Tips.

[Tom Jenkins]

Oh... and never, ever, ever, eat green snow.../QUOTE]

Green?

Green??????

I was taught as a kid on the farm to never eat yellow snow, but how do you get green snow?

In the same vein, never drink downstream from the herd.

 

[elevmike]

2) If you bang your fingernail and blood starts to pool, take a very fine drill bit and drill a tiny hole at the base.

I've done this myself many times, however you should be aware that it may not be worth while as it's a very good way to introduce infection.

 

[ndzied1]

2) If you bang your fingernail and blood starts to pool, take a very fine drill bit and drill a tiny hole at the base.

I have had this happen to my big toe nail. A nurse, we were far from anywhere, burned a hole in the toe nail with a heated up paper clip. Although she claimed it was not supposed to hurt, it was immensly painful . Not sure about the drill except don't go too deep.

 

[Rube]

Green snow comes from cows drinking lime Kool-Aid and from the several Munchins scattered in certain areas of the country. About the only thing you can do with green snow is make green snowballs.

Wait a minute, I'm from Texas, what the hell do I know about snow?

 

[brucechase]

Yes, life is about risks and education. Knowingly doing something the shortcut way is WRONG!. I'll address a few of the comments towards me then I probably won't answer anything else in this (I'm sure a lot will be happy). Everyone will probably be able to bully me out of here at this rate.

Ron, this thread is about tips, not about what not to do. Even though I can understand teaching someone the school of hard knocks, I don't really see that happening. All I see is this is a way to do it and it's ok. Lancie1 still does the explosion method of inflating. There is not one tire or wheel manufacturer that would even remotely agree that this is an acceptable way of seating a tire. A quick search of the OSHA fatality show that dying from inflating tires does happen and more often than it should. In addition, the ether can still be in the tire and later on you can set someone up for a real surprise. As for the bucket trick, there are plenty of manufacturers that make current injection test sets. If someone I hired pulled a stunt like taking out a bucket and uncalibrated multimeter to trip test a breaker, I would get them off my site as fast as I could. Unfortunately, my company will still be partially responsible when he dies. By the way, where do you get a UL listed bucket?? If you are going to tell someone that I did this when I was young and dumb, then I feel there should be some responsibility to tell them the right way to do it - this is a tips and trick thread and most tips are ways TO do something.

Martb, I disagree that most people here have the common sense to not do something. Just look at the ressponse after mine that show these things are still done and are shocked that I would question these oldtimer tricks. This forum is to help people who don't understand and the don't do this - wink, wink, nudge, nudge - is here. I don't think that most people here seek mutilple sources of info, especially when multiple people say the same thing here. As for sitting back and laughing at these antics, that would be fine if no one ever did these again, but it still seems prevailent. I worked in a gas station where someone was inflating a tire (that was seated with starting fluid) when the rim separated (that's what cages are for). Luckily he wasn't in front of it but it did break his arm in multiple places. I didn't laugh at all.

Darrenj, anyone who wraps nails around wire and then plugs it into a wall is plain stupid. The possiblity of that falling on the ground or someone walking up to it while energized is just too great. The reason that you don't see that hotdog cooker anymore is because it was dangerous and removed from the market. 120 VAC can and does KILL.

I'm sorry if my OPINION offends the few here that I seem to have offended. I take pride in doing things the right and safe way and would hope other do to. I don't always know the best way that's why I visit sites like these to learn much more. I don't see some of these as tips and tricks, just a way to hurt someone. I am more surprised that after reading some of the threads that I've seen here about safety, estops, close calls in panels (You can recommend that a panel be finger safe and still plug nails into a wall socket??????) that more people don't have problems with this. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Or is give a man a fish and then show him how NOT to fish. Maybe I'm just confused or maybe I'm having a bad day and needed to rant. Either way thanks for listening.

 

[Johnny T]

Oh... and never, ever, ever, eat green snow.../QUOTE]

Green?

Green??????

I was taught as a kid on the farm to never eat yellow snow, but how do you get green snow?

In the same vein, never drink downstream from the herd.

Yep.. you're right...

(although maybe the correct statement should be, if you are going to eat snow.. make sure it's white)

 

[MartB]

Brucechase, I'm not offended by anything you said.

I may disagree with several points, but that doesn't make either you or me wrong, it simply means we have a difference of opinion and to me that's healthy (after all opinions are like a$$holes, everyone has one - you just don't need to hear it).

I would personally NEVER take anything I read on this site as the 'gospel truth', in fact I usually always back up anything I learn from this site by either experimentation before implementation or I contact an 'expert' armed with the newly gleaned knowledge in hand.

