Brian and Ingemar,
I always knew there was something I really liked about you guys, besides the
fact that I don't have to work in close proximity to either of you.
Back in my early "plastic days ", I worked at a high-pressure lab. The
building was sunken and half enveloped by a mountain of dirt. Each little
reactor room had blow-out doors so in theory when an explosion happened it
would take out the support structure and bury the building to contain the
blast. The down-side is you were expendable. Come to think of it that's like
the Corporate mind-set of today.
I was doing hydrogenation and polymerization runs on 2nd shift and always
playing pranks on 1st shift and vice-versa.
This was a very high-tech lab and all the reactor charging, catalyst
additions, sampling, monitoring and purging was done remotely. The only time
you went in the reactor room was to do a partial extraction or complete
purge and shut-down. This was after many safety steps and checks.
One night we rigged up some nitrogen lines to the reactor and a container of
dry ice. When Charley ( our favorite target on day shift )shut down the
reactor we rigged the lines to start so that just when he was in the room he
would see what appeared to be white smoke coming from the valve that if you
saw this you were to immediately close it and leave the room. We had rigged
the valve so it was a by-pass so the more he closed it the more came out.
Just as his mind registered " Oh! Shit " the latex lab glove that was being
filled by the other nitrogen line exploded.
I'm pretty sure that facial tick of his cleared up over time.
Dewey
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian Ellis
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 1:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] NTC: electronic jokes
Also did air gun, but used soldering iron bits as "bullets" in a 1 m long
blowpipe with 8 bar airline. We targeted a pine panel at ~15 m.
They penetrated about 15 mm with a very impressive thump. Would have been
lethal against a person.
Also inversed the connections on the large smoothing elco of a colleague's
breadboard. Boom!
Funniest one was that we rigged a large centrifugal anode cooling ventilator
for 5 kW transmitter valves under the lab stool of the first lady engineer I
ever worked with (a rare bird in 1954). Of course, in those days, the
gentler sex didn't wear anything but skirts or dresses and fashion had them
flared. We waited until she was concentrating on her work when we switched
it on. The effect was exhilarating, accompanied by a loud scream. She was a
nice girl, actually, and a damn good engineer.
At college, the lab stools were wooden three-sided box-like affairs with a
slot in the seat to act as a handle. One of them was modified with a
spring-loaded plunger that came up through the slot when the seat was
depressed with a load of about 40 kg or more, purely mechanical.
We also had a fuse tester in an impressive professional-looking metal case
and multiple clips for all sizes of cartridge fuses. Every new engineer in
the lab, when he encountered a problem (usually engineered by colleagues),
would be invited to test the fuses. He would take them over to this
instrument, put them in and press the button, which would send a 50 A pulse
for 1 sec through all the fuses. A panel then lit up with the words, "Your
fuses were all right!". As "no one" had any spare fuses, this then involved
a long walk to another building (often in bad
weather) to get replacements from stores.
Not a joke, but an accident. One of my colleagues was working on a live 10
kW HF transmitter when his head got too close to the tank coil and an RF
spark jumped about 5 cm onto his nose. He instictively backed his head, hard
and straight onto the steel frame of the transmitter. He then bounced
forward again and did about three cycles of relaxation oscillation before
someone else was able to pull the plug (incidentally grilling the two output
valves at a hefty cost, as the cooling fans stopped while the anodes were
red hot). He was taken to hospital with severe 3rd ° burns to the nose
(needing extensive plastic surgery) and concussion. Really nasty, but also
comic to see his head going back and forth like a jackhammer, almost like in
a cartoon film. Fortunately for him, the tank circuit was a capacity-coupled
parallel one and not a series one in the anode circuit, otherwise he would
have received the full benefit of 15 kV DC, as well.
Brian
Ingemar Hernefjord (KC/EMW) wrote:
> The younger mates are so serious and selfcontrolled today. We used to have
more fun on the job when young. Like this one.
> We used a 30 kV DC supply with 100 meg in series, put finger on, and
> charged ourselves to plus 30,000 V. You needed thick rubber shoes of
> course. Walked out to coffee machine or else, met comrade, pointed at
> his nose and said 'you got something there' and touched his nose. The
> result was a audiable flash, a shriek, and then you had to defend
> yourself when the victim hammered on you. We modified the game.
> Connected the supply to the steal frame of the lab benches. When the
> chosen object sat down and rolled his chair near the bench, you heard
> the scream through walls. Next modification could stopped with a
> disaster. We connected 30,000 Volts to the door handle,and amused
> every time a selected poor guy jumped high by the flashover. However,
> one day, we forgot to remove the croc connector from handle, there was
> a knocking, the handle went down and a bounce on outside. And silence.
> Someone opened the door, and on outside was a shaky, stammering old
> postman, retired but doing so
me extra job as elder. We got frightened and asked him what happened. He
looked angrily on us, picked up the post from the floor and said "Nothing.
Nothing at all" and left. The supply was never used that way any more.
>
> Used battery gun. We found a whole bunch of used handtorch batteries and
10 feet long plastic tubes and other stuff, left by electricians after house
repair. One guy looked thoughtfully on the stuff, took a battery, put it
into the end of a plastic tube, went to an open window, grasped a
pressurised air pistol and pressed it into the plastic tube, elevated the
tube and pressed the "trigger" and off went the battery and landed some 50
meters away. We improved the version, threedoubled the pressure and the
whole thing ended in a game to see who could get most batteries into a steel
container 100 meters away.
>
> When television was not allowed on the job. Winter olympic game time and
work without knowing what happened. Unacceptable! A guy opened his Tektronix
oscilloscope, worked hard on overtime, and after couple of days he was
ready. All engineers were gathered in their white coats around the test
equipments. The boss appeared wondering why so many guys, looked over
shoulders and saw green sweeps on a number of CRTs. "Good, they are working
hard on the new TWT", he said to the next boss and they left, and closed
door. With some simple switch maneuvres on the oscilloscopes, the athletics
from the olympic games appeared on the little CRT. Green, everything green,
but what...no worries..we could at least see and listen. As soon as a
higher-in-rank appeared, someone whistled and..alas..a concentrated group of
engineers working hard...
>
> Soldering iron shooting game. We put a number of 150 Watt soldering irons
in vices. Removed copper tip and filled the cavity with the tips from
ordinary matches and pressed the copper back into the iron. All electric
connectors were plugged into a multipanel with a common switch. All went
out, last guy triggered the switch, and we waited. After some minutes
something like a machinegun was heard, we opened the door and inspected the
wooden wall to see who's copper tip had penetrated deepest into the wood
panel.
>
> Nuts? Idiotic?...yes...but we had fun.
>
> Ingemar Hernefjord
> Ericsson Microwave Systems
>
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