Scoot on over for a wheely tricky mystery with an electrifying solution

Round off your week with an electrifying tale from the land of chunky-knit sweaters and addictive television mystery drama serials. Welcome to a Scandinavian On Call. Today's story comes from "Kristian" (not his name) and takes us back to the era of punch cards, tape stations, and hard disks the size of washing machines. Our …

[TonyJ]

Yes - I mentioned this before on here.

Back in the mid-late 90's Toshiba ventured into the desktop PC arena with some quite nice units (and as a digression I LOVED Toshiba laptops - so well built and performed better than the then top-range Compaq's and Dell's etc).

A lady called in that her monitor had gone pop one morning.

A replacement was duly sent out. A week later she called to say that the same thing had happened, so once again a replacement was sent out.

Another week passed...yep, same call comes in. This time, Toshiba instructed that they wanted an engineer to visit and watch what was happening as a pattern had been noted - the call came in mid-morning every Thurs (or might've been Friday), so the engineer was despatched with a new screen and instructions to the lady to ignore them and just do what she would normally do.

It turned out that she had a potted plant on top of the screen with no bowl or saucer underneath. Every Thurs morning she would water the plant and a couple of hours later, the water would find its way through the pot and drip into the screen.

When the screen was being replaced, she'd obviously moved everything off so no pot to be seen and just enough water through to cause the damage but not enough to spot obvious water ingress.

Apparently she'd done this for years but the old screen must've had vents in different places as it never happened on that.

[Tom 7]

It is a not so well known fact

that Wimshurst was inspired by pissing about on his roly chair in the office.

[Anonymous Custard]

Makes a change...

OK, so how many were expecting it to be her own lingerie static rather than the office furniture and fittings?

Especially given the production output of the factory...

Paris, well for so many reasons...

[adam 40]

Re: Makes a change...

Not only that, but a graphic description of how each item was slowly removed under a scientific process of elimination to determine which item was at fault.....

I'll get me coat!

[Korev]

Re: Makes a change...

That would have been a Triumph...

[David 132]

Re: Makes a change...

Ja, es wäre wonderbra.

[BenDwire]

Re: Makes a change...

OK, so how many were expecting it to be her own lingerie static

I thought that at the phrase "unruffle feathers and get to the bottom of the problem" but it seems that El Reg are toying with our minds !

Time for beer ->

[Inventor of the Marmite Laser]

I worked for a while with a company making mainly signal conditioning equipment - temperature transmitters, trip amplifiers, small scale signal multiplexers etc. They also sold a few thermocouple and resistance thermometer temperature sensing elements.

We had a customer return a resistance thermometer to us as "inaccurate and fluctuating".

Unlikely, we thought. A resistance thermometer is a coil or foil wire sensor that is 100 ohms # 0°C. 138.5 ohms @ 100°C 119.4 ohms @50°C. it inside a mineral support, inside a stainless steel tube which is closed at one end and has four leads coming out of t'other, sealed in with a dob of epoxy snot. The sensor slides into a fabricated pocket that as a big terminal chamber at the top, where the wires across the pant connect. Very simply, nothing to go wrong.

The office guys were scratching their heads. I had a decent amount of experience in the real world and asked what these sensors were monitoring. Turns out it was a cool, humid and generally damp application somewhere on board ship.

The leads coming out were insulated with glass fibre based sleeves (the alternative being PVC or PTFE). That was enough for me to suggest checking for any conductivity between sensing element and probe body. Loads of it.

The damp simply had gotten into the terminal enclosure of the thermowell and wicked down the insulation, obliterating the accuracy of the sensor.

Really simple for someone who's worked in the real world.

[Sam not the Viking]

Snap!

We had a similar sensor but at 10k and made to specific overall dimensions and trailing leads etc. We ordered in batches of 200 for incorporation into a bigger machine. During assembly-tests, a number were found to be faulty: one side conducting to earth. Supplier QA was alerted and the problem resolved on new batches.

However, there were many others out in the field and despite internal checking, some of these were displaying intermittent failure. Returning a completed machine for rectification involved cranes, transport plus significant re-work. All in all very expensive for a relatively low-cost, minor component which in the past had been considered ultra-reliable. Since one side of the sensor was always 'grounded' within the control unit, the interim solution was to exchange the wires....

