Bonehead Award of the year

[darmstrong2319]

Is he still up there? The world may never know. Lol

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Is he still up there? The world may never know. Lol

He gets better wifi up there...

 

[firebird93]

I'm dying to know - how did you get down safely?

after searching for loose roofing and sitting and thinking on it a little and watching the lightning get closer i went to the lowest spot on the barn, laid down on the roof put my hand over the wall under the edge of the roof and swung down as low as i could and dropped. got a few bruises and scrapes but nothing broken. and learned not to get angry and throw things

 

[bullbreaker]

I read the original posters starters thread and it really doesn't specifically state " the bonehead award" has anything to do 100 per cent with mechanical /tools or work related issues etc ? Awe some of you's don't even come close to making a bonehead mistake when it comes to one I made . LOL .

It takes two to tango . So I have too man up and have nobody but myself too blame , but at one time I married a gal that I believed loved me (LOL) . She was also as an added bonus if I were to describe her like the George Jones song tells us " hotter than a two-dollar pistol " just like the song tells us . Its not an original sayin first guy I ever heard say this was Chi Chi Rodriguez . Anyway after the smoke cleared "She made me a millionaire because before I met Her I had two millions ! " . LOL Dang it if that don't put me in the running for The BoneHead Award I don't know what will ? I got a feelin I'am not alone . :thumbsup:

 

[Travelover]

Well I did a dumb one. I have a lawn tractor stored in a shed with no power so I set up a portable 60 watt solar panel on the south side of the shed with a solar controller attached to the tractor battery. I had an ammeter wired in so I could check on it every now and then. Yesterday I went to start it and no cranking at all. I hit the battery with a jumper pack and got way too many sparks. So, on a hunch, I measured the voltage across the tractor battery. Negative 13 volts. Huh? Negative? Yup, I'd miswired the solar panel input where I'd added an SAE plug, so it was reverse polarity. The battery was charged correctly when I put it to bed, so I'm amazed that the solar panel wore it down and reverse charged it. Right now I'm discharging the battery and see if if I can reverse it again, but it is probably a boat anchor. :ashamed:

 

[4570Man]

Could you just reverse the battery cables and continue using the battery like that?

 

[sixdogs]

Well I did a dumb one. I have a lawn tractor stored in a shed with no power so I set up a portable 60 watt solar panel on the south side of the shed with a solar controller attached to the tractor battery. I had an ammeter wired in so I could check on it every now and then. Yesterday I went to start it and no cranking at all. I hit the battery with a jumper pack and got way too many sparks. So, on a hunch, I measured the voltage across the tractor battery. Negative 13 volts. Huh? Negative? Yup, I'd miswired the solar panel input where I'd added an SAE plug, so it was reverse polarity. The battery was charged correctly when I put it to bed, so I'm amazed that the solar panel wore it down and reverse charged it. Right now I'm discharging the battery and see if if I can reverse it again, but it is probably a boat anchor. :ashamed:

How could you have a negative 13 volts? Wouldn't it just be zero volts?

 

[Travelover]

Could you just reverse the battery cables and continue using the battery like that?

I actually did to use it that way one day, but I read on line that a reversed battery will deteriorate very quickly. I'm no chemist, but the explanation seemed plausible.

 

[Travelover]

How could you have a negative 13 volts? Wouldn't it just be zero volts?

Voltage is measured according to a base reference point. If your house is at ground level, your basement floor is at negative 8 feet.

 

[Professor Marvel]

How could you have a negative 13 volts? Wouldn't it just be zero volts?

Just reverse the leads on your meter and it will read fine
+ to + and - to -

 

[k0ua]

How could you have a negative 13 volts? Wouldn't it just be zero volts?

Nope, he has reversed the polarity of the battery. so it is -13 volts with the red voltmeter lead on the what used to be positive terminal and the black voltmeter lead on what used to be the negative terminal of the battery. At one point it went to 0 volts but is now at -13 volts when measured that way. You see it is a matter how you measure it. If he reversed the leads of the meter will read +13 volts.

