OK, alot of you are techs, so I must share this story. And find out if you have had similar occurances where your work or possibly at home.
We all know the burning smell when something "goes wrong" and to users, well even most of them are brilliant enough to know "Um... there's a problem." Maybe a little smoke. Rarely does an occasion like this come about and an actual fire takes place.
Well I work at a hospital and we have many computers, a phone switch dedicated to facility, PA system, and a pager system. Many of these "larger" pieces of equipment have Amps, or in the case of a phone switch, emergency backup batteries, inverters... Alot of things that un-qualified individuals shouldn't handle.
Well our pager system failed, and I being the tech went to check on it, the main transmitter amplifier blew. Big deal for a hospital, but our repair guys seemed pretty confident they would have it back the next morning. The next afternoon arrived, and they finally came back with my amp. We hooked it up, and started it up, and all of a sudden "the smell".
So while leaving the machine plugged in (pure and utter brilliance, might I add) the guys said, "Lemme open it up" so we opened the back panel, and could see, sure enough, burnt in the same place as last time... Just at that time someone tried to use the pager system, paging God knows who... and POOF! A 3 inch flame like a torch shot up for about 3 or 4 seconds until I unplugged it... I could have sworn we told everyone not to use the system until we were finished.
MORALS OF THE STORY:
1. Always unplug
2. USERS NEVER LISTEN!!!
Anyways, just had to share, if you have had flamboyant, or flamiliar experiences let me know!
We all know the burning smell when something "goes wrong" and to users, well even most of them are brilliant enough to know "Um... there's a problem." Maybe a little smoke. Rarely does an occasion like this come about and an actual fire takes place.
Well I work at a hospital and we have many computers, a phone switch dedicated to facility, PA system, and a pager system. Many of these "larger" pieces of equipment have Amps, or in the case of a phone switch, emergency backup batteries, inverters... Alot of things that un-qualified individuals shouldn't handle.
Well our pager system failed, and I being the tech went to check on it, the main transmitter amplifier blew. Big deal for a hospital, but our repair guys seemed pretty confident they would have it back the next morning. The next afternoon arrived, and they finally came back with my amp. We hooked it up, and started it up, and all of a sudden "the smell".
So while leaving the machine plugged in (pure and utter brilliance, might I add) the guys said, "Lemme open it up" so we opened the back panel, and could see, sure enough, burnt in the same place as last time... Just at that time someone tried to use the pager system, paging God knows who... and POOF! A 3 inch flame like a torch shot up for about 3 or 4 seconds until I unplugged it... I could have sworn we told everyone not to use the system until we were finished.
MORALS OF THE STORY:
1. Always unplug
2. USERS NEVER LISTEN!!!
Anyways, just had to share, if you have had flamboyant, or flamiliar experiences let me know!
