triode17
Super Member
Or doing a beautiful soldering job on a phone plug, only to realize I forgot to put the screw-on body insulator on the wire first.
Repair Mistakes & Blunders - what bonehead move have YOU pulled??
- Thread starter onwardjames
- Start date
Did I win the dr Frankenstein’s re surround awards? Yeah !! WoooI have used less TP in someones trees
Winners winner goon, toxic chicken dinner !!
triode17
Super Member
Here's three lifetime blunders:
1. In eighth grade, I built an AM transmitter kit in school. Not having a soldering iron stand, I would just place the iron on the table next to me. Well, I picked up the iron from the wrong end !! Good and tightly too. Burned my whole palm. Ran into the hallway and doused my hand under the water fountain. Had huge blisters there for a few days, but haven't done that since.
2. The second kit I built was a Heathkit IM-18 VTVM. After proudly completing it I wanted to measure something, so I figured I'd measure the power line. So I connected the ground clip to the wall and BANG. I accidently connected a 3 wire device's ground right to the AC mains. I still have it and it works fine but the burnt alligator clip is a reminder of things past.
3. At work, I once touched a 6v Tantalum cap. to a 28v DC power source. The cap. immediately blew up in my fingers. The main engineer noticed what happened and told me to be sure to wash out the cuts in my fingers because Tantalum is a heavy metal and could get into my bloodstream. I've been wary of Tant. caps. ever since.
1. In eighth grade, I built an AM transmitter kit in school. Not having a soldering iron stand, I would just place the iron on the table next to me. Well, I picked up the iron from the wrong end !! Good and tightly too. Burned my whole palm. Ran into the hallway and doused my hand under the water fountain. Had huge blisters there for a few days, but haven't done that since.
2. The second kit I built was a Heathkit IM-18 VTVM. After proudly completing it I wanted to measure something, so I figured I'd measure the power line. So I connected the ground clip to the wall and BANG. I accidently connected a 3 wire device's ground right to the AC mains. I still have it and it works fine but the burnt alligator clip is a reminder of things past.
3. At work, I once touched a 6v Tantalum cap. to a 28v DC power source. The cap. immediately blew up in my fingers. The main engineer noticed what happened and told me to be sure to wash out the cuts in my fingers because Tantalum is a heavy metal and could get into my bloodstream. I've been wary of Tant. caps. ever since.
The original speaker in my 1929 Atwater-Kent has a cone patched with a coffee filter that I glued on with rubber cement. I hid it on the back side though. The original leather surround is still intact but pretty dry. I should pull it and see if it will soften up with some neet's foot oil but at the same time I'm afraid of making it worse.
83Hertz
Well-Known Member
My favorite is the power cable with no fuse running through the door jamb... a lot of people are too lazy to find or make a hole through the firewall...
Saw a Chevy Blazer once where you could see where the amp wire used to be because all the insulation off the wire was melted into the carpet! I guess the wire melted off the battery before the carpet lit up...
I had a 1940 Ford hot rod as a teen. It wasn't registered so I couldn't drive it on the street, but I would let it roll back down my driveway then pop the clutch for a short burnout before slamming on the brakes (to avoid hitting the house!). Predictably, I broke the u-joints. Next problem was the ebrake didn't work. So I'm sitting there with my foot on the brake trying to figure out how to get the car back in the garage before my parents get home. I jump out of the car intending to push it in the garage. It immediately starts rolling back down the sloped driveway. In my panic I jam my knee under the bumper and immediately experience excruciating pain. I fall to the ground narrowly missing being run over as the car rolls down the driveway, across the street and narrowly misses crashing into parked cars on the other side of the street. I walked with a limp for a few days after that.
Same car different day. I was trying to straighten the kingpins on my Ford's straight axle. They're high carbon steel about 1.5 inches thick. So being the dummy I am, I put one on the concrete garage floor, get my 3lb sledge and whack the hell out of it. Well in accordance with Newton's Law, that sucker bounced straight up and hit me right between the eyes. I didn't get a concussion, but it did leave a mark.
