• Darren (unregistered)

    I'm both intrigued and concerned by the amount of electrical tape Sam has on the power cables of their Acer server. Either someone has gone a bit overboard with labelling them or their power cables are several cables spliced together.

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to Darren

    Well, it's power cable story time, with old man 516052.

    I once knew a guy who constantly had issues with breakers in his home failing. Now, this is in a part of the world where we don't really use natural gas as much as americans do. No, our kitchens use electric everything. This is relevant because this breaker just so happened to be servicing his kitchen.

    So for months, every day during our lunch break he would complain to anyone who was unfortunate enough to be trapped with him how he could not turn the oven and dishwasher on at the same time. First we tried to be helpful. Than we tried ignoring him. Nothing worked.

    Now this was back in the old days of those old ceramic breakers that had loose wires inside. The sort where if it broke you could just unscrew the lid and replace the wires. And some people like to "cheat" by unscrewing them and adding some extra copper to make them "stronger" to let more current through.

    Not this guy. No.

    One morning this guy comes into the office with one of those special ear to ear smiles that are only ever born by a brilliant idiot. And the first thing out of his mouth was: "Morning guys! Guess what? I fixed my power."

    Turns out the guy had read somewhere that iron conducts electricity so he took one of those long construction sized nails and just hammered the thing clean through his circuit breaker. Problem solved. Won't ever fail him again. And it didn't.

    To this day I don't know how he escaped electrocution and his house burning down. But he was still alive and unsigned by the time I left that place years later.

  • docontra (unregistered) in reply to Darren

    Those tapes look like they are/were "cable management" tapes that came off (or had to be torn off for maintenance). If they are splices, I commend the splice job on the CAT >=5 cable (the gray cable), and the actual electrical isolation rating on that non-electrical-looking tape :)

  • (nodebb) in reply to 516052

    But he was still alive and unsigned by the time I left that place years later.

    Took me embarrassingly long to realise he's not a free agent but somebody who has not been singed.

    The answer to why he has escaped electrocution is simple: his kitchen equipment has so far not developed any dangerous faults and the wring is up to the task of carrying whatever current he is trying to put through it.

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to jeremypnet

    Well, yes. His breaker turned out to be a bit too weak after all. And he could have gotten away with just a stronger breaker.
    I just felt that "to this day I'll newer know" made for a rhetorically more entertaining ending to the story. Especially in light of the way he fixed it.

  • 516052 (unregistered)

    Also, that was supposed to be unsinged. As in not singed. As in not caught in a fire. Misspelling on my end.

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