How to tell when your breadboard is on fire: as lesson

[mjg]

I had a few hours with the rest of the family out of the house today, so decided to build a spring reverb tank recovery on breadboard.  It was going pretty well, but after a while I could smell burning.  Not good.

I figured it was the wacky 15v circuit I'd built, so tried to work out what I'd done wrong.  None of the parts seemed hot.  Burning smell getting worse.

After 5 or 10 minutes of wondering what was causing the smell, I thought I'd check outside.  Huh.  Burning smell outside the house as well.  Maybe the neighbours have lit their fire? 

Went back inside, and kept breadboarding.  Smell is definitely stronger inside, and getting worse.  After another 5 minutes, I thought I'd check the rest of the house.

Oh.  Right.

I'd started cooking dinner.  Left some beans boiling on the stove about an hour ago. 

Grey smoke billowing out of the saucepan, smoke all through the kitchen and the rest of the house, down to about eye level. 

My lessons for the day:

- don't get distracted by the breadboard
- use a kitchen timer
- get a new smoke detector, because the one we have didn't make a peep, and it was swimming in smoke. 

[m-Kresol]

well, at least you didn't start a real kitchen fire and and noone got hurt. Stay safe

[mjg]

Thanks Felix...

I think the only casualties are the saucepan, and my pride.  My partner is going to use this to rib me for the next few months I think.