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Snap!

the interim solution was to exchange the wires

That would be the "interim" solution that was still in place, and probably documented, 20 years later, then? :-)

[G.Y.]

Documented? Re: Snap!

I dount it was documented ...

[DS999]

Re: Snap!

The quickest way to make an interim solution permanent is to document it. Don't fall for that!

[simonlb]

Re: Snap!

I've found through experience that if you rename it a 'Tactical Solution' it will linger around and resist all efforts to remove it until the heat death of the universe.

[Sam not the Viking]

Re: Snap!

Ha!

Interim until the next machine-overhaul according to schedule. Or more usually, <schedule+N> which tends to never.

Planned service-schedules extend to "if it ain't broke....". Consequent maintenance is always 'urgent'.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, static is a thing

I remember a colleague and I standing in a police control room, rubbing each other with balloons.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Yes, static is a thing

Oi, this is not that sort of a website!

[adam 40]

Re: Yes, static is a thing

It didn't happen unless you post it on youtube!

[Charlie van Becelaere]

Re: Yes, static is a thing

or a Playmobil reenactment!

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Yes, static is a thing

Moved on from funny handshakes then

[Zarno]

Re: Yes, static is a thing

"The lice ... hate the sugar."

Now when you bring out the codpiece and blanks, or Ursula....

[NoneSuch]

Re: Yes, static is a thing

"I remember a colleague and I standing in a police control room, rubbing each other with balloons."

Were you let off with a warning or were full charges laid?

[Evil Auditor]

"The floor was just false advertising,"

Not necessarily. In order for the floor to do its magic, also other equipement such as chair and its wheels or shoes must be conductive.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that it might have been false flooring but not necessarily false advertising?

[Korev]

It was clearly a floored product...

[Antron Argaiv]

Our lab has those chairs. Their wheels are not conductive, but the seats and (obv) the metal in the chair are. There's a brass chain attached to the bottom of the chair which drags on the (damn well better be conductive, we paid enough for it) floor tiles.

[BenDwire]

(damn well better be conductive, we paid enough for it)

It's easy enough to use a wrist strap tester* to check that it's conductive, or even a proper Megger tester. I have memories of the QA manager using a small length of model railway track on a wooden pole as a probe to check the production flooring.

* Yet another relic that I designed and made back in the day

[Anonymous Custard]

Or go to your friendly neighbourhood BOFH and borrow the cattle prod?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chain draging on the floor

I've seen that on shopping carts that had static generating wheels.

[ibmalone]

I can tell you that our office is not, every time I use the exit button I get a shock generated by the walk from my seat to the door. Have taken to using an implement to press the thing!

[mark4155]

Had a Ford Fiesta, in bright yellow back in 1978. Same thing, drove it, jumped out and got zapped. Fitted this ant-static flexible rubber/metal thing on the back bumper that trailed on the road surface. That didn't work!

Roll forward to 2021. Got a Ford Puma, in Expensive Blue. Drove it, hobbled out of it and got zapped. Sent it back to the dealer for an exchange. That worked!

[Evil Auditor]

That worked!

It worked in the sense that you don't have a car anymore?

[Rob Daglish]

I had a Freelander MkI with this issue. Every time I got out and touched the door, quite a painful shock occurred, until I'd figured out what caused it and found various creative ways of shutting the door without touching it with exposed flesh.

This was one of two reasons I kept that car for less than the 30 day "Satisfaction Guaranteed" period of the dealer - the other being that I smashed my face off the A-Pillar every time I got into the damned thing...

[Kobus Botes]

Re: Scoot on over for a wheely tricky mystery with an electrifying solution

@ibmalone

"...every time I use the exit button I get a shock..."

OT, but similar. In the drier parts of SA (most of it therefore) one can get a nasty shock when exiting a car. I very soon learnt to firmly clasp the door-post when getting out, and only releasing my hand once I am securely on the ground.

It was fun, actually, if you did not do that and then give someone a firm handshake.

(What happened to the lightning bolt icon?)

[Not Yb]

One IT shop just attached a neon bulb to one of the ground screws on the light switch. Touch other bulb lead to drain static, then enter.

