Just Saying -- the soapbox thread

[skyled]

Came to work today and heard an interesting account.

All the conveyor belts at work have their bearings greased on a scheduled basis. The guy whose job it is was nipping around the plant with his grease gun, when he got up to our carton lift.

Now, it's a small platform that goes up and down inside a free-standing walled shaft. Boxes go into it on a conveyor, the conveyor on the platform takes them in, and then it goes up and unloads them onto another conveyor, higher up, all automatically.

So, the guy opens up the maintenance door at the bottom of the lift shaft, greases up the bearings closest to him, and then leans over the lift to grease the other side's bearings, blocking the built-in sensors as he did so.

Who can tell me what I didn't write?

He didn't lock out the isolator for the lift machinery.

He didn't even check that the isolator (and the lift) was turned off, at all.

He was damn lucky that another engineer was right there to turn the isolator off. The grease man is a tall guy, but even so he was on his tippy toes, caught between the partially raised platform and the upper edge of the maintenance entrance for the enclosed lift shaft. It was such a narrow gap his torso was stuck in, that the engineer was too scared to even turn the lift back on in manual mode, as he didn't feel they could take the chance of the platform lifting even a little bit more, so they went to the top of the lift and manually rewound the motor back by hand.

So, guess what training course a few of the maintenance guys are doing real soon.

*ALWAYS CHECK ISOLATORS ON MACHINERY YOU'RE WORKING ON!*

Where my uncle worked they had this helical material mover that got jammed up. A guy stuck his arm in there to try to get it free and didn't even turn the thing off, let alone do a lock-out on it. Lost the arm above the elbow. My uncle managed to find a finger, but nothing bigger than that. His description was that he had a bad day at work that day.

Lock-out/Tag-out is your friend.

[EBK]

Reminds me of a joke about a pickle slicer.

[Leevibe]

Came to work today and heard an interesting account.

All the conveyor belts at work have their bearings greased on a scheduled basis. The guy whose job it is was nipping around the plant with his grease gun, when he got up to our carton lift.

Now, it's a small platform that goes up and down inside a free-standing walled shaft. Boxes go into it on a conveyor, the conveyor on the platform takes them in, and then it goes up and unloads them onto another conveyor, higher up, all automatically.

So, the guy opens up the maintenance door at the bottom of the lift shaft, greases up the bearings closest to him, and then leans over the lift to grease the other side's bearings, blocking the built-in sensors as he did so.

Who can tell me what I didn't write?

He didn't lock out the isolator for the lift machinery.

He didn't even check that the isolator (and the lift) was turned off, at all.

He was damn lucky that another engineer was right there to turn the isolator off. The grease man is a tall guy, but even so he was on his tippy toes, caught between the partially raised platform and the upper edge of the maintenance entrance for the enclosed lift shaft. It was such a narrow gap his torso was stuck in, that the engineer was too scared to even turn the lift back on in manual mode, as he didn't feel they could take the chance of the platform lifting even a little bit more, so they went to the top of the lift and manually rewound the motor back by hand.

So, guess what training course a few of the maintenance guys are doing real soon.

*ALWAYS CHECK ISOLATORS ON MACHINERY YOU'RE WORKING ON!*

Glad this didn't go the way it could have. That would be with you a while. Is he a buddy? If so, slap him. He should thank you.

[somnif]

At the risk of sacrificing decades of built up mojo, I think it might be time to finally change out my old solder paste for a fresh batch.

Still, it will be hard to say goodbye to the old gunk, with wires, solder blobs, and even some resistors floating in its murkiness.  (I might chicken out and keep the old paste.)

At the very least, keep the tin. The new plastic tubs are less amenable to solder iron pokes.

[EBK]

At the very least, keep the tin. The new plastic tubs are less amenable to solder iron pokes.

Absolutely.  At first, I looked for a new tin, but despite some misleading product photos on Amazon, Oatey doesn't sell the paste in a metal container anymore, so I bought the tub with the intention of refilling the tin.  I thought about switching brands, but Oatey is the only brand with a sparkling drop of Retsyn. 

[thesmokingman]

that old tin is straight up nightmare fuel

[davent]

At the risk of sacrificing decades of built up mojo, I think it might be time to finally change out my old solder paste for a fresh batch.

Still, it will be hard to say goodbye to the old gunk, with wires, solder blobs, and even some resistors floating in its murkiness.  (I might chicken out and keep the old paste.)

Will this require a new avatar as well?
dave

[nzCdog]

Haha! EBK, surely you'll be keeping it?  From where I'm standing, it's basically a loaded spare parts jar as well?

[EBK]

Will this require a new avatar as well?

Maybe.  I haven't decided yet. 

Haha! EBK, surely you'll be keeping it?  From where I'm standing, it's basically a loaded spare parts jar as well?

There are at least three resistors in there, plus some perfectly fine jumper wire. 

[Muadzin]

I remember my father having some solder paste with his solder gun iron, but I don't think I've EVER used solder paste myself in my life. Any benefits to using the tin of nightmare gruel?

[EBK]

I remember my father having some solder paste with his solder gun iron, but I don't think I've EVER used solder paste myself in my life. Any benefits to using the tin of nightmare gruel?

Primarily, it helps me clean the tip of my soldering iron better than a sponge or wire mesh alone.  A quick dip followed by a quick wipe and I'm ready to solder again.

I also dip the soldering iron tip into the paste before reflowing or desoldering existing solder joints.  I like to let gravity assist with desoldering.  If there is a bit of flux on the iron when I heat a connection up from below, the solder flows nicely onto the iron. 
When reflowing existing joints, the flux tends to be already burned away.  Dipping the iron tip into the paste allows me to carry a bit of new flux to the joint.

Also, a bit of flux paste on bare (untinned) cooper (either copper wire or copper PCB pads) makes it easy to tin the copper with solder.  I can load a bit of solder onto the iron tip and drag it across the copper one-handed.

That's my solder paste confessional.  Others may use it differently or not at all and achieve similar results, but I like solder paste.

HOWEVER, this is a plumbing product, and I really shouldn't be using it at all for electronics.

[thesmokingman]

that's how I use my liquid flux so no judgment there at all ...

[EBK]

Will this require a new avatar as well?

Making a fresh start (it's a process).  My new temporary avatar is a pic of a pedal painted by my daughter.

[thesmokingman]

"This is the last Rat 2 I put a 308 in." - Me, when I paid $10 for an IC on ebay and even then it was a metal can 108 because it was cheaper than buying a lm308 from anywhere. Ultimately, I blame myself. I've probably been through 4 or 5 Rats and an expandora that I've foolishly sold off with the good stuff in them bought back when they weren't even half of what I just paid.

[dawson]

Every few months, for fun, I imagine what Michael Jackson might look like if he were still alive today.