Years ago I worked at a full service filling stationing in a very small town ......everyone who stopped in for gas automatically got their oil and coolant checked and all their windows washed......I had started the gas pump and pulled the dipstick to check the oil......at the same time another car pulled in and my buddy couldn't find the hood release, so I laid the dipstick down and went to help him find the hood release.....once done with that I went back to my car and picked up the dipstick only to quickly and painfully realize I had laid it across the battery terminals and it was red hot!......that thing burned the hide off every finger on my right hand, and it took some slinging to get it to turn loose, which only took more skin.......only has to happen once!
quiet
Addicted Member
Bought a pair of KLH 17 with wrong tweeters. Got correct tweets. Didn't notice the cross had been defeated and tweets were run full range. New tweets lasted about a minuet. Fixed crossover, got more correct tweets.
Fuel injected truck would crank and fill muffler with gas but would not fire. Found ignition problem, fixed ignition problem. Cranked truck, BIG BANG, really big 30 hz bang, truck started, neighbors came out, got new muffler.
That's all I got. No near death happenings.
Fuel injected truck would crank and fill muffler with gas but would not fire. Found ignition problem, fixed ignition problem. Cranked truck, BIG BANG, really big 30 hz bang, truck started, neighbors came out, got new muffler.
That's all I got. No near death happenings.
mikeybc
Listener
Was setting the bias voltage on my Rotel RA-840BX3. I had previously set the voltage to the spec in the service manual and adjusted for 0 offset but noticed the amp was generation virtually zero heat and it didn't sound very good...so I was setting the bias back to where it was before I saw the spec service manual. Anyway....my probe slipped and hit something that popped the fuse, After replacing the fuse one channel was running hot as hell after only a few seconds with no load. Mad at myself for screwing it up I just shut it off and it's been sitting out in the garage for about 5 years. Will probably toss it in the trash eventually. I still get a little pissed every time I look at it in the shelf.
Blasty
Solder Ninja
I thought of another one.
When I was 14, I was beginning to learn about old radios and how to get them working. I had a chassis and 12" speaker out of a console sitting on a table in my bedroom. I thought I was pretty smart after learning how to replace the old filter capacitors to get it running again.
One day, something possessed me to attempt unplugging the speaker while the radio was on, not fully understanding that the field coil was part of the power supply! The plug was pretty hard to remove so I wrapped my fingers tightly around it and proceeded to wiggle it out. Of course with my working hand firmly pressed against the chassis for leverage as I attempted to persuade the sticky plug, a finger managed to wrap around one of the field coil pins!
It felt like an animal with razor sharp teeth bit my finger as hard as it could, and I noticed soon after that my finger smelled a little like cooked chicken for a while...
A valuable lesson was learned about power supply topology, and I'm fortunate that my "victim hand" was the sole path for the current and that I didn't get it across the heart, through my other hand which was also on the chassis!
When I was 14, I was beginning to learn about old radios and how to get them working. I had a chassis and 12" speaker out of a console sitting on a table in my bedroom. I thought I was pretty smart after learning how to replace the old filter capacitors to get it running again.
One day, something possessed me to attempt unplugging the speaker while the radio was on, not fully understanding that the field coil was part of the power supply! The plug was pretty hard to remove so I wrapped my fingers tightly around it and proceeded to wiggle it out. Of course with my working hand firmly pressed against the chassis for leverage as I attempted to persuade the sticky plug, a finger managed to wrap around one of the field coil pins!
It felt like an animal with razor sharp teeth bit my finger as hard as it could, and I noticed soon after that my finger smelled a little like cooked chicken for a while...
A valuable lesson was learned about power supply topology, and I'm fortunate that my "victim hand" was the sole path for the current and that I didn't get it across the heart, through my other hand which was also on the chassis!
Romeo Wolf
Super Member
This one got a bit costly.
It was July of 2018, a few days before my 14th Birthday.
I needed a receiver to drive my recently (at the time) Acquired Sanyo SSV16 Floorstanding speakers. I wanted something simple to operate, especially when listening to the radio. Not something like an AV HT receiver where you have to go through all those settings to get where you want to be.
I liked vintage stuff at the time, and still do. So I settled for a Vintage receiver. One that provided plenty of power so I could shake the walls (not really)
I looked around on Craigslist, an' looked, an' looked some more. I was interested in a few Kenwood receivers my father had sent me listings of from eBay, but then I came upon this "amazing" 1974 Sherwood S-7900A! It was...well, to say the least, a bit yellowed on the front. But it appeared to work...60W/CH @ 8 Ohms, silver-face, Metal chassis! And the seller claims it works. We'll see about that.
