Electronic Horror Gallery

[Ed.Kloonk]

We have a facebook page here for sparkies who out their mates for doing sloppy work.

shitty electrical on facebook.

You won't believe.

[TerraHertz]

Any reason they wouldn't throw some high power RF (a few hundred watts) on the lines to dry them out?

When they say "storm surge" that means sea water. You can dry out paper insulation all you like, but if it was wet with salt water it's never going to insulate again. Even if it wasn't powered at the time, and didn't turn to green goo.

[Andrea :)]

[max666]

The difference is, the Russians survived, this less slick ones maybe not.

Natural selection at work.
(*luckily I’m drunk, because that one was scary to watch*)

[TVman]

Holy hell!!

youtube just removed that video!

[IanB]

Ehm, then UK has to be the safest place on Earth...

Unfortunately, yes. The body responsible for the national rail infrastructure (Network Rail) has said, "public safety is our primary concern". Oh? I rather thought running trains on time was your primary concern?

As a result, they are closing level crossings and pedestrian crossings left, right and centre. The are being replaced with razor wire fences and large detours to the nearest bridge. It's completely stupid. Rails have trains spaced minutes apart, they are confined to the tracks they run on, and you can see them coming a mile off. In comparison roads have cars every few seconds, they have nothing to keep them on the road, and often you can't see round the nearest bend. Yet they don't put up razor wire fences alongside every road.

The reason they are doing this? Local youths like to play chicken with trains. The last person to jump out of the way is the loser (or minced meat). Unfortunately people think that if kids get squished by standing in front of trains, it is not the kid's fault.

In the 1970's we used to cross railway lines before they put up the razor wire. We didn't play chicken with the trains. We were smarter than that.

The world is turning into a very dumb place.

[Rigby]

The world is turning into a very dumb place.

Not really, though it does seem that way.

1) YouTube, Facebook, email, IM, all the modern methods of communication on the Internet make it very easy for incidents which are rare to be seen by many, many more people than in previous decades.  Those types of videos were taken decades ago, however it was EXTREMELY unlikely that one would ever stumble across videos of these things in one's day to day life back then.  This makes it feel like these things are much more common, when in fact, they are much less common, it is just that the videos are much more widely distributed and much more easily found and viewed.

2) Almost all of us have done things in our youth that were very stupid and that would have gotten us thrown in jail, if we were caught.  I don't know a single person that led a life of purity and in the 70s, 80s and 90s.  We ALL did stupid stuff, and if you didn't, I don't believe you.  Unless my kids are a LOT sneakier than I was, which is unlikely, but possible, they'd be caught.

Example, I don't know a single child today that has played Lawn Dart Roulette, yet it was played daily where I grew up, in the three days between invention and local ordinance outlawing it.  It is a 10-12-player game, and alcohol is required; all players stand in a circle, arms length away from the next guy.  Main Asshole of the group, whose house you are visiting, and whose family owns the Lawn Darts, picks a rube at random, who must throw a lawn dart straight up, then look straight ahead, and not move.  The lawn dart will harmlessly land in grass most of the time, but about one in three full turns (48 throws) the dart would land in some poor bastard's shoulder or skull.  Participation in this game is guaranteed to accurately predict the arrival of both the EMTs, Police, and result in the arrest of at least one person with an outstanding warrant they didn't know about.  Oh, if you move while the dart is in the air, you had to lay down while everyone got a free kick in on you. 

My point is that people were plenty fucking stupid 20-30 years ago.  My hometown was PARTICULARLY stupid, as I'm sure you have guessed, and stupidity is not anything close to a modern invention.

[wraper]

Good invention against riding on the train roofs.

[Hydrawerk]

2) Almost all of us have done things in our youth that were very stupid and that would have gotten us thrown in jail, if we were caught.

Once i pushed a mysterious red button in a refridgerator. It activated an automatic defrost... My father had to heat the temperature sensor with a hair dryer so the thermostat thought the fridge was hot and the defrost was over. Then it started cooling again.

[Bored@Work]

What has changed is that dumb behavior has become an acceptable lifestyle choice. What previously led to social shunning, which helped to regulate the level of dumbness, now passes as normal. Even to the point that you are no longer allowed to call dumb behavior dumb behavior. E.g. in schools (or on this forum).

In the past, stupidity begetting stupidity was a local phenomenon, but not a nationwide or worldwide phenomenon. These days, however, media actively promotes it, e.g. see Jackass,  Jersey Shore, or thousands of YouTube videos.
 

[jaxbird]

Good invention against riding on the train roofs.
...

I like it, cheap and efficient.  If you are dumb enough to still try it, you are likely to get your skull crushed. 

[jaxbird]

You can see the same attitude on this forum. I have given up counting the number of times I got beaten to pulp her just because I suggested a particular practice or instrument is unsafe. What could possibly go wrong? But it is cheaper! But it is faster! I have always done it this way! I pay attention when doing this. Bureaucratic bullshit, restricting my freedom! Real men do it this way. I don't care, I don't have to.

All hail Bored@Work, our master of unbiased universal truth, cmon get over yourself 

Sorry, not meant as a personal attack, but please consider there are people with values and goals that are different than yours.

[jaxbird]

Of course not, no, never. Hint: if you need to write such a disclaimer you are likely doing what you try to disclaim.

Ah, that's the new excuse. I am not dumb, I just have different values and goals. Seriously, did that excuse work when you tried it with your parents or teachers?

