289

Bullshit.

You can lick a 9v and stick it up your asshole and it won't do more than tingle.

>>308529
Don't do that and assume it works. Every electronic is different. The Xbox trick isn't even for discharging caps, it is for resetting CMOS/BIOS stuff to defaults.

If you did that with a TV you could end up dead.

Never assume something is safe.

>>308597
That is external resistance not internal resistance. Your blood is a great conductor, your skin and tongue are not nearly as good.

>>308601
I actually did the real math on it. Accepted internal resistance of a human is 300-1000Ohms.

Take the low end and 9V stabbed into your arms would push 30mA. Accepted kill amperage is 70mA for an adult male (less across the heart) so the situation is incredibly unlikely but not impossible.

>>308869
I should mention that the situation as presented makes no sense though. Especially if he was measuring resistance.

AFAIK There is no setting on a multimeter that will put 9V through the leads.

Measuring the resistance of a 1ohm resistor doesn't draw 9 amps from a multimeter.