Our new kitty, Sassy (Test Kitty) has found the wonderful and always interesting area of "our" garage workbench. Whenever she's around and I'm working on something on the bench, she'll jump up and investigate everything. Sniffing this-slapping that, biting this-clawing that. I've found that I can no longer get anything done with my new helper and apprentice "assisting me". I'm sure many of you have had to train new subordinates and can sympathize with me. I got smart this afternoon. I'm testing a bunch of high Voltage ballasts for power input and output. In addition to testing for power, I check ballast temperature and I check them for insulative quality – does any high Voltage leak out from poor wire insulation, poor connectors or from any part of the ballast metal housing. Well, kitty can read my electrical meters Okay but she has a hard time communicating to me what the readings are. I tried having her make all the electrical connections and setting up the camera shots. That didn't work either so I gave up on those. I was just beginning to think that there wasn't a job for Test Kitty. Then, by chance, I found just the right job for her. She was in the vicinity of the ballast and wire connections just as I was about to "throw the switch" and decided to lay down right there on all the equipment. No pun intended – "The light bulb went on" in my brain. I'll have Test Kitty perform the high-Voltage insulation tests. I now have her lie down on all the electrical wires, connections and the high Voltage (23,000 Volts) ballast and then I flip the switch on. If everything is Okay, Test Kitty just lays there and I know everything is good to go. However, if Test Kitty suddenly springs into the air and emits an ear-piercing shriek, then I've – we've found a poor quality setup. I couldn't ask for a better apprentice, could I!
(No animals were hurt or otherwise negatively affected in the making of these tests)
(No animals were hurt or otherwise negatively affected in the making of these tests)
