Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

I had an old 286 computer and when it was running, I stuck a flat head screw driver into one of the expansion ports. It displayed some weird messages on the monitor, being a little kid, I thought I was hacking the PC. I remove the screwdriver and insert it into another slot and next thing I know, a big spark and the whole PC just shuts down. It didn't work after that. Or atleast I don't think it did. I was soooo afraid to tell my parents. They just bought it for me (for around 100$). Later on, when I got to know a bit more about PCs, turns out the monitor that I had hooked up went dead (I'm assuming that night). So I guess there's a chance the PC still worked and it was just the monitor that I some how fried.

[ben7]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

That was pretty stupid.

Uh, make that very stupid xD

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

Yeah It was mistakes like that though that really made me want to learn how everything worked I guess. So in a way, I guess it helped me become who I am today.

[ben7]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

I had an old 286 computer and when it was running, I stuck a flat head screw driver into one of the expansion ports. It displayed some weird messages on the monitor, being a little kid, I thought I was hacking the PC. I remove the screwdriver and insert it into another slot and next thing I know, a big spark and the whole PC just shuts down. It didn't work after that. Or atleast I don't think it did. I was soooo afraid to tell my parents. They just bought it for me (for around 100$). Later on, when I got to know a bit more about PCs, turns out the monitor that I had hooked up went dead (I'm assuming that night). So I guess there's a chance the PC still worked and it was just the monitor that I some how fried.

I'm pretty darn sure I didn't do stuff this bad when I was younger xD

Well, only once did I stick a screwdriver in something without knowing what I was doing ... when I was a toddler. Now I have a scar to prove my love/obsession of electrical engineering xD

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

I'm pretty darn sure I didn't do stuff this bad when I was younger xD

Well, only once did I stick a screwdriver in something without knowing what I was doing ... when I was a toddler. Now I have a scar to prove my love/obsession of electrical engineering xD

I wasn't quite a toddler. Maybe 6 or 7. I know the guy we bought it from said something about it wouldn't run Windows 2. I had no idea what Windows was. I was around 6 years old, maybe 7 or 8. I used to rip everything apart when I was younger. With the PC, I saw those little slots and thought oh boy! Something goes in there! Lets try a screw driver!

[Trevtron]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

OMG, loving these- I've done quite a few of them myself, one frustrating incident was when the legend on the PCB was wrong, that 470μF didn't last long- trouble is my workshop is in the basement, and nasty smells permeate upwards through the rest of the house if I don't close the door in time- with the resultant complaints from the OH.
But by far my worst ever mistake was about 20 years ago. A friend had just acquired an old VW Beetle and "it wouldn't start". So, to save me time, he brought the starter motor round to mine to test it. Well, as it happened, I had a nice big Transit battery on charge, so I thought 'Easy, I'll just pop the starter across the terminals'. Anyone guess what happened next?
Well the resulting BOOM (the spark ignited the H2 & O2 that the battery was giving off as it was fully charged) not only destroyed a perfectly good battery, it also had numerous neighbours out thinking someone in the street had been shot (or worse) and had me in the Edinburgh Eye Hospital for the next 4 days. Also had to cancel a holiday to Florida.
Happily I lived to tell the tale, and no lasting damage (to me). The battery was a write-off, and the Beetle was never mentioned again.....

[ben7]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

But by far my worst ever mistake was about 20 years ago. A friend had just acquired an old VW Beetle and "it wouldn't start". So, to save me time, he brought the starter motor round to mine to test it. Well, as it happened, I had a nice big Transit battery on charge, so I thought 'Easy, I'll just pop the starter across the terminals'. Anyone guess what happened next?
Well the resulting BOOM (the spark ignited the H2 & O2 that the battery was giving off as it was fully charged) not only destroyed a perfectly good battery, it also had numerous neighbours out thinking someone in the street had been shot (or worse) and had me in the Edinburgh Eye Hospital for the next 4 days. Also had to cancel a holiday to Florida.

Yikes! LOL!

Well the resulting BOOM (the spark ignited the H2 & O2 that the battery was giving off as it was fully charged) not only destroyed a perfectly good battery, it also had numerous neighbours out thinking someone in the street had been shot (or worse) and had me in the Edinburgh Eye Hospital for the next 4 days. Also had to cancel a holiday to Florida.
Happily I lived to tell the tale, and no lasting damage (to me). The battery was a write-off, and the Beetle was never mentioned again.....

