I came up with this question right after I wanted to take apart a microwave to see why it wasn't heating anything before I remembered that that's a very, VERY bad idea
DO NOT backfeed your house's electricity with a generator when your electricity gets shut down. You might electrocute someone working on those lines.
At least have it set up downstream of the main shut off and make sure that main is off before firing up the generator. There are devices available commercially that do that for you but they aren't cheap and require professional installation.
I'll expand the microwave to anything that can carry a large electrical charge without you really knowing. I had a UPC that started acting weird, that was one I just sent right back to the manufacturer. I'll swap out batteries, but I'm not cracking open something with that much potential energy stored in it without me fully understanding everything about it - and unless I helped build the thing I do not know enough about it.
If you're gonna take a washing machine apart and you cut all the wires, make sure you cut the main electrical plug off as well or your dumbass son (me) will plug it in and electrocute himself with it.
I too was going to say microwave before reading the post body. Honestly though anything with a large capacitor, I can't give you examples unfortunately because I study physics not electrical engineering but some of those fat fucking capacitors will fry you and they hold their charge.
If it had warnings about not opening it, or not containing user serviceable parts, don’t fuck with it.
Of course I understand caution with ⚡️, but just about everything has a 'do not open' label on it (in the litigous US anyway). Do we not care about right to repair?
I thought in the context of the question it was obvious what I’m referring to.
Eh, I'm not sure about that broad. Macbooks say not to open them because "reasons", but most items in there can be easily repaired
I heard once that old smoke detectors have some radioactive isotopes in them. Not sure how true or dangerous but sounds bad.
Ionization chamber smoke detectors have a tiny grain of Americium in them, which is radioactive. However, the radiation is almost entirely alpha particles which are relatively low risk as they don't penetrate skin particularly well.
They are also still sold, though you should buy the other kind (which use light beams instead) because they're significantly better at their jobs.
They're low risk unless you ingest them, because then they're hitting internal organs directly.
Also if you pool the Americium from 100 detectors together they become pretty dangerous.
Old arcade machines. Giant capacitors + little knowledge on the subject = a very bad time.
As with anything it can be done safely if you know how. People still play those and they obviously need repairs/maintenance sometimes.
Holy shit, how has no one mentioned rechargable batteries?
Lithium Ion batteries, commonly used in phones and the like, rapidly catches fire and emits acidic smoke that will melt your lungs when the battery is punctured.
I had a problem with the control panel in my Panasonic microwave and was able to fix it pretty easily. Everything I needed to get to was inside the right front of the microwave; the control pad membrane and the sticker that goes on the front of it.
