There I was, full of Covid brain-fog, attempting to put together the simplest of electrical experiments, building an electromagnetic coil for my kids, when I got distracted and nearly burnt the house down!

Yes, yes, it’s missing a ferrous core to make the coil produce a truly B-eefy field, and yes dumping 5A through the coil for 15s should have made the Jerry-rigged water compass do more than the nothing that you can see in this video.

Anyways kids, don’t do this shit at home. Et pour moi, I won’t be doing this shit again until my brain is running at greater than 80% capability so that I don’t let any more magic smoke out. I’ll also be winding the coil around a screwdriver shaft (thanks, Veen), and dialing things up much more slowly. I may even wire a deadman switch into the whole thing just in case another child comes by and tries to distract me while I’m prototyping with wall mains. JUST KIDDING, NO KIDS ALLOWED FOR THE NEXT RUN.

veen: “pretty funny that the range safety officer almost lit his house on fire carelessly”

me: “quis custodiet ipso custodes and all that”