Dummy loads (was: Re: new here)

It's possible that you will, but unless you then drink the electrolyte at the end of the experiment, I don't think it will do you all that much harm. The other side to this is that unless you show kids how do fun things, they will have a go on their own. Possibly with things that are a lot more dangereous than a car battery and lead. And unless you show them that there are dangers which can be avoided (and not just by neer doing <foo)), there is a very real danger they will assume everything they may coem to try is 'safe' or even if it's not, there's no 'real danger'. And unfortunately, they are then likely to end up trying certain illegal substances... I think that's going a bit far., The fumes given off when soft-soldering are flux, the amount of lead in them is very small. I think I've expressed this view before... Everything has some risks associated with it, even getting out of bed in the morning. So I could either spend my life lying in bed and die of boredom or I can get on with what I enjoy, even though there are some dangers in doing so. I'll take sensible precaustions (not drinking the electrolyte as it may contain heavy metal ions, not eating solder, making sure high voltage devices are isolated and discharged before I work on them, etc). My life will probably be shorter doing that, but it will be a lot more enjoyable which would seem to be the important thing. -tony