 

[Professor Marvel]

I never heard of that happening. If that is what happened, if the battery got maybe run down like he is doing and then recharged it correctly he has a 50/50 chance of it working. That is what I would try.

 

[Travelover]

I never heard of that happening. If that is what happened, if the battery got maybe run down like he is doing and then recharged it correctly he has a 50/50 chance of it working. That is what I would try.

I put a trailer tail light across it and ran it down until it was barely a glow, then hit it with a 10 amp battery charger. It pegged the charger ammeter, so I inserted a resistor in series which lowered the draw to about 5 amps and left it over night. This morning it was still charging a couple of amps. I'll put it on a Battery Tender for a couple of days and see if it eventually takes a full charge. Worst case, $35 for a new battery at Costco.

 

[airbiscuit]

We have the standard 6 ft. fence in the backyard, and a few months ago, I heard about burglaries increasing dramatically in the entire city. To make sure this never happened to me, I got an electric fence and ran a single wire along the top of the fence.

Actually, I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, made for 26 miles of fence. I then used an 8 ft. long ground rod, and drove it 7.5 ft. into the ground. The ground rod is the key, with the more you have in the ground, the better the fence works..

One day I'm mowing the back yard with my cheapo Wal-Mart 6 hp big wheel push mower. The hot wire is broken and laying out in the yard. I knew for a fact that I unplugged the charger. I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it, to throw it out of the way.

It seems as though I hadn't remembered to unplug it after all.

Now I'm standing there, I've got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the 1.7 giga-volt fence wire in the other hand. Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and has a picture of an upside down cow on fire on the cover.

Time stood still.

The first thing I notice is my pecker trying to climb up the front side of my body. My ears curled downwards and I could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain. Every time that Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in my head. I was literally at one with the engine.

It seems as though the fence charger and the piece of **** lawnmower were fighting over who would control my electrical impulses.

Science says you cannot crap, pee, and vomit at the same time. I beg to differ. Not only did I do all three at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. It was a Matrix kind of bowel movement, where time is creeping along and you're all leaned back and BAM BAM BAM you just crap your pants 3 times. It seemed like there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together. It was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.

At this point I'm about 30 minutes (maybe 2 seconds) into holding onto the fence wire. My hand is wrapped around the wire palm down so I can't let go. I grew up on a farm so I know all about electric fences. But Dad always had those piece of **** chargers made by International or whoever that were like 9 volts and just kinda tickled.

This one I could not let go of. The 8 ft. long ground rod is now accepting signals from me through the permadamp Ark-La-Tex river bottom soil. At this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to just man up and take it, until the lawnmower runs out of gas.

'****!,' I think, as I remember I just filled the tank!

Now the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has settled into a loping run pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it. Covered in poop, pee, and with my vomit on my chest, I think 'Oh God please die... Pleeeeaze die'. But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam idle nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner's right foot.

So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity, standing in my own backyard, begging God to kill me. God did not take me that day. He left me there covered in my own fluids to writhe in the misery my own stupidity had created.

I honestly don't know how I got loose from the wire.

I woke up laying on the ground hours later. The lawnmower was beside me, out of gas. It was later on in the day and I was sunburned.

There were two large dead grass spots where I had been standing, and then another long skinny dead spot where the wire had laid while I was on the ground still holding on to it. I assume I finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing had somehow let go of the wire..

Upon waking from my electrically induced sleep I realized a few things:

1 - Three of the fillings in my teeth have melted.

2 - I now have cramps in the bottoms of my feet and my right butt cheek (not the left, just the right).

3 - Poop, pee, and vomit when all mixed together, do not smell as bad as you might think.

4 - My left eye will not open.

5 - My right eye will not close.

6 - The lawnmower runs like a sumbitch now. Seriously! I think our little session cleared out some carbon fouling or something, because it was better than new after that.

7 - My testicles are still smaller than average yet they are almost a foot long.

