Mistakes that taught you the most?

@janner_10.
Definitely you were not to blame in that situation.

I agree but it would still suck... I did evacuate a trade school that was next door in CA, not really my fault either, also a PCB shop and our air scrubber stopped the same time our sulfuric acid decided to run away, not really my fault but I was responsible for getting it working before the 'cloud escaped'

We had to drive do the store and buy a truck load of ice and start dumping it into the tank, but by that time the news crew was there and filming already with 200 people standing outside it looked worse than what it was
 
Burned down 200,000$ worth of drives due to a floating neutral which wasn't checked by my team. The only thing that saved me in this situation was that my boss had made exactly the same mistake and didn't update the check procedure that site was using for the last 20 years.

Beyond the money, the bigger scare was the electrical damage that may have been caused to my teammates. Everyone was wearing proper PPE and followed proper procedures, so no harm done there.
 
Burned down 200,000$ worth of drives due to a floating neutral which wasn't checked by my team....

Around the middle of the 80s, in the company where I worked, a fortuitous disconnection of the neutral did important damage, including some small explosion in computers and photocopiers.

Since then I have always been a bit "anti-neutral" and if I can, I avoid using it in new cabinets.
 
Around the middle of the 80s, in the company where I worked, a fortuitous disconnection of the neutral did important damage, including some small explosion in computers and photocopiers.

Since then I have always been a bit "anti-neutral" and if I can, I avoid using it in new cabinets.

I don't remember at the top of my head anymore, but there are multiple advantages of a "Y" connected system as opposed to a delta. However, you do need to make sure that the neutral isn't floating otherwise you will burn down everything which has one... Expensive lesson to have learned.
 
What's the worst? Meat rendering, grease recycling or leather tanning plants?
I don't know about leather tanning, but I find meat rendering worse than yellow grease recycling. Brown grease smell is not as strong as rendering, but it smells like sh*t (literally).

Among the rendering smells, people have different opinions. For me, offal (viscera) rendering is the worst, but some people will say fish, other meat, etc.

The rendering smell is so strong that I had to wash my backpack afterwards. Your clothes need to be washed separately from the rest of the family. You wallet and even your belt will stink.
 
The rendering,plant I was at took animals and made biodiesel and animal feed.

I did some work at one, they took chicken by-products and they also had a small part where they were using algae... they went belly up, but it was a good try (y)

This was down the street from my shop about a year ago, I sent the picture to my wife so she would avoid it, it was a truck with chicken by-products that had to slam on the brakes because a girl pulled out in front of him, he had a 40ft trailer and when he hit the brakes about half the semi came right over top of his truck.... even after the clean up it still stunk for a month

chicken.jpg
 
The rendering,plant I was at took animals and made biodiesel and animal feed.
From the typical rendering plant to get protein meal (for animal and pet food, basically) and animal grease (for biodiesel, for example).
 
Went to a start-up 80 miles away through Los Angeles rush hour traffic and when I got there realized I forgot to bring the floppies (late 1990's) for the HMI (Advisor PC). That was a long drive of shame that day.



So I created a startup checklist after that.
A very nice weekend in our cabin up in the mountains. I brought my computer to maybe do some work. But Saturday night my wife wanted full attention (y) Anyway, a great weekend i t was.
We had just returned home, when I realized my computer was still behind the couch in our cabin! Nothing else to do than driving 3 hours back and 3 hours forth :angr:

Another one more related to work:
Very early in my career I was changing slip-ring carbon brushes on some rotating machine (cradle-type cable rewinder). Analog/relay control. Somehow I managed to mix up 230 V power and 24 V signal. I still remember the sinking feeling seeng white smoke erupt from of the main console. Luckily we had a very skilled and effective electrician who worked all night replacing burnt wires. Next morning we were up and running. (After first re-checking connections to the slip-rings!)

Keep your head in place! Still, your wife should not be neglected!
 
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Rendering plants, leather processing, grease--all bad to do anything there. I worked at several seafood processors in Alaska, both on ships and shore plants. I saw several new employees (start out on the line processing) turn right around after arriving on the island (at the plant) and want to go home because of the odor and a tote full of fish offal they saw on the way to their bunkhouse.
 

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