So, while buried by my studies, my university announced that their Speedotron powerpack had "arced" along the 1200w connectors and blown them out, as well as frying the cord attached to said connectors.

Now, this powerpack is only barely known to me. I use monolights as I find them more to my liking. I do know it has a 400w, 800w and 1200w set of connectors and looks like it came from the mid 1970s.

Here is my concern.

In their ummm...."wisdom" the photo department has deemed, somehow, this powerpack to be "100% safe if you use the 400w and 800w plugs." So they are saying students should use the powerpack despite the fact that it is severely damaged. This REALLY worries me. I mean the thing partially MELTED. Now, worse of all, since there are big signs saying "NO SHOES ON PAPER", most students are in there barefoot.

Barefoot + Electricity = A Visit From The Skinny Guy In Black Who Has That Old Timey Weedwacker.

So I turn to APUG font of all knowledge....

Is this rig safe? I'd be inclined to assume "NO!" because who knows WHAT has been damaged. And I KNOW that no factory guys have looked at this thing. It seems that such damage could mess up the whole thing, possibly creating an "imminent failure" situation.

Any legit concern there?