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Safety: Batteries Only!

Lesson 6 from: Circuit Bending: Making Music By Rewiring Toys and Devices

J. Anthony Allen

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Lesson Info

6. Safety: Batteries Only!

Lesson Info

Safety: Batteries Only!

Okay, A couple quick safety tips. Um, not tips. Actually, this is mandatory stuff. Um, two things we need to cover one is, ah, gear and protection of your body while you're doing some of the sauntering and more technical work. And to is a note about voltage and electricity, which is what we're gonna start with in this video. I've already said it once before. I'm gonna say it again. Batteries only. We do not mess with stuff that gets plugged into the wall. Things that run on batteries, particularly audio devices, are relatively low volts. So that means that if you do something wrong, no, let me preface this by saying this is unlikely. Um, it's fairly unlikely that you're gonna seriously shock yourself, but if you did do something wrong and you shocked yourself with the entire voltage in the battery powered thing that you're getting, um you're probably only going to get a couple of volts, which will probably just give you a little zap. Um, like a at worst. Like a bee sting. If it's low v...

oltage, right. If you're plugged into the wall and you get exact with the whole 120 volts coming out. If you're in the US coming out of your wall, you're going to get zapped with something that's going to knock you on your but, uh, possibly stop your heart and maybe kill you. Um, it's barely possible for that to happen, So we're not gonna plug anything in anything into the wall. Um, we're gonna work on batteries. Only now, the ideal voltage that were aiming for a six volts or less six bolter last was a prick. It's not that big a deal to get hit with it. We're gonna avoid it because it doesn't feel good. But when you're looking for devices, calculate the volts now a double A battery. Um, I'm not sure if battery voltages are standard in other countries. Um, that would be a really good question, but when I talk about voltages right now, what I'm talking about is in the U. S. A double A battery, um, is 1.5 volts. So my little SpongeBob keyboard that I just thought takes three double A batteries. So that's 4.5 bolts. Um, that's okay. I don't want to get stung with 4.5 volts, but If I do, it's not gonna kill me. Assuming I'm a super healthy person. Now, remember, I'm not a doctor or anything. I'm a PhD, but I'm not a medical doctor. And so I don't trust anything I say when it comes to, um, any kind of weird medical device that I may or may not be giving right now. Basically, we don't want to get touched by electricity. Um, if we do, then we wanted to be very low voltage. So a couple of batteries, Um, and you're going to be pretty. Okay, so my device takes three. Double A batteries. 4.5 waltz. Not bad. When you're looking at devices, think about, um, aiming for six volts or less, So you could just calculate how many batteries it takes. How many volts each battery is added all up. And that's about how many bolts um, maximum could be going through it. Okay, so batteries only, um, no plugging stuff into the wall. Got it? Nothing that we're gonna work on anywhere we're gonna plug are suffering on into the wall. But no. Ah, toys that are gonna be opened up get plugged into the wall. I cannot stress this enough. No plugging it into the wall. Okay, enough about that. Let's talk about some, uh, safety gear that you should have in the next video.

Ratings and Reviews

Karolina Kaminska
 

I am a complete beginner to this topic and I enjoyed watching the free live stream of this course. It taught me enough to get started with some ideas, although I anticipate I'll have to follow up with other YouTube videos to ensure I understand enough for different kinds of toys and techniques. Thanks!

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