Here's One For You...

[rake60]

My wife was on vacation this week. One of her "relaxation" projects
was to totally remodel one of our bathrooms. A small part of that called
for a brass curtain tie back to be mounted to a wall. The one end of a
threaded stud was a bit too long so I take it down to the shop to shorten
it up a bit. I plug in the band saw and it's DEAD. It won't even try to start.
I mess with it for awhile and give up. I put the stud in the mini mill vise and
cut it off with a hack saw.

Later that day I go back to the shop and try the band saw again.
Same result, totally dead. I think it must be the starter capacitor.
Back upstairs to the computer and look up the capacitor part number.
Well production schedules sometimes change the actual parts used, so
I decided I'd better take the cover off that capacitor to be sure I was
ordering the correct part.

At that time I realized the power cord leading to the capacitor didn't exactly
match the power cord I had been plugging in. It did match the cord going to
the abrasive chop saw.

If I plug in the correct tool it works SO much better!

*club*

Rick

 

[dsquire]

Rake

I have done the same thing myself and wasted time trying to fix it before realizing that I just needed a slap to smarten myself up.

Cheers

Don

 

[Tin Falcon]

So a minor operator headspace problem!!!!!! Hmmmm!!!
Tin

 

[chuck foster]

years ago i was sent out on a service call to fix a rivet machine that we had just sold to a company in windsor.
well after driving three hours to get there i go into the place and there is the machine and 6 or 8 guys standing around it trying to figure out what was wrong with it.
the guys are all from the maintenance department, they informed me that they had years of trouble shooting experience and could fix anything but they could not figure what was wrong with this riveter. with that said i thought there must be something really wrong with this machine.
i looked the machine over for about 5 or 10 minutes and could not see anything wrong so i picked up the power cord and plugged it in.
as soon as i did that one of the maintenance guys asked what i had just done. i told him and he just uttered some very ugly words.

the machine ran perfect and the maintenance guys were real quiet when i handed them a bill for the service call.

so rick, we have ALL done the same thing you did .............. and we will probably do it again :

chuck

 

[CrewCab]

If I plug in the correct tool it works SO much better!

At least it was an easy fix ................. eventually Rof}

CC

 

[Maryak]

This must be one of the more classic switch moments.

The cream of Her Majesty's Australian Navy strutting her stuff when coming to anchor in Jervis Bay about 100 miles south of Sydney.

There I am with 70,000 hp at my finger tips when the yak yak from the bridge burst into life advising that the ships telegraphs were not working and engine orders would be given over the sound powered telephone system and a circuit was nominated.

This particular circuit was one used by the anchor clankers and every man and his dog had a headset. I protested and recommended another circuit but was told to just get on with it.

So it went along the lines of "Hey Jim did you get your end away last night," "Stop Both Engines" "No such luck" "REPEAT" "Did somebody say something about engines?" and so on.

By the time the ship had come to anchor, the Captain was beside himself and I was summoned to the bridge.

After a heated exchange, which I lost, because 4 stripes beats 2 stripes every time. Although he did concede that another circuit may have been preferable.

As I beat a retreat, I noticed 2 Electricians Mates with bits of the telegraph all over the bridge deck. "What's the problem," I asked.
With barely contained anger one of them snapped, "No bloody power sir." "Oh," I said, "Is it switched on?" If looks could kill I would have been dead on the spot!! After the chewing out I had just received, I was in no mood for polite discussion.

"You... come with me!!!"

Down to the low power room we went which was buried in the middle of the ship along with the main armament computers. I lead said EM up the switch board, pointed and said, "What does that switch say?" response, "Ships Telegraph," "What position is it in?"
"OFF"
I just looked at him and said, "Even dumb engineer officers get a break occasionally."

I won't go into the ensuing witch hunt as to who turned it off!

Best Regards
Bob

 

[The Artful Bodger]

We had been trying to solve their problem for some days via emails and everything indicated that the cables were in the wrong holes. Several times we sent messages such as "Make sure cable number one is in the first socket" etc.

