Temporary fixes that ended up permanent

In these times of isolation I thought it might be fun for us to own up to past temporary fixes that we, for 'whatever reason' never got back to.
I imagine it is common in our game as pressure to keep production going can sometimes be overwhelming.

I came across a plc in a panel that seemed totally dead. It had power at all the right terminals but nothing was lit and of course, it didn't work.
They didn't have a spare so the boss sent someone on a long trip to get another. He was desperate to get it going again.

I grabbed the plc to move it further down the din rail to get at the screws and it lit up??
When I let go it went off again.
I worked out the spot I touched to make it come to life.

Nearby were some cardboard tubes. I cut one to length and wedged it between the plc and the roof of the panel.
It stayed on.
I rattled and prodded it and it carried on working.

I told the operatives they could run the machine until the new one came.

The boss said come back when they were not running to finish the job.

I've never been back to it and the new plc is still in its box at the bottom of the panel.

Yeah, around here, we call it 'bandaid on a bullethole'

One of our Maintenance engineers had a problem with an input on one of the I/O cards the input LED was showing energised when a limit switch was toggled but the internal electronics (probably the opto) was faulty, He deduced that all this dancing switch was doing was running a roll feed motor to stop the tension of the roll from tearing the web. he promptly connected the motor contactor to this switch as a temporary measure (there were no safety implications) so every time the roll tightened it would feed until the dancer switch released.
I ordered a new card and put the job request in our system, the job came out for the maintenance staff I presume when the new card arrived, however, some 3 or four years later when the company went into liquidation, I was kept on by the administrators to shut down the factory, Disconnect the machinery and liaise with any purchaser of the equipment while preparing the system for removal I noticed it was still in bodge mode!.

Here's a funny one from 40 years ago when I was an apprentice.
We had a works outing on a coach to the horse races.
On the way we were booked into a big pub for breakfast.....and beer.

When we got to the pub, the landlord told us there was no breakfast or beer as he had no power.
30 to 40 electricians got off the bus to investigate.
A long line of sparkies were all the way into the beer cellar and up the cellar steps giving advice.

The main isolator would not stay on. The handle would go up and connect but it sprang straight back down.
A sawn off brush later, wedging it in, we were sat at tables drinking beer waiting for breakfast.

Talking about Band-aid engineering, many years ago, I did a number of years as a TV engineer, although colour TV's were common by this time, many customers still had B/W ones. I was called to a B/W set that was probably as old as I was at a private hospital, these sets were very reliable and nearly all calls on the job card were for screen cleans (before integrated safety on the tube front) or replacement of the extra high tension valves that generated the kv supply for the anode. The fault was not fixable on-site, so a loan set was left and taken into our workshops. The back cover had a nose like feature sticking out by about 6 inches to accommodate the tube neck, this had broken off and the nurses there had used a length of sticking plaster to secure it back on.
In the workshop we did not have a spare back cover or any real means of fixing the "nose", so with the use of a black marker pen to colour the pink plaster so it blended in with the back, we fixed the fault and sent it back, no idea how long it was like this but calls to these sets were very infrequent and probably 3-5 years, I never saw it again.

Where I worked a few years ago we had an awful system for checking the weight of a reactor. The logic was absolutely incromprehensible and it interfaced with a modbus amplifier that read the values off of the load cells and did the taring and so on.

The modbus to DH+ was done via a nifty converter that could be set up with a network interface (I forgot the brand, but they were essentially closed for breaking some patents owned by Equustek).
This little device broke down one day. I went over and there were no lights when it was powered up. People are starting to stress about it, I notice that the company has gone down and a possible replacement is at least weeks away.

Since it was broken I took the part with me to my desk to get all the details and in a moment of curiosity decided to plug in a USB cable in the configuration port and voila... the little guy lit up.

Took the cable, an iPhone charger to the panel, plugged everything back in place and tried it with the iPhone charger powering it and it worked a treat...

Eventually the Equustek part did arrive but after weeks struggling and managers not very happy in having to give me time on the vessel I ended up leaving it until the vessel got some free time... until I left and I'm sure the charger is still there happily feeding the module.

parky said:

...replacement of the extra high tension valves...

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Heh, we don't need the flag to identify your country after that!

Yep that's right, very good at making do us Brits, In saying that, I contracted for the USAF in Europe for a number of years in the eighties, Yep they are good at it as well

The problem with temporary fixes is that they work and the machine/line/process/whatever is now running and there is no need to shut it down to fix something that is running.

I was working for a seafood processor in Alaska on Akutan Island doing a 6 month contract in '92. I was the only electrician they had for 3 weeks until they could get someone for the opposite shift (we worked 7 twelves, 2 shifts). The company was getting ready to add some concrete footings for new buildings and the backhoe operator dug up the conduit and wire to the fresh water pump-house and killed all the pumps. This was huge because not only did all the people and sanitation system need water, but they used fresh water to process and not salt water. I had to get out of bed and I wound up putting a 4 conductor #6 piece of SO cable from the panel to the pump-house by yahooing it over a storage shed and through 2 wall vents. About 20 some feet. Got it running in about an hour and went back to bed as a hero.
I finished my contract in '93 and it was still there when I left. FF to 2012. I went back to the same plant as a controls guy, was out walking around one evening and guess what? Yep. You can't make this up. 20 year permanent temporary installation.

I worked for International Paper, big plant it was about 1 million square feet, we had a high voltage feed, I think 2,160V (on the output)... we had a switchgear that was outside and on one raining day the rain shorted out the feed because the enclosure was rusted out on the top and blew a couple fuses that were a little smaller than me. When it blew it shook the lights like a 8.0 earthquake.

We called out our electrical company and had them suited up, shut down the feed, replace the fuses, I went to Lowes bought some blue tarps and bungee cords and the "temporary" fix was in place.

Long story short... long dry California summer but guess what happened again the next winter, we did fix it right after that one.

Glad I was just a 'hey boy' and it was not on me.

My friend had a temporary girlfriend he planned on dumping, but he ended up staying with her. Does this count or no? Haha

alive15 said:

My friend had a temporary girlfriend he planned on dumping, but he ended up staying with her. Does this count or no? Haha

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You and he better hope she either doesn't read this list or doesn't recognize your avatar LOL.

alive15 said:

My friend had a temporary girlfriend he planned on dumping, but he ended up staying with her. Does this count or no? Haha

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Getting something running and being h***y are 2 different things