So I confronted my father about it and we agreed to pick it up on the night of (July 23rd?) 2018.
Of course, it was in Portland. Though, not the nice side of Portland. It was in the sketchy outskirts of Portland. When we arrived, it was at this sh@$%y like 1950's Apartment complex, with crappy old beaters and s#%t. We knock on the screen door, and the Craigslist seller lets us in.
Once we were inside, it instantly smelled of Cigarettes. But at the time I did not know this was going to be a red flag. This Craigslist pot-smoker lady also had ye classic Black Cat with green eyes.
So we were asking questions about the Sherwood receiver (might as well call it the Smokerwood). And similar stuff. Then the seller's 16/17 y/o Son heads outside (through the front chamber door with the screen door, cour'st'i.) He gets in his really sh%$#y (early 60's?) Chevrolet (Impala?). Cranks the starter. It is super damn loud. Like I don't even think it even had an exhaust system. So we close the front chamber door and go on our conversation.
At one point I think I asked if she had any speakers to test it with. She replied with "unfortunately no". There goes another red flag, at least in this case. But the Smokerwood seemed to be in decent shape. There was nothing missing of it. Only a few bulbs burnt out, but seemingly nothing major.
It seems good enough to me, so of course the seller asks if I wanted to purchase the Smokerwood. I say "yes" and go on our way. We paid a whopping $175 for it. For this damned thing that came out of a smokehouse.
Anyway, we get home and I bring it upstairs to my lair of speakers. It smells like Cigarettes obviously. So I open the window to let the smell out.
I had my father hook it up, but of course, with the ancient screw terminals, it was a major major pain in the ^$&. Anyway, after we got it hooked up to the Sanyo speakers, we turned the volume up (because it was also the on/off switch), and shimmied our finger into the (Front) speaker A button.
The Smokerwood let out a rambiciously loud 120Hz hum that sounded like it would deafening our ears. So we turned it on and off multiple times to see if it would fix the problem.
Still there.
Triple checked wiring connections.
They're all correct and not touching each other.
Still there.
We decided to hook it up to an Extension cord. Did that.
Still there.
At this point we've run out of options, so I just decided to put it in the closet because the room was reeking more of cigarettes than the window could evict. That fixed the smell problem, at least mostly. My room STILL Smells slightly of Cigarettes to this day LOL
A few days later we contact the seller that we wanted a Refund. It was Monday. She texted that she was out of Town. Bigger red flag.
When she got back from vacation (I don't remember what day), she said she had spent ALL our $175 for her Vacation. Oop, major red flag right there. That's the last I tried to refund of it. Got wasted of $175 for a receiver that has been diagnosed with bad power supply capacitors.
Keep in mind that this was my FIRST (yes, first) Craigslist purchase, so I didn't know the red flags at first.
But there's some good in here.
In between buying the Smokerwood, and trying to refund the money, my father seeked for a Replacement.
This time on Facebook Marketplace.
Welp, there just so happened to be another 1974 Sherwood S-7900A on FB Marketplace, this time for only $100. Definitely in better shape than the Smokerwood. This time the seller was a man, and not a Smoker thankfully. He was much more informative than the pot smoking lady. And he had speakers hooked up to it! To be specific, I believe it was a pair of 1970's Wharfdale Denton's. And it was playing, too! Sounds really damn nice, and warm too. The seller clearly told me that one of the buttons are missing, and that the volume control is Scratchy. Also the tuning light usually doesn't come on. But other than that, nothing really wrong with it. Just poor radio reception. He said the Wharfdales were also for sale, but I didn't buy them. I just took the receiver. I regret not buying the speakers because they looked really nice, and sounded really good too. Also they were like the size of small 4"-5-¼" Bookshelf speakers. So cute too.
Anyway, the second Sherwood works as it should and should be good to go for many more years! Meanwhile the "Smokerwood" is either going to be used for parts for a project or it may be Restored in the far future. As for now it sits in the closet.
Proof that this is a true story:
Smokerwood:
Working (2nd) Sherwood:
It was July of 2018, a few days before my 14th Birthday.
I needed a receiver to drive my recently (at the time) Acquired Sanyo SSV16 Floorstanding speakers. I wanted something simple to operate, especially when listening to the radio. Not something like an AV HT receiver where you have to go through all those settings to get where you want to be.
