Weird experiences you've had...

[Henro]

I went to Northeastern University, at that time almost 100% coop school. You did a 13 week semester then a 13 week curriculum related job for the last 4 years of schooll (5 yr program). My coop job was at MIT's Instrumentation Lab in Cambridge. I worked with the engineers and techs. They gave me a tech bench setup to do my work. It was complete with test gear, soldering station etc.

My 1st day I was greeted by the other techs and shown to my bench. They told me the switch for the 115volt outlets was under the bench and just flip it on when I was ready to start work each day.

What they kind of forgot to tell me was they had taken a regular graphite pencil, stripped off both ends, attached a 115 zip cord to it and taped it to the underside of the bench and of course plugged it in.

They walked away, I sat down, flipped the switch . . . scared the living everything out of me. The sound, the flash and the damn smoke!

Somebody gave you a thumbs down! That person must not have a sense of humor...!!! (or maybe not a distorted one like we do...LOL)

 

[johnjk]

When I was a bachelor, I had one of those.
Mine was similar to this one:
It did a pretty good lob, if you cut off the ends where the electrodes burned the weenie.

View attachment 89554

I was too poor. I used an old lamp cord, a couple framing nails and a chunk of 2x4. Used it for about a month and then inherited a cheap microwave

 

[DaveFromMi]

I was too poor. I used an old lamp cord, a couple framing nails and a chunk of 2x4. Used it for about a month and then inherited a cheap microwave

That was an experiment that we got to eat in our introductory EE course. Had to measure current and voltage and plot power vs time on a paper chart. The area under the curve was watt hours or energy required to cook a hot dog. We had to submit the optimum energy required for a slightly crisp outer skin as judged by the prof.