To blindly beleive anything you see or read on here (or anywhere else for that matter) would seem a little naive to me.

Ask yourself how many times you've checked to see if the paint is really wet when you've seen the "Wet Paint" sign ? If someone tells you that they just farted, why do you wait until you can smell it before moving away ? When someone said the world was flat, why did someone else try to disprove it?

As humans we are constantly curious, just because someone says something doesn't make them right or wrong, it's simply an opinion (sometimes based on fact).
I'm not saying that I approve of some of the tips (a loosely used term in this thread )that have been described here or that you should think of experimenting with them but surely at some point common sense must prevail, as after all, we all have a survival instinct.

Discovery is they key to all things, without failure there would be no success (can't remember who said it).


And here endeth my rant for today too!

 

[rsdoran]

Ron, this thread is about tips, not about what not to do.

A tip can be "how/what not to do" as much as "how/what to do".

I think you are getting way off with the UL listing and certified meter thing, we were discussing a troubleshooting technique that could be used in a pinch. In general placing electrodes roughly a foot apart in a plastic container of any kind is FAR SAFER than holding a welding electrode in your hand with grounded components all around. Lets assume some common sense is being used and we are talking about 15-20a ckts, not 400a but a welder could be 400a.

You require NIST certification for all your electricians meters? All my meters are NIST certified but I do that for personal reasons, in all my years I have never been asked for certification of my meters/equipment.

Long ago in grade school I created an electro-magnet, the components were a nail with wire wrapped around it. In tech school one of the first projects was an electro-magnet...again metal (not a nail) with wire wrapped around it. In both cases DC and AC was used.

Technically a coil, motor or any inductor is nothing but a nail with wire wrapped around it

Over the years I have used this method to make "stingers" that will heat water for coffee etc. This can also be purchased anywhere but any camping supply or truck stop will probably have.

I ain't the genius nor as educated as you are but if you do not agree with the methods stated then provide an alternative and state why it is wrong. There are numerous tatics used everyday by maintenance, electricians, and engineers that I think are BAD BAD HABITS.

Its time for my first class of the new semester, maybe I can become smart like some of you one day. One last comment though.

Everyone will probably be able to bully me out of here at this rate.

If that happens then you aren't half as smart or half the man I thought you were.

 

[MarkTTU]

I ain't the genius nor as educated as you are but if you do not agree with the methods stated then provide an alternative and state why it is wrong. There are numerous tatics used everyday by maintenance, electricians, and engineers that I think are BAD BAD HABITS.

You know I have a LOT of bad habbits and have even done some pretty stupid things working on equipment and so far none have killed me, but then again I've got pretty good common sense and a huge desire to live; those have kept me alive to fight another day.

I've got a BSEE from what I think is a very good school (Texas Tech, but I'm biased) and I can tell you that at least 90% of what they taught in school doesn't help me one bit when I'm working on a machine at 3am without the 'proper' tools and 200 miles from the nearest (closed) store that might have the right tools.

In my opinion coming up with unique ways to deal with problems are what separates good techs from typical engineers. My grandfather was a pretty damn good at designing ways to move oil and water around, but he couldn't tighten a screw to save his life; good engineer, bad tech. Neither engineers nor techs are really any better than the other, different jobs completely (hence why techs can earn more $$$ than engineers sometimes), but if you've got good tech skills AND good engineering skills then you are really valuable (and rare).

I guess what I'm trying to get at is just because someone has used or does use some method that isn't 100% safe nor 100% certified and listed doesn't make the method bad just possibly unsafe... Then again safe is really a very loose term; what is safe for me to do while working on a machine I designed and built that I have done X, Y, or Z to may not be safe for someone else to do.

 

[Lancie1]

Dan,

Don't believe everything you read about mercury. I suspect that a person would have to try pretty hard to absorb enough mercury through the skin to be dangerous. Like you said, it was used in tooth fillings! When I was a kid in school, many of the boys used to carry around mercury in their pockets. We would take it out and roll it around in our hands to coat pennies and make them shiny.

Many of the "environmental hazard" claims are overblown and overstated. This is true of asbestos, DDT, Freon, and many other chemicals that have been banned. The EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) is often swayed to be on the "safe" side of every issue. The ban on DDT, for example, has caused many deaths in countries with lots of mosquitoes and malaria. Once a ban is made, the government spends a lot of time and effort on publicity to convince everybody that they are right. It seems to work on most people.

 

[Steve Bailey]

The ban on DDT, for example, has caused many deaths in countries with mosquitoes and malaria.

So how does the EPA ban on the use of DDT in the United States cause deaths in other countries? The last I heard, the EPA has no jurisdiction outside the USA.