[G7mzh]

My old workplace had nylon carpets. Getting a shock off the desks was commonplace.

We had the caretaker come round every few days to spray the floor with water - I'm not convinced it made much of an improvement though.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're supposed to add fabric softener to the water.

[Paul Cooper]

And again, SNAP

Quite literally!

In 1983 I was working on a prototype airborne ice-sounding radar system, and we were doing fieldwork in Svalbard. We had a nice office in the airport buildings at Longyearbyen, and of course, there were many last-minute changes and corrections to the software that were required. The airborne kit included a Z80 based single card computer, which controlled all the data acquisition in flight. Needless to say, this was very basic with NO software at all, so I developed the assembler programs using an Osborne 1 with asm, link and Wordstar as editor. This all worked perfectly in Cambridge!

However, in Svalbard, the Osborne 1 demonstrated exactly the same symptoms as Kristian's machine. You could open it up, switch it on and it would power up happily - but as soon as I touched the keyboard, it died. Light dawned when I realized that every time I walked past a filing cabinet near the door, I attracted a large and painful spark! The carpet was, of course, nylon, and the air in the polar regions has very low humidity, so just walking across the carpet could generate quite a large electrostatic potential! After that, I had to remember to earth my hand before touching the Osborne 1, and all was well.

[Coastal cutie]

Re: And again, SNAP

I've told the full story before so I won't bore folks with all of it again but in my far off banking days, I worked with someone who carried enough static charge to trip the mainframe - and make all of us yelp when she got within a couple of inches

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: And again, SNAP

Told this one a few times here, so here goes....wibbly wobbly timey.....

I had an electronics tutor (Icon) that was known for killing computers bought from Dixon's (Even when tested in store, gets it home, DOA). Make model didn't matter. His demonstrations never worked, he blew up transistors for a past time, just by proximity & would spend so much time trying to find a working, or nearest equivalent that the point of the lecture was totally lost.

Some rat of a student (For beer money (Not me)) flogged this to the tabloids as the man who had to discharge himself, before kissing his wife when leaving or arriving from work.

In hindsight, being a lecturer in electronics was the best career course for him, as he was probably unemployable as a field service guy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And again, SNAP

"the man who had to discharge himself, before kissing his wife when leaving or arriving from work."

And where did he discharge those bodily fluids? Which ones?

[Sherrie Ludwig]

Re: And again, SNAP

I had an electronics tutor (Icon) that was known for killing computers bought from Dixon's (Even when tested in store, gets it home, DOA).

Was his name Newton Pulsiver, by any chance?

[Potty Professor]

Re: And again, SNAP

Not IT related, too long ago. When I was a kid, I was given a "Space Watch", which was a normal analogue wristwatch with the hands replaced by two numbered discs, which were only visible through two openings in the stainless steel faceplate, so they gave the impression of a digital display. The moment I put it on my wrist, it stopped. Took it off and placed it on the mantelpiece, started working again. Repeat as many times as you like, on my wrist, stopped, anywhere else, works. Tried it on other people, worked for them, but not for me. Eventually sent it back for a refund and was given a pocket watch instead. We surmised that my static electricity was enough to stop the movement (either that or my magnetic personality). I was the only kid at school that carried a turnip in their blazer pocket.

[G7mzh]

Re: And again, SNAP

My mother was the same. Any clockwork watch she tried to wear would stop. She used to wear a nurse's watch (the sort that hangs from your lapel) which gave no trouble.

She eventually got a battery wristwatch which worked ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And again, SNAP

<have told this before>

Big Bob, the normally jovial telephone engineer, was looking depressed. When asked, he said he'd just been working in one of London's big ad agencies, and being an open plan office (except for the bigwigs), the new fangled digital PBX was in the middle of the floor.

He had the cabinet doors open while doing a bit of simple programming, when a couple of suits walked by. One said to the other "look at all those pretty lights" as he stretched out a hand towards it. POW! A spark leapt from his fingertip and killed the whole thing stone dead!

The office may have been chic, but the carpet was nylon, and the cabinet was filled with cards running early CMOS and MOSFET and very VERY susceptible to static.

