<div dir="ltr">There's a group on Facebook for Synth DIY (no relation).<div><br></div><div>Someone wanted to build a mute circuit that detected power up/down.  He wanted to avoid the expense of a step down transformer, so he directly applied the utility line power 220VAC to a voltage divider to get the voltage down to 5VAC to apply to the mute circuit.  I warned him not to build the circuit because it was a fire hazard and he neglected to include a CRUCIAL COMPONENT that every EE knows about, and it was blatantly obvious that he has no business doing circuit design.</div><div><br></div><div>The missing crucial component?  THE FUSE.</div><div><br></div><div>MC</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 1:11 PM Terry Bowman via Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="line-break:after-white-space"><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Jan 25, 2026, at 2:46 PM, Roman Sowa via Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org" target="_blank">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>> wrote:</div><br><div><div>I haven't heard any buzz because the blast was immediately after powering it up.<br></div></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div>Paging Harry Bissel and his stories. I seem to recall that he did heavy duty testing of industrial strength equipment with equally spectacular failures.<div><br></div><div><br><div>
<div dir="auto" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;line-break:after-white-space"><div dir="auto" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;line-break:after-white-space"><div style="text-align:start;text-indent:0px;line-break:after-white-space"><div style="text-align:start;text-indent:0px;line-break:after-white-space"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;line-break:after-white-space">Terry Bowman, KA4HJH<br>"The Mac Doctor"<br><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;line-break:after-white-space"><a href="https://www.astarcloseup.com" target="_blank">https://www.astarcloseup.com</a></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;line-break:after-white-space"><br></div><div style="text-align:start;text-indent:0px;line-break:after-white-space">“...the book said something astonishing, a very big thought. The stars, it said, were suns but very far away. The Sun was a star but close up.”—Carl Sagan, "The Backbone Of Night",<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"> </span><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px">Cosmos</i>, 1980<br><br></div></div></div></div></div>
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