Funny Story

Mark Snodgrass · Jan 5, 2011

What happens when you mix a mouse using the bathroom and a PLC processor? A PLC with cleared memory.

Came in Monday to the call from our Planermill Manager saying nothing would work, and when he opened the PLC cabinet to check for a tripped breaker, a mouse jumped out at him.

Got over there and found the PLC faulted, cleared memory. Pulled the processor out to find mouse turds in it, but was not wet at all (the pee must have dried).

Reloaded the program and it went right back to work. Only had to reset the product data which of course had changed since the last save.

Why did that mouse have to relieve itself over the processor and not some random I/O card that would have been easier to fix?

LOL

OZEE · Jan 5, 2011

An engineer friend of mine years ago told me a story from when he was a kid growing up on the farm. One of his jobs was to keep the chickens in their pen. As an early "pre-engineer" already interested in such things, he was always seeking to build a better chicken-catcher to make this job easier. Years later, he realized that building a better chicken-catcher wasn't the right answer -- he should have fixed the hole in the fence so the chickens couldn't get out.

Moral of the story: PLC enclosures aren't decorative items where we have rack space to hang our PLCs. They are intended to protect them. If you have mice in your enclosure - fix the holes! You will have (or rather, most likely already have...) other rodent damage -- they'll eat the insulation off the wires.

OkiePC · Jan 5, 2011

Rats and mice LOVE pvc, and rubber apparently. You should see what they did to my Jeep and my old blue truck.

keithkyll · Jan 5, 2011

Did you clean the PCB? The remaining dried contaminants are a moisture sponge. In high humidity conditions, it will fail again.
I've seen severe contamination of CPU motherboards. The liquid is somewhat caustic, and corrodes solder joints.
Thorough cleaning is a must.

Ned_Flanders · Jan 5, 2011

I've had a couple if "mouse" incidents.The 1st was where they came into a farmhouse at harvest time and started eating the lead sheathed rubber lighting cables. This kept tripping the RCD (GFCI to you gents over the water).

The 2nd was another farm building - the Earth trip kept operating when the grain drier centrifugal fan was started. I immediately thought of mice and looked inside the motor terminal box and there, laying across the motor terminals was a very dead mouse. It must have crawled along the flexible conduit!!!

adel1961 · Jan 5, 2011

actaually you have to clean the whole panel because that pee smell if it is from female would attract all the males in the plant straight to your panel then would be converted to a rat farm.

leitmotif · Jan 5, 2011

adel1961 said:
actaually you have to clean the whole panel because that pee smell if it is from female would attract all the males in the plant straight to your panel then would be converted to a rat farm.

OK to be humorous
Put a cat in the panel. Hmm if you wire with CAT 3 or 5 would the CAT part suffice?

Mice rats and relatives have teeth that keep growing - they must chew to keep them from getting too long.

Dan Bentler

JeffKiper · Jan 5, 2011

Dan please don't quit your day job or night job or any other job that you have to be a comedian.
I would stay awake at nights worrying about you make enough money to eat.

Dravik · Jan 5, 2011

Well I laughed

Rube · Jan 5, 2011

So now Mark has a PeeLC in his Panel?

leitmotif · Jan 5, 2011

JeffKiper said:
Dan please don't quit your day job or night job or any other job that you have to be a comedian.
I would stay awake at nights worrying about you make enough money to eat.

Threethoughts
1. Well someone thought it humorous
2. Send money please, Jeff. Am willing to make it easy on you to do wire transfer or automatic deposit.
3. As Lincoln said you cannot please ALL the people ALL the time

Dan Bentler

JeffKiper · Jan 5, 2011

I did get a laugh smile out of it.
I am just concerned about your well being.

You did know I was joking I hope. If not I am sorry for offending you.

Alan Case · Jan 5, 2011

Mice on top of the processors is a big problem. It is usually a warm spots in a switch board so they sit there if the weather is cold.
And everyone else is correct, when it gets humid the processor could fault again.
Regards Alan Case

leitmotif · Jan 5, 2011

JeffKiper said:
I did get a laugh smile out of it.
I am just concerned about your well being.

You did know I was joking I hope. If not I am sorry for offending you.

Jeff
Two things
1. Was deeply offended. Will sue for defamation of character slander non PC, civil rights violation and other bogus charges I can dream up. Let us save each other a bunch of time and aggravation and just send money.

2. THE TRUTH Was not offended. Send money anyway..

Heard from a guy who serviced residential electrical on a North Dakota military base. Underground transformers blew out in winter due to burrowing animals seeking heat.

Dan Bentler

JeffKiper · Jan 5, 2011

I have been to several HVAC service calls where mice and critters where fried across the lines on contractors. Once a got a call from a plumber about a water leak. The plumber called because the AC was running in the winter. A rat was fresh across the contractor holding it in causing it to run.

Funny Story

Mark Snodgrass

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