[mikay786]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

I've only been tinkering roughly a year but today I think I managed to goof up good.

Just finished a recap, ended up some how putting the main filter caps in wrong way round. Well one right way and the other wrong. Even had pictures of the board on my screen and they were clearly marked on the board. Only explanation is was fitting them upside down with one hand holding the cap in place.

Thankfully only blew the internal 10a fuses rather than anything else, oddly enough didn't blow the external 2.5a fuse.

[TechGeek]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

Did any of the caps go "POP!!!"?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

When you put an electrolytic cap in the wrong way, doesn't it just not work? I don't think I've ever heard of them shorting something or blowing fuses. Am I mistaken on this?

[goontron]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

Wrench across a 24v truck battery... There is now a white mark across my hand and fingers....

[eccerr0r]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

Putting a wet electrolytic cap the wrong way will cause electrolysis that will boil off the liquid in it. This will cause the cap to possibly explode from pressure. The pressure can also push the electrodes together causing a short, which will tend to destroy fuses not to mention boiling off even more liquid...

I don't know about polarized solid polymers, but the dielectric failure and causing solids to meltdown and subsequent short-caused rapid heating explosion quite possibly still applies.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

Putting a wet electrolytic cap the wrong way will cause electrolysis that will boil off the liquid in it. This will cause the cap to possibly explode from pressure. The pressure can also push the electrodes together causing a short, which will tend to destroy fuses not to mention boiling off even more liquid...

I don't know about polarized solid polymers, but the dielectric failure and causing solids to meltdown and subsequent short-caused rapid heating explosion quite possibly still applies.

Thanks. So when you say a wet electrolytic cap, does that just mean all electrolytic caps? I knew they were polarized but I just thought they wouldn't work. This is great knowledge. I'll make sure I'm extra careful in the future!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

I was hot wiring my Camaro when I was 18 or so. I would take a wire and from the fuse box, find a 12v source and run it to the accessory fuse. This would keep the car running after I took another wire and went from a 12v source to the starter. I can't remember if there was a fuse for the starter and I could simply use the fuse box trick to get it to turn over or if I had to crawl under the car. Anyway, one night I went to hot wire it and some how I managed to ground that 12v source. The wire pretty much evaporated. It left this indent in my thumb where it was. The indent was nice and white. I could lay a piece of wire the same size right in the indent. It hurt soooooo bad! After that, I just decided to replace the ignition switch!

[TechGeek]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

^Hey, at least the Camaro was okay.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

Don't know if you guys have seen this person before or not, but it seems he's made some really funny (and usually painful) mistakes more than a few times!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pmfr5CGDKY

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

when i was around 5-8 yrs old, i flipped the 220v psu switch to 110v to "fix" what i thought was either a noisy grinding hard drive or a noisy grinding psu fan. it was a nice fireworks show for a kid my age. but it wasnt a nice show for my mom when she saw her 10 grand 386 16mhz go up in smoke. i now worship universal ac power supplies and quiet hard drives and quiet power supplies as an adult.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

I was wiring up a stereo in my `67 Chevy while wearing a watch with a metal band. Reaching under the dash the band contacted the metal dash and 12v hot line and gave me a nasty burn on my wrist. That's an example of why we should removed rings and watches and metal jewelry before working with electricity. It drove the point home, I'll tell ya that.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

Note also that electrolytic caps, before the electrolyte gets damaged by reverse current, it will still work like a capacitor though at lower capacitance. There are also nonpolarized aluminum electrolytics that are designed a bit different and can take charge in either direction.

There are solid electrolyte electrolytic caps as well as tantalum electrolytic capacitors that are dry.

Just the run-of-the-mill aluminum electrolytics with rubberized bungs are "wet".

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Dumbest 'electronic' mistake you ever made

when i was around 5-8 yrs old, i flipped the 220v psu switch to 110v to "fix" what i thought was either a noisy grinding hard drive or a noisy grinding psu fan. it was a nice fireworks show for a kid my age. but it wasnt a nice show for my mom when she saw her 10 grand 386 16mhz go up in smoke. i now worship universal ac power supplies and quiet hard drives and quiet power supplies as an adult.

There isn't stuff in the power supplies to prevent them from going up in smokes when you flip that switch? I guess I'm lucky here, when we flip them to 220V, they just don't work. I just figured if you're in a country where 220V is the standard and you flip it to 110V, the power supply would detect the much higher voltage and just somehow prevent it from going through or knock it down to 110V somehow.