I liked vintage stuff at the time, and still do. So I settled for a Vintage receiver. One that provided plenty of power so I could shake the walls (not really)
I looked around on Craigslist, an' looked, an' looked some more. I was interested in a few Kenwood receivers my father had sent me listings of from eBay, but then I came upon this "amazing" 1974 Sherwood S-7900A! It was...well, to say the least, a bit yellowed on the front. But it appeared to work...60W/CH @ 8 Ohms, silver-face, Metal chassis! And the seller claims it works. We'll see about that.
So I confronted my father about it and we agreed to pick it up on the night of (July 23rd?) 2018.
Of course, it was in Portland. Though, not the nice side of Portland. It was in the sketchy outskirts of Portland. When we arrived, it was at this sh@$%y like 1950's Apartment complex, with crappy old beaters and s#%t. We knock on the screen door, and the Craigslist seller lets us in.
Once we were inside, it instantly smelled of Cigarettes. But at the time I did not know this was going to be a red flag. This Craigslist pot-smoker lady also had ye classic Black Cat with green eyes.
So we were asking questions about the Sherwood receiver (might as well call it the Smokerwood). And similar stuff. Then the seller's 16/17 y/o Son heads outside (through the front chamber door with the screen door, cour'st'i.) He gets in his really sh%$#y (early 60's?) Chevrolet (Impala?). Cranks the starter. It is super damn loud. Like I don't even think it even had an exhaust system. So we close the front chamber door and go on our conversation.
At one point I think I asked if she had any speakers to test it with. She replied with "unfortunately no". There goes another red flag, at least in this case. But the Smokerwood seemed to be in decent shape. There was nothing missing of it. Only a few bulbs burnt out, but seemingly nothing major.
It seems good enough to me, so of course the seller asks if I wanted to purchase the Smokerwood. I say "yes" and go on our way. We paid a whopping $175 for it. For this damned thing that came out of a smokehouse.
Anyway, we get home and I bring it upstairs to my lair of speakers. It smells like Cigarettes obviously. So I open the window to let the smell out.
I had my father hook it up, but of course, with the ancient screw terminals, it was a major major pain in the ^$&. Anyway, after we got it hooked up to the Sanyo speakers, we turned the volume up (because it was also the on/off switch), and shimmied our finger into the (Front) speaker A button.
The Smokerwood let out a rambiciously loud 120Hz hum that sounded like it would deafening our ears. So we turned it on and off multiple times to see if it would fix the problem.
Still there.
Triple checked wiring connections.
They're all correct and not touching each other.
Still there.
We decided to hook it up to an Extension cord. Did that.
Still there.
At this point we've run out of options, so I just decided to put it in the closet because the room was reeking more of cigarettes than the window could evict. That fixed the smell problem, at least mostly. My room STILL Smells slightly of Cigarettes to this day LOL
A few days later we contact the seller that we wanted a Refund. It was Monday. She texted that she was out of Town. Bigger red flag.
When she got back from vacation (I don't remember what day), she said she had spent ALL our $175 for her Vacation. Oop, major red flag right there. That's the last I tried to refund of it. Got wasted of $175 for a receiver that has been diagnosed with bad power supply capacitors.
Keep in mind that this was my FIRST (yes, first) Craigslist purchase, so I didn't know the red flags at first.
But there's some good in here.
In between buying the Smokerwood, and trying to refund the money, my father seeked for a Replacement.
This time on Facebook Marketplace.
Welp, there just so happened to be another 1974 Sherwood S-7900A on FB Marketplace, this time for only $100. Definitely in better shape than the Smokerwood. This time the seller was a man, and not a Smoker thankfully. He was much more informative than the pot smoking lady. And he had speakers hooked up to it! To be specific, I believe it was a pair of 1970's Wharfdale Denton's. And it was playing, too! Sounds really damn nice, and warm too. The seller clearly told me that one of the buttons are missing, and that the volume control is Scratchy. Also the tuning light usually doesn't come on. But other than that, nothing really wrong with it. Just poor radio reception. He said the Wharfdales were also for sale, but I didn't buy them. I just took the receiver. I regret not buying the speakers because they looked really nice, and sounded really good too. Also they were like the size of small 4"-5-¼" Bookshelf speakers. So cute too.