So, as you know, you provide biased advise in some form, and you cannot know the situation of every single reader, why not just accept that, and leave it as general advise from your point of view, instead of insisting everyone else is wrong?

[M0BSW]

They really do deserve what they will eventually  get, "killed"

[Rigby]

They really do deserve what they will eventually  get, "killed"

I'm not sure why you think you can say that someone deserves to die.  Maybe I'm inferring more self-righteousness than you're implying.

[echen1024]

The world is turning into a very dumb place.

Not really, though it does seem that way.

1) YouTube, Facebook, email, IM, all the modern methods of communication on the Internet make it very easy for incidents which are rare to be seen by many, many more people than in previous decades.  Those types of videos were taken decades ago, however it was EXTREMELY unlikely that one would ever stumble across videos of these things in one's day to day life back then.  This makes it feel like these things are much more common, when in fact, they are much less common, it is just that the videos are much more widely distributed and much more easily found and viewed.

2) Almost all of us have done things in our youth that were very stupid and that would have gotten us thrown in jail, if we were caught.  I don't know a single person that led a life of purity and in the 70s, 80s and 90s.  We ALL did stupid stuff, and if you didn't, I don't believe you.  Unless my kids are a LOT sneakier than I was, which is unlikely, but possible, they'd be caught.

Example, I don't know a single child today that has played Lawn Dart Roulette, yet it was played daily where I grew up, in the three days between invention and local ordinance outlawing it.  It is a 10-12-player game, and alcohol is required; all players stand in a circle, arms length away from the next guy.  Main Asshole of the group, whose house you are visiting, and whose family owns the Lawn Darts, picks a rube at random, who must throw a lawn dart straight up, then look straight ahead, and not move.  The lawn dart will harmlessly land in grass most of the time, but about one in three full turns (48 throws) the dart would land in some poor bastard's shoulder or skull.  Participation in this game is guaranteed to accurately predict the arrival of both the EMTs, Police, and result in the arrest of at least one person with an outstanding warrant they didn't know about.  Oh, if you move while the dart is in the air, you had to lay down while everyone got a free kick in on you. 

My point is that people were plenty fucking stupid 20-30 years ago.  My hometown was PARTICULARLY stupid, as I'm sure you have guessed, and stupidity is not anything close to a modern invention.

We played with rocks in elementary. We only used small ones that would hurt but not necessitate EMT though.

[GeoffS]

Let's keep the thread on track - Electronic Horror Gallery is the subject.

[SeanB]

Let's keep the thread on track - Electronic Horror Gallery is the subject.

Can I show something electric? The smoke did not quite make it out, it got caught in the oil mostly. The top bearing is, as Ed Jones (Aussie50) would say, Definitely Not Happy.

[N2IXK]

Nice!

So I assume the overloads in the motor starter controlling that thing were grossly oversized, jumped out, or never installed?

[ajb]

I found this in a bin of old cables that had been used for stage lighting--so it carried relatively high loads at elevated temperatures for extended periods of time.  Definitely not the place to use a shitty 5-15 plug.  Never found the female plug that would have failed along side this one, presumably the missing blade from this one stayed with it when the two were separated.  Not long after that the whole facility was switched to proper connectors.

[SeanB]

Nice!

So I assume the overloads in the motor starter controlling that thing were grossly oversized, jumped out, or never installed?

It is made in PRC......... DOL relay control, I think if anything a PRC made motor relay would silently fail as short circuit and never trip in any case. They did include a nice set of circuit breakers in the machine, and at 16A they will never trip until the last. If you are worried the cable is a 3 wire Chinese mains cable with red, green and yellow cores. The red had been so heated it was purple, and I only saw it was red when stripping the insulation further back. This is the only small motor not driven by an inverter, the other 2 are inverter controlled, so have overload protection, and I added an overload relay for the pump after that one died a burning death after dropping a phase inside. biggest issue is the control gear uses 36VAC, so it is always a problem getting replacement parts for switchgear coils.

[N2IXK]

36VAC controls?  Why?

Tiny copper savings over 24V, and cheaper insulation requirements than 120V, I guess...

Is that actually a PRC standard voltage, or just this one manufacturer?

Is that motor actually a standard frame size so you can just replace it?  Or you planning to get it rewound?

[NiHaoMike]

Maybe use 24V relays/contactors with series resistors?

[SeanB]

36VAC controls?  Why?

Tiny copper savings over 24V, and cheaper insulation requirements than 120V, I guess...

Is that actually a PRC standard voltage, or just this one manufacturer?

Is that motor actually a standard frame size so you can just replace it?  Or you planning to get it rewound?

well, the voltage must be common enough so that a lot of manufacturers use it, as you get control gear from assorted suppliers in it.

It was a standard B5 frame motor, so bought a new one that runs quieter and cooler than the original ever did. I had to rewind some non standard ones, as it is hard to get an extended shaft motor in small sizes, especially with very long shafts.

[TVman]

I found this in a bin of old cables that had been used for stage lighting--so it carried relatively high loads at elevated temperatures for extended periods of time.  Definitely not the place to use a shitty 5-15 plug.  Never found the female plug that would have failed along side this one, presumably the missing blade from this one stayed with it when the two were separated.  Not long after that the whole facility was switched to proper connectors.

I'v seen something like that before.
I replaced it the Minute I got out of the hardware store.
Dunno where the plug went though.
(I like to keep those crappy plugs for when I grow up. )