The Vacuum of Duum!
The other day, whilst taking out the trash, and was pleasantly surpised by the sight of a vacuum cleaner in the dumpster. Now, being the technophile I am, I'm never one to just pass up the wealth a vacuum offers. You've a motor, meters upon meters of wiring, a switch, and if you're lucky, some lightbulbs.
So I grabbed the vacuum and drug it home. An hour later (they sure do put a lot of screws in these things) I had disassembled the motor and tossed all the extra plastic. One slight problem. The only wire I made noteof the location of was the ground. Not that big a problem, except that ignoring the ground, I had two wires coming out of the switch, and three wires coming out of the motor. Using a small amount of logic involving wire lengths and the assumption that the company that made the vacuum didn't want to use more wire than it needed to, I figured out (I think) how to properly rewire the motor. Now to plug it in, turn it on, and test it.
And that's when it happened.
The torque caused by the motor spinning up (which I really should be used to by now) sent the motor spinning across the table I had it set upon. After about two revolutions of the motor, the wires caught it (or it caught the wires) and it stopped spinning. It was about that time I saw a very bright flash of light, which naturally led me to immediately unplug the motor.
So, that was scary. But no one got hurt, so all's well, yes? That's what I thought, until I examined the motor and found this...
Somehow, something caused the metal casing of the motor to explode. And trust me when I tell you that this in not thin and flimsy metal. I'd be hard pressed to pierce it with a screwdriver, a hammer, and a 7 year old who has recently run out of Ritalin. I still have no idea what caused this, but I do know that I'm lucky to have lived through it.
So I grabbed the vacuum and drug it home. An hour later (they sure do put a lot of screws in these things) I had disassembled the motor and tossed all the extra plastic. One slight problem. The only wire I made noteof the location of was the ground. Not that big a problem, except that ignoring the ground, I had two wires coming out of the switch, and three wires coming out of the motor. Using a small amount of logic involving wire lengths and the assumption that the company that made the vacuum didn't want to use more wire than it needed to, I figured out (I think) how to properly rewire the motor. Now to plug it in, turn it on, and test it.
And that's when it happened.
The torque caused by the motor spinning up (which I really should be used to by now) sent the motor spinning across the table I had it set upon. After about two revolutions of the motor, the wires caught it (or it caught the wires) and it stopped spinning. It was about that time I saw a very bright flash of light, which naturally led me to immediately unplug the motor.
So, that was scary. But no one got hurt, so all's well, yes? That's what I thought, until I examined the motor and found this...
Somehow, something caused the metal casing of the motor to explode. And trust me when I tell you that this in not thin and flimsy metal. I'd be hard pressed to pierce it with a screwdriver, a hammer, and a 7 year old who has recently run out of Ritalin. I still have no idea what caused this, but I do know that I'm lucky to have lived through it.
posted by Binary Dragon at 22:08
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