Anyway, the second Sherwood works as it should and should be good to go for many more years! Meanwhile the "Smokerwood" is either going to be used for parts for a project or it may be Restored in the far future. As for now it sits in the closet.
Proof that this is a true story:
Smokerwood:
Working (2nd) Sherwood:
Poultrygeist
Lunatic Member
The moral of the story is ( as we say in the south ) "don't buy a pig in a poke".
Romeo Wolf
Super Member
True! though, I never heard that quote lol
Blasty
Solder Ninja
Hey Romeo, I too learned the cigarette smoke lesson on what I thought was a good trade.
When I was in middle school, I traded a color Sony watchman to my best friend in exchange for a nice 25" console TV that he had. I already had another 25" console in my room, but why not have two so we could all play Nintendo and Super Nintendo at the same time? His parents smoked indoors (as did he once in a while -- naughty naughty!) but I had no idea how that smell stuck to things. We left that TV outside for a while which improved things greatly, but the smell never went away completely.
Now to keep on topic with bonehead moves, how about another electrocution story. Around high school now, another friend and I liked to come up with creative ways to destroy junk electronics. We had some old motherboards and peripheral cards, an acetylene torch, and a 10kV @ 23mA oil burner ignition transformer.
To move that wonderful buzzing arc around the boards, I held two insulated wires in my hand. Not high-voltage rated (stupid), but it seemed to work. That is, until a moment when I was holding the wires with the tips a bit too close to my hand and flipped the switch. The arc found a pathway through the air, into my hand, through the air again, to the other wire. OUCH! It was not nearly as painful as the incident with the field coil speaker, but it did numb my arm for a little bit.
I wouldn't mention the torch if it wasn't relevant either. That's how I learned that the 3V lithium battery on a motherboard is *quite* volatile when heated.
We vacated the area for a bit after that thing let loose.
When I was in middle school, I traded a color Sony watchman to my best friend in exchange for a nice 25" console TV that he had. I already had another 25" console in my room, but why not have two so we could all play Nintendo and Super Nintendo at the same time? His parents smoked indoors (as did he once in a while -- naughty naughty!) but I had no idea how that smell stuck to things. We left that TV outside for a while which improved things greatly, but the smell never went away completely.
Now to keep on topic with bonehead moves, how about another electrocution story. Around high school now, another friend and I liked to come up with creative ways to destroy junk electronics. We had some old motherboards and peripheral cards, an acetylene torch, and a 10kV @ 23mA oil burner ignition transformer.
To move that wonderful buzzing arc around the boards, I held two insulated wires in my hand. Not high-voltage rated (stupid), but it seemed to work. That is, until a moment when I was holding the wires with the tips a bit too close to my hand and flipped the switch. The arc found a pathway through the air, into my hand, through the air again, to the other wire. OUCH! It was not nearly as painful as the incident with the field coil speaker, but it did numb my arm for a little bit.
I wouldn't mention the torch if it wasn't relevant either. That's how I learned that the 3V lithium battery on a motherboard is *quite* volatile when heated.
We vacated the area for a bit after that thing let loose.
Artie
Super Member
Now that I have over half a century of life under my belt, I think I've done almost all of these at one time or another.
To this day, I still occasionally wire a Les Paul selector switch backwards. Bridge is neck and vice-versa.
For some reason, I always get the Strats and Tele's right. Go figure.
To this day, I still occasionally wire a Les Paul selector switch backwards. Bridge is neck and vice-versa.
For some reason, I always get the Strats and Tele's right. Go figure.
mister-fixit
Active Member
Mistakes ? I've had a few .....(apologies to Sinatra)
Most recently I had just finished replacing a bad female USB plug on the motherboard of my expensive laptop.
While admiring my work and still holding the soldering iron , I briefly looked away and in an instant the iron touched the board unsoldering a couple of 0201 sized (smaller than a flea) surface mount resistors.
Too small to repair without microscopic tools... Made me sick.
Most recently I had just finished replacing a bad female USB plug on the motherboard of my expensive laptop.
While admiring my work and still holding the soldering iron , I briefly looked away and in an instant the iron touched the board unsoldering a couple of 0201 sized (smaller than a flea) surface mount resistors.
Too small to repair without microscopic tools... Made me sick.
, 