What mistakes have you made?

star882

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Sep 7, 2002
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C:\\Program Files\\CPF
The title says it all.
One of mine is a wiring mistake on a breadboard so a LED is connected directly across the 12v supply.
When I turned it on, the LED blew in two.
It is only a dim red LED, so I wasn't too pissed about this.
 

budlight

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Sep 14, 2002
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Austin, KY
I looked straight into my G2 after installing a P61 to see if it was working (duh). Not nearly as bad as looking into a loaded 44, though.

Mike-
 

Canuke

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Aug 31, 2002
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Stuck in California again
Let my soldering iron hang straight down off the bench rather than park it someplace. Managed to fry right through my pant leg and sock... never felt a thing, but it sure stank for a while.

Also parked my car on what turned out to be a partially frozen, very large puddle... I come back about two hours later to find twenty foot shards of ice splayed around my car, which was submerged up to the rocker panels. It was fun gettin the car out of the water... followed by getting the water out of the car. It had come in through the holes meant to work the other way, and was sloshing around shorting the electronics. The engine was not happy about that. Parking brake became unusable until April. No permanent damage, though.
 

Lurker

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Nov 6, 2002
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The South
I was soldering something and instead of holding it over the workbench, I absent-mindedly held it over my lap. A nice big blob of molten solder dropped onto my bare thigh. Second-degree burn.

I've been more careful since.
 

avusblue

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Nov 26, 2002
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Saint Paul, Minnesota
As a teenager, I was changing the oil on my car. (a beuatiful 76 Monte Carlo with 350 V8, "Landau" padded vinyl top, 8 track tape, and red crushed velour seats -- can ya picture it?). I forgot to put the oil pan bolt back in. I poured three quarts of oil right through the engine before the spreading slick reached my feet. Of course, I only had enough oil on hand to do the intended job, so I had to walk a couple miles round trip to a gas station to buy enough oil to properly fill the engine.

Never did it again, though, and I think of that incident with a smile every single time I've changed oil since.

Dave (still doing my own oil changes)
 

Monsters_Inc

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Oct 8, 2002
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654
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Monstropolis
2nd day of PT Surge ownership, I decided to get out my 'Sabco optical and sunglass cloth' and clean the bulb. After removing the bezel, I turned the light on for about a minute or so and dropped cleaning alcohol on it, hoping it would be quicker to evaporate off the bulb.
As it dripped, the bulb exploded on impact and there was a massive hole exposing the filament.
 

Nerd

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Jun 19, 2002
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Singapore
5th day of PT Surge Owner ship. I decided to hook the bulb up to the bench power supply, dial it up to 6 volts... OOOOoo nice... okay... 6 volts is nice... Let's pop in some lithiums..... Turn on torch....FWAH!!! Brite! Hey who turned it off? I sure didn't? Then only had I realized what happened... sad...didn't manage to get my bulb for 2 months afterwards till my uncle in US shipped it to me....
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Greta

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Apr 8, 2002
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Arizona
First mistake... bought a bulldog.

Second mistake... bought another one.

'Nuff said.
 

Roy

Farewell our Curmudgeon Administrator
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Apr 14, 2002
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Granbury, Tx USA
I took my Inretech AAA Adapter #001 and put it in the Brinkmann LX (yes it sorta fits). Forgot that the two batteries were 3vdc each! Turned it on and, OH MY!, what a bright LS!!!
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Now it just barely glows on 3vdc!
frown.gif
 

McGizmo

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May 1, 2002
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Maui
For the sake of band width, can I identify the mistake I haven't made. That is if I can think of one?
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I'll get back to this thread..
 

Illuminated

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Oct 26, 2002
Messages
886
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Tipp City, Ohio
Replacing a worn-out head on a friend's VCR...took out the the retaining screws...shoud have slipped right off! ??? O.K. - I'll have to use a puller...proceded to rip all of the hair-like wires from the pickup coils on the lower (stationary) circuit board, breaking the board into several pieces...then uttering "OH S41T!!! (Guess I should have unsoldered those pins from the top side first...)

Turned a fifteen minute job into six hours of micro-surgery with an exacto knife and a soldering pencil...and IT WORKED!

Lesson learned...D'oh!

John
 

tkl

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Aug 24, 2002
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Tx
the shorter list is what i haven't done.
 

Saaby

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Jun 17, 2002
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Utah
Logged onto this board (First, minor mistake) and then saw this guy Darell. His sig said "Darell, the EV nut." But I didn't notice that until after the post if his I read. Talking about LED nightlights and the fact that he left his on 24/7/365 he said something to the effect of "Kim gets annoyed by it and then I remind her that it takes more electricity to drive the EV 5 feet."

"Holy crap" I thought, "A real EV driver!" So I eMailed him and it was all down hill from there...or maybe he eMailed me first, but I responded...
 

geepondy

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Joined
Apr 15, 2001
Messages
4,896
Location
Massachusetts
As a teenager, fooling around with my 12 gauge shotgun with the safety supposedly on. Discharged the weapon and blew a hole in the ground 18 inches or so from my foot. Also severely sprained my finger as I was not holding the gun tightly and it flew from my hands. Luckily this was outside and nobody saw me. Decided I could probably live with myself if I didn't tell my parents.

In electronics when I first started out as a repair tech for a medical company, I plugged a $1200 module to a motherboard (not a computer motherboard), "one prong off" then powered up the system to let it warm up and immediately headed off to break. When I came back, there was lots of smoke and the fuses were blown in the power supply. The module was ruined beyond repair. Being 21 years old and the second week on the job, I thought for sure I was going to get fired but the tech who trained me just laughed and said we had plenty of spares.

As far as women? Well I'm pushing 40 and still not married so I guess quite a few mistakes!

Oh and as far as cars go, a valuable lesson I learned while changing oil is don't try to get by with a 9/16" wrench for a 14 mm bolt. I rounded off the head and had to have the bolt
drilled out.
 

fasteddie

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Jun 13, 2002
Messages
637
Location
Austin, TX
Last night, I left the dishwasher door open, didn't realize it and tripped and fell right on it. Bent like a piece of tin foil. Spent half the day today fixing it. Used a BFH and managed to get it bent back in shape.
 

Rothrandir

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Aug 17, 2002
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US
tried to use a disc sander to sharpen a metal scraper.

the scraper wasn't the only thing that was sharpened...
 
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