 

[Lancie1]

Steve,

I am not real sure about that. That information came from a PBS show about malaria. They did not say how the US ban caused other countries not to have DDT, only that it did. I think it is because most of the DDT was manufactured in the US. Several of the patented insecticides were owned by US chemical companies. When we banned it, many other countries (that follow the US lead) also banned it. I know that DDT is still available in some countries, but at a much reduced supply.

I do know that since it was banned, that every spring my garden has been eaten up by various bugs.

 

[OkiePC]

Back to the original subject ...

Here's a tip for troubleshooting E-stop circuits, or any circuit that intermittently "drops out" but is normally on all the time.
Use plug-in relays, with manual operators and indicators, and wire them to various test points in the relay logic string. Manually operate the relays and they will seal in. When the fault occurs, any test relay connected downstream of the faulty device will drop out. It can take several attempts, moving the test points each time, but this can help isolate these types of problems.

 

[leitmotif]

Dan,

Don't believe everything you read about mercury. I suspect that a person would have to try pretty hard to absorb enough mercury through the skin to be dangerous. Like you said, it was used in tooth fillings! When I was a kid in school, many of the boys used to carry around mercury in their pockets. We would take it out and roll it around in our hands to coat pennies and make them shiny.

Many of the "environmental hazard" claims are overblown and overstated. This is true of asbestos, DDT, Freon, and many other chemicals that have been banned. The EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) is often swayed to be on the "safe" side of every issue. The ban on DDT, for example, has caused many deaths in countries with lots of mosquitoes and malaria. Once a ban is made, the government spends a lot of time and effort on publicity to convince everybody that they are right. It seems to work on most people.

Lancie
First let me qualify myself to speak. I have a MS in Industrial Hygiene and Safety and 20 years field NOT office experience.

The EPA has to be more cautions than OSHA. OSHA is designed to protect the healthy adult worker. EPA has to protect the worker popultaion plus the unhealthy and sensitive unborns, newborns, sesiitive, elderly, asthmatic etc etc.

We just wiped out nearly a dozen miners in Va. Supposedly according to the media that mine has received many citations from Mine Safety and Health. Now if that is true, (I don't trust the media), I would favor putting the present and former managers in jail or better yet back in that mine for a year or two - give em a dose of their own medicine so to speak.

When I posted re Mercury I did not mention skin exposure. In teh case of mercury skin absorption is very small especially compared to airborne. The lung has a surface area for absorption approx that of a football field and only a single cell barrier between the air (in alveoli) and the blood. Surface area of the skin is only a square yard if I recall and it is several cell layers thick.

Other stuff like asbestos. Well I filled out the worker comp claims for Bremerton shipyard. Saw plenty with death certificates for asbestosis and mesothelioma (not sure of spelling been a few years - thankfully). Americn industy knew it was dangerous - so did the military. I think shipyard workers were written off as future casualties - but WWII had to be fought and won and asbestos was needed for fuel efficiency to get ships across the Pacific.
Asbestos is like anything else
improperly handled it WILL cause problems
leave it in place properly wrapped it is no problem.

DDT was banned in US because it was too good an insecticide - it did not biodegrade - that is how it travelled up the food chain to eagles and other raptors and caused egg shell softening. It is legal in other nations. Yes refusal to use DDT can cause bigger problems with malaria but I think you will find that is a matter of government economics and indifference. BTW it can still be used in USA with special permit -- they did in Oregon for gypsy moth I think it was before they developed BT bacillus thruingen (spelling??).

There is NO safe chemical including water and on out to nitroglycerin
There ARE safe ways to handle them.

The truck tires etc -- true split rims are (or were?) extremely dangerous. In my mind with split rims that is what a tire shop is for - I am not qualified to tangle with em.

Electric testing with water solution (NON salt BTW). In Idaho Falls the dummy load for US Navy training reactors was a large tank of water with 3 electrodes - 440 three phase. Electric testing can be shaky it is temporary under less than ideal conditions. Done properly it is OK in my mind.

Now for my rant - I keep hearing about all this UL listed stuff.
How is it I can buy absolute JUNK with a UL stamp on it? I know NEC requires UL or other approval but I am not favorably impressed by just a UL sticker. Now if it were CSA or NY fire marshall I would trust them. But in my mind UL is a waste.

Dan Bentler

 

[elevmike]

I do know that since it was banned, that every spring my garden has been eaten up by various bugs.

Start you hot hot peppers early, toss them in a blender and spray spray spray. Spray after every rain... Seems to make a difference for me. Cabbage taste funny thou..