They had to keep watering the carpet until they could get some anti-static stuff for that area (it was very public, so they couldn't just install urinals to keep it damp)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And again, SNAP

I'm really hoping you meant "sprinklers"...

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: And again, SNAP

At least the suit did his Zeus impression in front of witnesses, otherwise likely he would have just slinked away and let the engineer take the blame for the non-working kit.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: And again, SNAP

Most likely the suit yelled "Ow! *your* rubbish equipment has shocked me, you;re fired!"

[david 12]

Re: And again, SNAP

I worked in a very large university building that was positively electrifying for a couple of weeks every five years --- they'd go through the building cleaning the carpets, then make a second pass applying the anti-static coating.

[Justin S.]

Re: And again, SNAP

Das komputermaschine ist nicht fur der gefingerpoken und mittengraben!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh yes.

A network connected printer. For some reason it refused to work when next to one of the secretary's desk. Just that one printer. Any other printer worked fine. The problematic printer, placed anywhere else, worked fine. Never did work that one out - just moved it and left it.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

You did the right thing. Some issues are not worth wasting work hours on. If it would have been at home I would have traced it down due to my curiosity.

[Oh Matron!]

School science.....

One day in middle school, the science teacher wheeled out the Van De Graff Generator, and predictable hilarity ensued, until it came to me....

The teacher was confounded as to why his experiment didn't work....

Turns out the wonderful dunlop wellies I wore in the winter were an excellent insulator!

Who knew?!

[PM from Hell]

Re: School science.....

Turns out the wonderful dunlop wellies I wore in the winter were an excellent insulator!

Who knew?!

Every JCB Driver in Europe

[adam 40]

Re: School science.....

In the Science Museum in Kensington they have an exhibit which is a high-voltage generator where you can put only one hand in and get a pathetic 2mm spark off the middle. All surrounded by black-and-yellow hazard markings etc....

The also have a glass bridge across the atrium nearby. You can shuffle across the glass bridge and build up a nice charge, then approach an unsuspecting museum-goer (I did restrict this to my family) with a pointy finger and give them a whopping 10mm spark on the ear!

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: School science.....

Ex Mrs OS, managed this pointing towards a overhead cooker hood a in-store (Carpeted furniture store) display of white goods, I wasn't looking at the time, but saw the flash reflected off a stainless steel appliance, the whole store heard the scream.

The ironic thing was she did tend to build up static but the dozy cow, would always try to discharge with the tip of her finger rather than the flat of her hand in the style of "The Creation of Adam" by Italian Michelangelo.

[NXM]

Re: School science.....

Serious question, did Michaelangelo have the equivalent of nylon carpets which gave him the inspiration for that painting?

[Tom 7]

Re: School science.....

Silk and Amber for making static were know BC.

[Kernel]

Re: School science.....

"Silk and Amber for making static were know BC."

Some years ago my wife owned a couple of very staticy nylon nighties - the light show when she removed them in the dark was part of the fun - it was more a series of diffused blue glows than individual sparks.

[KBeee]

Re: School science.....

There isn't a spark between the fingers of God and Adam in Michelangelo's painting.

That was only added in the opening title of the South Bank Show on TV, which many people seem to think exists in the real painting.

[Muscleguy]

Re: School science.....

And being arty types probably still subscribed to the vitalist idea of the vital spark, Dr Frankenstein animating his monster etc. All bunkum of course.

There is no possible definition of Life with includes the viruses but excludes Chemistry. Because there’s a continuous line between a self replicating string of RNA in the pores of a black smoker and us. The first is arguably just chemistry, but RNA can be both information store and enzyme and where there is variation there is Natural Selection.

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: School science.....

I lost track of the subject.

[Robert Carnegie]

Re: School science.....

A scientist on a recent-ish BBC radio programme asserted that a virus inside you counts as alive but if it's not inside a host then it is not alive.

[LogicGate]

Re: School science.....

In highscool I had a classmate perform the same experiment in front of class.

His hair was standing out and all was fine, until his eyes rolled upwards, he emitted and "eep" and collapsed on the floor.

When he came to, he explained what had happened. He had been wearing loose boxers that day, and his gentleman's sausage had found a way out of the aforementioned garment so that it could make direct contact with one of the riveted brass buttons in his jeans. While building up sufficient voltage, my classmate had been moving around a bit, until aforementioned button came into contact with the table holding the generator. The circuit was closed, but luckily the "fuse" had too little resistance to burn through!