8 - I can turn on the TV in the game room by farting while thinking of the number 4 (still don't understand this!!!).

That day changed my life. I now have a new found respect for things. I appreciate the little things more, and now I always triple check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow.

The good news, is that if a burglar does try to come over the fence, I can clearly visualize what my security system will do to him, and THAT gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, which also reminds me to triple check before I mow.

I am just bumping this because it is so darned funny!

 

[firebird93]

I am just bumping this because it is so darned funny!

lol that was a good one!
reminds me of an incident several years ago. me and my father was getting my place ready to put cattle on and we were running an electric fence in one
area. in that area the fence went across a stump. my cat decided to get up on the stump after we had the fence finished and start arching its back to rub
on the fence. all was good for several seconds until the timing was right. when it happened i swear the cat barked like a dog and all four of its feet
went straight out. that cat wouldn't come near me for a week!! i still laugh when i think about it.

 

[Travelover]

I was re-plumbing a sprinkler valve and it involved a bunch of 45 degree PVC elbows in a compound curve, so I dry fitted everything , marked them with pencil and then glued them. I turned on the water and all the sprinklers on that circuit started to work so I called my wife to see what I'd done. Just about then, I hear a blam and water gushing. Turns out I'd forgotten to glue one of the fittings. :ashamed:

 

[dirtclod0]

Good thread.

I could fill up many pages but my memory and the one-bone-head-post-a-day limit on this thread curtail me.

Smart youth short-cut while pulling cable.

Mystery pre-wire box on the back wall of an office (looked similar to the ones in the other offices) had 2 #10 wires in it. No wire nuts. So I think about going out to the truck to get a meter. Then I think "No tape/wire nuts. Commercial electricians aren't that dumb. Save some time. The electrician used scrap wire as pull cords elsewhere - why not just touch them together and see what happens? Worst it could do is trip a breaker."

Last I see is a blinding light...then I here someone down hall saying they saw a ball of light roll out of the door and into the hallway (ball lighting?) BTW - the breaker never tripped. Last time I did that.

The old saying " Show me a man that has never made a mistake...and I'll show you a man that has never made anything."

 

[k0ua]

Good thread.

I could fill up many pages but my memory and the one-bone-head-post-a-day limit on this thread curtail me.

Smart youth short-cut while pulling cable.

Mystery pre-wire box on the back wall of an office (looked similar to the ones in the other offices) had 2 #10 wires in it. No wire nuts. So I think about going out to the truck to get a meter. Then I think "No tape/wire nuts. Commercial electricians aren't that dumb. Save some time. The electrician used scrap wire as pull cords elsewhere - why not just touch them together and see what happens? Worst it could do is trip a breaker."

Last I see is a blinding light...then I here someone down hall saying they saw a ball of light roll out of the door and into the hallway (ball lighting?) BTW - the breaker never tripped. Last time I did that.

The old saying " Show me a man that has never made a mistake...and I'll show you a man that has never made anything."

Similar to a story I have: I was working near an open electrical box. I was the phone guy, and had NOTHING to do with this open box. I hear a fish tape coming down a conduit and in my mind I know these professional electrician would be using a fiberglass fish tape, so no worries. I was up just about 3 foot off of the floor on a ladder doing my telephone thing right beside this open box. When the fish tape arrived into the box, (you guessed it, it was a nice steel one) there was a huge explosion and ball of fire/light as it hit inside the box. All the lights went out and I fell off of the ladder. The floor had a lot of little BB's on it. It scared the pixx out of me, although I was totally unhurt. The electrician apologized. I would think so!.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I bet you got blamed. Anytime something went wrong in a building working as electrician or phone guy, you got blamed! Once the power went out in the whole area and people were asking what we did?

 

[k0ua]

I bet you got blamed. Anytime something went wrong in a building working as electrician or phone guy, you got blamed! Once the power went out in the whole area and people were asking what we did?

The main electrician had the power on in no time, and blamed it on a dumbazz apprentice. It was a building under construction so no big deal.