Dumb things we've done...

This thread jinxed me. I'm mounting pixels on my roofline using those square pixels that push into a 12mm hole. I've cut several strips of lexan and cut out all the holes using my cnc machine. I needed to add 10 pixels to a string of 50 and I'm pressing the pixels into the holes and got to where I spliced the pixels and wondered why is this pixel facing backwards. Then realized the arrows on the circuit board of the pixel were pointing the wrong way...doh. This wouldn't normally be too bad but I had already snapped in 50 pixels when I saw it...and I was standing on top of the roof having already mounted the lexan for the first 50 pixels. There was no way I was taking it all back down so I hauled an extension cord, my soldering iron, and heat gun out onto the roof and I flipped those 10 pixels around right there on the roof new heat shrink and all. I have clay roof tiles so you can only stand in certain spots without breaking them. Wasn't easy soldering with a cold wind and trying to stand there keeping my balance on an angle. Oh and I did all this in the dark with a headlamp. So no more disaster...the initial soldering mistake was the only issue...the recovery went quite well.
 
Father in-law accidently snagged his icicles in the rear door off his van and yanked them off the front of his house when he drove off. Had to remove two sections to repair the damage, but he's lucky the strings broke instead of removing his facia board.
 
Fixing up some blown pixels in strip. Had it on test pattern. Replaced pixel, didn't work. So replaced pixel plus one in front and the second pixel of the two replaced didn't work. Couldn't believe my bad luck as I thought the strip I was taking pixels from could be faulty. Test the spare strip I was taking from, all good. Take two more pixels from it and solder in. The second pixel didn't work again. Getting very annoyed by this stage (soldering hadn't been going well). Then double checked my controller settings. Set for 100 pixels. Pixel not working was 101.


Worst thing is I didn't even have to replace anything at all it was just the settings that were wrong. Obviously needed the soldering practice anyway. Still want to punch myself in the head though.
 
It gets worse. I just realised after finally getting my first strip fixed that I had already tested 4 other strips and cut out the "dud" pixel in anticipation of repair. A couple of those had broken pixels earlier on but a couple look suspiciously like they had a "dud" at pixel 101. Oh well. At least one strip is now fixed (it did have another broken pixel near the start). At this rate I might get things done by Christmas.
 
Yesterday evening I was working in the back yard setting a new fence post in concrete for a new chain link fence. I have been keeping the concrete in the garage so that it stays dry until I need it. When I was finishing up and putting stuff away, I took the wheelbarrow with the unused concreted around the front and into the garage. I decided to go out the back of the garage to finish cleaning up. I would hit the overhead door button to close it as I went through the back door. A couple of hours later I couldn't remember if I had closed the back door so I decided to check. When I went out into the garage not only was the back door open, but so was the overhead door. I had forgotten to hit the door button in the three seconds it took me to walk from the front of the garage to the back of the garage. Luckily nothing was missing.
 
Hooked up the 5mtr strip of 12v 60 pixel per meter lights that I got from Darylc at the Adelaide Mini to my E6804 and decided to test how bright it was on full white 100% brightness, didn't do the calculations in my head first to work out that 300 leds all running at full white off 12v would use more than 5amps. They were on full white for about 10 seconds before there was another bright flash and then there was no more bright white leds just a burnt out 5 amp fuse.... WHOOPS. Packed it all up and walked away, they board was still driving some other leds fine so it was just the fuse.


That's what I get for showing off to the Mrs and the little one. they were quite impressed even with the flash lol, I wasn't though.
 
firebug said:
This is a non blinky related situation but highlights the importance of the 'three points of contact' rule upon exiting a high vehicle.

I'll try to keep the story short. My job at the time required me to shower and dress in quarrantined clothes prior to starting work. This day there was not enough clothing for me so I had to 'improvise' and nick some ladies shorts that would fit a large hippo.

I proceeded to drive a semi trailer for the night in my parachute pants. In a hurry I pulled up to an eagerly awaiting crew to unload the trailer, I opened the door and jumped out. Yep..., there's ya mistake!

The leg of my shorts got hooked on the maxi brake lever conveniently located between the driver seat and the door. My atomic wedgie would've made the 'Jackass' boys proud. Not ready for this, I had no time to grab anything on the way down, so upsidedown I went. This left me with both my newly found pants, and my undies stripped down to my knees twisted tight, hanging upside down, hugging the steer tyre after smashing my face against the wheel nuts.

Unable to move, it felt like an eternity before anyone attended to my awkward situation. The rest of my crew were rolling about the place laughing and refused to come near me. One of the girls from the office ran out to help.
sm_moon.gif
It was a location joke, you had to be there... :-[
Click to expand...
ROFLMAO!!! Ok.. that one has me busting a gut!
 
Two weeks before the taping of the Great Christmas Light Fight we had a lighting storm. Wife said is everything going to be ok.. Of course since it was her idea to ask I said it would be fine..... I had all the power off.... Except... I didn't think about the Plasma Icicles on the house. They get power from a different breaker. Well, one or two of the strikes were very very close.... a few days later while finishing up some stuff in the yard my wife says "why are there a couple of pixels on?" as she is pointing up at the house.... "I don't know" I told her, "lets finish with the yard stuff then I will look". So two days later I turn on the Icicles....
"OH #@$%@Q#%&^@#$^$%@%#$" he said both out loud and to himself... many times....

Four and a half days of intense troubleshooting and rebuilding and sweating bullets later , I got them all back up and running. Had to rebuild about 50% of them. That was close! Good thing I had reels of spare pixels strips. Ran out of heatshrink. Borrowed some from Komby. (Thanks Greg).

Needless to say, when the next time she asked if the lighting power is still on during a storm.. I made sure it really was off.
 
Hey Plasma, Just as a FYI. I lived in Darwin for a few years and was a tv repair tech by trade.
The one thing I can say for sure is, Just turning off a supply won't necessarily protect it. You really need to unplug.
If you can imagine, the lightning jumped many hundreds of meters to get to your place, a couple of millimetres across the switch contact is nothing.
 
scamper said:
Hey Plasma, Just as a FYI. I lived in Darwin for a few years and was a tv repair tech by trade.
The one thing I can say for sure is, Just turning off a supply won't necessarily protect it. You really need to unplug.
If you can imagine, the lightning jumped many hundreds of meters to get to your place, a couple of millimetres across the switch contact is nothing.
Click to expand...
True that.. but without power on the strips the likelihood of an EMP failure should go down since everything is at one potential.. but you are so right.. it isn't a sure fire way.. we had three lighting storms after the taping of the Light Fight... I had power off for all three.. no damage... they were not as close as the one that got me the first time.. but at least I slept better those nights! ha ha
 
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