The device (a VSAT Mux) had eight sockets and the first four were in use.

Eventually there was nothing for it but for someone to go and see what the problem was. First flight was a short domesitc flight to the international airport, next flight was 12 hours or so to Singapore, cooled heels there for a couple of hours then another 11 (?) hours or so to Dubai, a rather long wait there while ernest looking chaps examined the engines on the plane but eventually we were on our way for another 3 hours flight to destination. Got all the fomalities out of the way and went to take a look at the patient. Sure enough, cable marked '1' was in socket marked '1' and so on. The only problem was the makers of the MUX had labelled the sockets '0'...'7'. :

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Always a problem between mechanical engineers (the first one is '1') and the software engineers (the first one is '0')...And before you Pascal programmers pipe up...you can't count either ;D.

In the past there was an urban legend about a satellite being sent up in a two bay rocket payload. Wrong bay was opened because of the 1/0 confusion.

 

[Tin Falcon]

Radio does not work in OFFicial mode LOL.
Just teaches us all to learn /check the basic stuff like plugging in and turning on.
I think we all have done it a few times.
Tin

 

[black85vette]

When I worked for Xerox in the 70's a group of us techs were over at our dispatcher's home for some dinner and a get together. She asked us to check her garbage disposal and flipped the switch to show us it did not work. Her 5 year old daughter kept saying "mommy, mommy!" But she would tell her to be quiet and let us work. So we had about 4 "professional" electronics techs, tool bags open, tearing apart the disposal and wall switch. After some head scratching time but before we went to the circuit breaker panel, the little girl finally got to say what she had been trying to tell us: "The garbage disposal switch is not that one, it is THAT one over on the other side". One of those Homer Simson moments for sure when we flipped the switch and the motor started right up. :big:

There is likely a clever moral to the story, but none come to mind.

 

[websterz]

As a former PC tech I have seen all sorts of things that left me scratching my head. Mice and keyboard plugs reversed, a power strip plugged into itself (can't imagine why THAT won't work!), floppy disc pried open and the magnetic media stuffed into the drive, there are some people that don't need electronics.

We had a special code for such service calls...PICNIC

Problem
In
Chair
Not
In
Computer

 

[tmuir]

We used to cal it
P problem
B between
C computer
A and
C chair

My favoutite one I heard back in the day of floppy disks and no hard drives was the person that kept all their disks in a safe spot by sticking to the front of the filing cabinet with a magnet. :big:

 

[black85vette]

When we called customers if you asked "is it plugged in?" They wouldn't check they would just say "yes". So instead we would ask "Is it plugged in to the top or bottom outlet?" and have them go look.

Didn't have a cute name for it, but for pilot errors in operating their electronics systems we would call it "direct short between the headsets".

 

[rleete]

I've got one. I worked in an engineering office where the lead engineer's computer gave him trouble logging on. If he came in and tried to log on by leaning over the desk, it wouldn't work. However, if he sat down in his chair, it would.

How the heck could a computer know if he was sitting or standing? Had the IT guys puzzled for weeks.

Turns out, someone had cleaned the computer keyboard by popping off the keys. They inadvertantly switched two of them. This wasn't apparent in regular typing such as Word, as the computer automatically corrected the typing. So the problem was, when he stood up, he looked down at the keyboard, and typed according to the key markings. When he sat down, he naturally touched-typed, and avoided the problem.

 

[black85vette]

rleete, you reminded me of another service call I took. A secretary complained that the carriage in her typewriter would start moving even though she was not typing. It did it when she was trying to line up forms manually and she was afraid it might start moving when she was changing the print wheel or ribbon. We made several calls on it, changed the keyboard, controller, and power supply to no avail. She continued to have the problem. Finally I hung around to watch her fill out some forms and observed that when she did forms she leaned forward to see the alignment marks and two parts of her "anatomy" hit the space bar. "See there" she said "its doing it again". Rof}

 

[bearcar1]

Yeah but did you make the necessary 'adjustments'??? :big:

BC1
Jim