Question Your biggest "Oh ****" moments with computers

[kamaz]

Dramatis personae: (M)e and a New (E)mployee:

(E) - I'm sorry. I... I broke the workpiece support for the CNC machine. [Basically a piece of metal which keeps the milled object in place]
(M) - You... broke... the... support?
(E) - Yes. (She's almost sobbing at this point)
(M) - Thanks be to God!
(E) - ???
(M) - You've been here for 3 months and you still haven't broken anything. I was afraid that you would break the CNC machine itself -- and then we would have a real problem!

Said employee is still with us 4 years later, and still working on that CNC machine...

 

[Urwumpe]

Reminds me on the attempts to make a robot mix cocktails... we had bought a large box of IKEA glasses, but only broke two in the end... one by dropping it 3 cm from another box while cleaning up, the other by hitting it with my hand and throwing it from the table....

 

[BerZerK]

That happened 15-20 years ago but i still have a bad habit to recover my tower computer cases for too long, after i tinkered around in my PC assuming i have to do more until i tried something out, i know i am just too lazy. Well, tower computer cases stand right beneath the desk on the floor, of course. Back then i had a male cat, and male cats tend to spray of course even if they are castrated. Well i bet you guess what happend. That day when i got up in the morning i went downstairs to my office and already from the staircase i heard strange "beep codes". First i was too tired to realise that my computer was crying havoc, i just wondered whats that strange noise. it was like a emergency ambulance "bee bop bee bop bee bop bee bop". When i entered my office i panicked because it was my computer! In the night the cat pissed right into the case and graphics card, sound card was messed with a yellow stinky sticky something! I turned off the computer and tried to clean it but the liquid caused an electrical shortcircuit and fried the parts..... the beep codes were of course the warning that the graphics card wont work after the computer self restarted. I loved my tomcat very much (R.I.P.) but that day i hoped that his dick got a decent electrical shock :dry: Well, and i still dont close my computer cases immediatly after i worked on it.

 

[jedidia]

I'm sorry. I... I broke the workpiece support for the CNC machine.

You mean like, the vice? or the bed? How would you break a vice? Those things are so indestructible you could probably reuse them as relativistic KKVs... :lol:

I produced a few "head vs. vice" incidents myself (head of the machine, not mine, of course). The head always lost. I've gotten real good at resetting the darn thing... :lol:

But when we start talking about "oh sh..." workshop expieriences, not just computer related, I get trouble picking. The most shocking one was probably when the screw socket of the z-spindle of the grinding machine gave out (really, really old machine...). There were bits and pieces flying all over the place when the head came down... :shifty:

 

[kamaz]

It's a laser milling machine, i.e. the laser is shining down on the XY table, and the milling is done by moving the table while switching the laser on/off.

Since the machine is mainly used for cutting very thin... things, the workpiece is not placed on the XY table directly, because it is virtually sure that the laser beam will cut through the processed material and start milling the table, and after a few runs we would have to replace the table. So we use a kind of intermediate holder which is placed between the workpiece and the original table. For technological reasons, the top surface of the holder is covered with ceramic tiles. She dropped the holder, which (Murphy's law) fell on the top side, and the tiles cracked. Not really a loss, because the tiles are the expendable part -- every few months they are broken off and new ones are glued in place.

 

[jedidia]

Ah, I see... kind of similar to putting a grinded piece of metal under a thin workpiece when you have to mill a breakthrough with a conventional milling machine. Except in that case, the support is one-use by definition, of course.

 

[richfororbit]

I left my computer on overnight, plugged in, in a Florida summer.

Thor himself blew right past the surge protector and completely fried my computer.

Damn, it gets very hot out there for computer equiptment doesn't it.