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Posted by David Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 at 11:49:27 :
In Reply to: I wonder if it glows in the dark. posted by OleManIdaho [164.165.147.34] on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 at 10:37:10 :
I hope it didn't end up like all those high-voltage power supplies John Fluke sold to the AEC back in the 1950s. They had a very precise adjustable high-voltage power supply, similar to what was used in their differential voltmeters. I believe the AEC bought them to drive photomultiplier tubes. Anyway, Fluke got a nice big contract to produce them for the government. After a while they started wondering why they had absolutely zero warranty returns. The engineers wanted to think it was because the power supplies never failed, but they knew better. So, they asked some questions and found out they were being blown up in the bomb tests. The power supplies only had to work long enough to collect radiation data until the shock wave hit them. This was told to me when I worked for Fluke in the early 1980s, by one of the old-timers who'd been there back in the '50s.