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: School science.....

Extremely funny, I started laughing at "loose boxers". But at the high school I attended, anybody who "explained what had happened" would have gained a permanent and unflattering nickname, shouted at every hallway passing.

[Sam not the Viking]

Re: School science.....

I recall Atkinson* (who had really long hair) charged up on the Van de Graf generator at school. He was instructed to point at the (open) gas tap..... cracking spark ignited a fierce flame..... How could anyone not take up Physics after that?

I don't recall how Atkinson's career developed.

Other point to note re: static: Never touch the Leyden jars 'stored in the cupboard. Ever.

* Regomised. I don't remember his real name.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: School science.....

"The teacher was confounded as to why his experiment didn't work...."

Unlikely. But it made for an entertaining and memorable learning experience for the class. Or he was a particularly dumb science teacher.

[chivo243]

Came to day

She was probably dragging her feet... being the boss an all!

[Cuddles]

Sentience

"computers... certainly did not take against specific users"

That's definitely not my experience.

[lglethal]

Re: Sentience

“Don’t anthropomorphise the computers – they dont like it!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bra Factory

I'm glad our techie managed to get abreast of the situation.

Provide support where required.

Must have been an uplifting experience for him/her.

If it hadn't been fixed he would have felt a right t*t.

(sorry, it is Friday afternoon)

[Korev]

Re: The Bra Factory

I'm pleased you got all that off your chest...

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: The Bra Factory

OK You two cleavage out right now.

[Martin Summers]

Re: The Bra Factory

No need to cause a bust up

[Scott 53]

Re: The Bra Factory

"OK You two cleavage out right now."

You'll have to lift and separate those two.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: The Bra Factory

Now you're just milking it for all it's worth!

[Anonymous Coward]

As nobody else has mentioned it

Decades ago, I worked for an software company in Kettering.

A customer called me because their secretary had crashed their computer many times without knowingly touching the machine and it then corrupted data.

Fortunately the customer was a lady so she was able to ask her secretary to change her clothing/underclothing/etc without embarrassing anyone. I think we were a last straw before the secretary was moved away from computers. It certainly wan't a software related call...

[Robert Carnegie]

Re: As nobody else has mentioned it

Probably quite soft wear...

[DS999]

Pantyhose

I was expecting this had something to do with pantyhose, as I heard some tales from the greybeards when I was young from back when women in workplaces regularly wore pantyhose they'd build up a large amount of static and wreak havoc.

[Aussie Doc]

Optional sensible title here

Whilst not quite so dramatic as the OP I had a similar situation with a young lady and a printer but my diagnosis was quicker.

As was custom/safe in those days I shook her hand as I introduced myself.

There were certainly some sparks between us!

Didn't take long to get an idea of what was causing her issues.

This was in the 80's if memory serves and nylon carpet was a thing.

[Inventor of the Marmite Laser]

One place I worked at hadd an office aroet thatused to build up quite a nice static charge on one's body. It was a favourite trick to pass the desk of someone on the phone at a respectable shuffle and discharge ones statis via a finger onto the top of the victims head.

Made one hell of a crack in the phone earpiece.

[NITS]

Used to work in a place that had a room with an epoxy-painted floor. I would build up a charge just walking across it in my sneakers.

Doing a gig at the moment where the scissor lift's tires build up a charge driving across the tiled floor. Get a discharge every time you touch the ceiling grid after moving the lift.

[Medixstiff]

We rolled out some brand new Lenovo X370 Yoga's a few years back and people started complaining that their LTE connections would intermittently drop out.

Three other staff looked at the issue before I got to it, updating the firmware/drivers wouldn't work, Lenovo said they've never seen it happen before.

So I took one of the SIM tray's out and with the notebook on it's side, noticed the SIM would move slightly when I slowly inserted the tray to see what was going on.

Stuck the tiniest bit of bluetac under the SIM and problem solved.

Then did a two page email with photo's to Lenovo support with the CIO and Ops Manager cc'd in, on how to fix the problem.

Never had the issue on any other Lenovo's after that.