Golden Age SnufferStick High Voltage Capacitor Discharge Stick Tool

Discharges capacitors quickly. Easy to use!

Love this little gizmo. Decided to repair our 10 year old GE microwave because it stopped heating. Did extensive research ( YouTube University) to learn how to safely discharge the capacitor and came upon this tool. Easy peasy. Worked as described.

Also called a “chicken stick”, I believe. For every new and seasoned electronics hobbyist or tinkerer, it is recommended practice to discharge Caps and then check they have no voltage (with a voltmeter) before getting your hands in any electronics chassis with a tool like this (as opposed to a screwdriver) The stick length and lead length seem ideal for most applications. Especially useful to anyone working on tube amps for guitars, or ham radio / CB. Yes, one easily could buy parts to make one of these, but I think this is well made for the price and a worthy addition to the toolbox for a margin of safety. Assuming an electric device can kill you is like assuming any gun is loaded, until you check.

I do a lot of work on audio, ham radio, and electronic equipment. This tool is a seat belt for my work bench. I have lived through bad accidents in which a seat belt saved my life and this tool is as necessary as a seat belt. That lethal shock, that deadly voltage, is there hiding and waiting to kill you. One instant and you are dead. You won't know what hit you. Make sure you have this "chicken stick" and use it before you touch anything, no matter how long it has been unplugged. Buy it. Use it. Now. Don't ever take a chance. Live for another day. This tool is well made and will save your life.

This is essentially a dowel with a couple of resistors, a piece of wire, and a cheap clip on the end. Can’t say the price is justified.

One review for this product says that you can build one with a 100 ohm resistor. I measured resistance in this product and got 110k ohm (kilo-ohms, not ohms) as in 1100 times more resistance than 100 ohms. I don't think I have a defective item, but I did notice that as expected with a vacuum tube amp and multiple smooth caps for example 4, double 50/50 uF cap cans (total eight 50 uF caps) it can take a while to get the voltages down below 100 volts, and really you should get the voltage down below 30 volts or less. So if you are custom to using a lower resistance with the cap discharge tool and faster discharge, this tool might give you a surprise if you use it for two seconds and then assume the caps are discharged without actually verifying the voltage with a voltmeter. This tool has an alligator clip on one side for ground, and a male banana plug for touching the cap on the other side. This gave me the false impression that it would discharge the caps FAST like a typical home made cap discharge tool. I connected a volt meter with the tool locked in place in parallel, and watched as the voltage SLOWLY drop over a couple of MINUTES, not seconds as I had expected. Then I checked the resistance in the tool and got 110k ohms. Of course I understand the resistor is there to prevent arcs and popping etc. I built my own with insulated clips on BOTH sides so I could clip and leave to drain voltage to near ZERO before proceeding without standing there holding the tool in place for the next few minutes.

It works nice for guitar amp electrolytics, but I had to build my own with higher wattage resistors for my purposes.

So far so good