One of my laborious jobs at work is failure analysis. I solder a chip down, power it, and short every pin to ground and to each adjacent pin, and record what happens. This blows up chips so I cut these disposable boards.
I'm working on hardware to automate this.
@smellsofbikes When I worked at Triad Transformer part of what we did was destructive testing.
Some of the transformers were monsters with #2 square wire windings - it took a lot to drive those to failure, and when they did, wow.
A lot of fun was at the high voltage, rather than high current, end of things. We used to push TV flyback transformers (used to provide high voltage - up to about 25KV - to the front of the old CRT screens). We had the test case in a big, glass box because the end was almost always flames and flying, burning varnish (varnish is used to seal the windings of the transformers - the entire transformer is infused with varnish - from a tank of boiling varnish [and in those days we had no safety gear when we did that.]
Perhaps I should mention how once we gave a Timex watch a lickin' and it stopped tickin'.
@karlauerbach @smellsofbikes Did you really??? Cool. Over the years I bought many Triad and Thordarson transformers for various projects. Also used a couple of transformer houses in Los Angeles for custom designs and mass production. Later, Hammond Transformers for higher voltage, high power applications. Plus a few pole pots for more serious voltage and power. Hahaha. It used to alarm people who came into my living room in the 70s to see a 14,400V 50 kVA transformer sitting in the corner. Wanna see a Jacob's Ladder that radiates heat you'll feel??? Check this out...
You've done some fun stuff!
