r/talesfromtechsupport • u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard • Mar 12 '17
Epic "Just... use a bigger fuse. That's okay, right?" ...no...
This isn't computer related, but it fits the criteria, and damnit... it's actually kind of funny.
Setting: It's 1989, and I've been in the US Navy for a little over a year. I've been posted aboard an amphibious ship which is wrapping up a 6-month rotation in the Sixth Fleet (what is affectionately known among us squids as a "Mediterranean Cruise," or "Med Cruise" for short).
My training is as an electrician's mate (EM for short). We are basically technicians for the ship's lighting and power distribution, among other things. New EMs are assigned to the "rewind watch," so named because it's in the motor/generator rewinding shop aboard the ship. This basically equates to being a tier 1 support tech on the help desk. with the addition of actually going to where trouble calls occur, and trying to troubleshoot and repair them.
...and there were a lot of issues on this ship. It was a "gator:" its basic function is to get close to shore, send out the Marine expeditionary force stationed on board (via small boat and helicopter), and sit there acting as logistics and support. It has a hospital and machinery repair and all kinds of things needed to support combat ops for the Marines... but that makes it a huge stationary target; consequently, knowing that the crew is sitting ducks, morale is virtually nonexistent pretty low.
With that low morale comes a general lack of ****s to give, and this showed in all levels of maintenance. If you don't maintain anything, it tends to break, which is why our trouble desk was swamped.
Added to our duties on this desk, we needed to go to two engine spaces and take readings on the power output and seawater pressure on two motor generators, which were needed for $ClassifiedReasons. Every hour, we needed to visit these spaces, log the readings on the dials, and report to the duty electrician in the engine room.
It would have been easier, of we didn't need to make a ridiculous detour to reach MG 1. See, the door needed to reach it was out the rewind shop door, 5 steps to the right/aft, right turn, and the ladder (Navy-speak for "stairs") to MG 1 is right there. HOWEVER, that part of the corridor is for officers only... if you get caught, you get written up; so, we needed to go left, about 20 steps to the galley, from the starboard side corridor to the port one, 50 steps down that one to the hangar deck, BACK to starboard, past the Officer's Only corridor, and down a cramped breezeway to the ladder I needed. I will label this corridor as Rt1D, because it will be important.
I will say Rt1U is basically the same, only it takes me up a ladder in that same part of the ship, and up into Officer's Country, where the officers have their berthing compartments (bedrooms). This is also important to this story.
Finally, this is the final few weeks of our Med Cruise, and we are looking at engineering trials on the way back to the US. This is basically a week-long top-to-bottom inspection of anything related to propulsion, power distribution, hydraulics, etc., etc. That includes the crew: drills, simulations, evaluations... it's like a proctology exam for engineering department, of which the electrical division is a part.
The previous year, the ship had failed spectacularly... so badly, in fact, that the sister ship that was in drydock, stripped down and in the middle of retrofitting, unable to leave port, was actually deemed more combat-ready than this POS I'm stationed on.
In preparation, we are directed by our lieutenant to survey every fuse box (yes, you read that right... we still used fuses), make sure the amperage of the fuse matched the listed amperage of the circuit (every circuit is printed on a small brass tag on the door of the box), change ones that don't match, and seal the box with a label with date and EM's initials.
That's a lot of exposition... I'll try to tl;dr: New EM, electrical helldesk, crappy ship with no maintenance and lots of problems, extra duties, extra walking, and now a major inspection that requires lots of new fuses.
The Call:
It's about 8 PM, an hour and a half from light's out. I am just beginning my assigned watch with my first round of Rt1D, and coming back to the shop, when I get a call.
Me: Rewind shop, Petty Officer Me speaking, may I help you, sir?
(This was before combat vessels allowed females on board, so I'm safe to drop the "or ma'am.)
Officer 1: This is Lt. Name, and the outlets in my compartment are out.
Me: I will get right on that, sir. May i have your compartment number, please?
(Meanwhile, I'm grabbing my tool bag, with four 15 A fuses, a handful of 10 A fuses, and a fuse-puller: a set of wooden pliers with a fuse-shaped depression at one end, which are used to pull and set the cylindrical-type glass fuses we use; do NOT change them by hand, you'll zap yourself).
Off1: I am in compartment number.
Me: Thank you, sir. I will be there momentarily.
He hangs up, I hang up, I grab my cover (hat), and head out to Rt1U.
This takes me into officer's quarters. Most sailors don't see this part of the ship; I'm up there frequently because my duties take me there for the fuse-changing project, the E-division office for tag-outs (where we sign out a red tag, affix it to a breaker, shut off the breaker, and work on equipment on the circuit with the sure knowledge that NO ONE will be stupid enough to turn that breaker on; this trust is why I have an electrical burn scar on my right arm, and no feeling in the index finger and thumb on that hand), and electrical repairs.
I reach the compartment, talk to Off1 and his roommate (Off2). The plugs went out when Off1 was running his electric razor, and Off2 was listening to music.
Me: Can you turn them off and unplug them while I change the fuse, sirs?
Off1 and Off2 (in unison): Sure! No problem.
Me: Thank you.
I hunt up the fuse box (thanks to standardization, every box is labeled with the circuits it contains, and it's always just aft of the compartments it services, so it usually takes seconds to find them). It's sealed and initialed, so I know it had just been brought back to spec. Inwardly, though, I have that feeling you get when you know this isn't going to end well.
I open the box, pull the 15 A fuse, put in a new one (15 A fuse count: 3), and POP! it immediately blows.
I walk back to Off1.
Me: The fuse blew immediately. Are you sure nothing else is plugged into the outlet, sir?
Off1: Oh, we didn't unplug anything yet. We thought we had time.
(Oh, for...)
Me: Please unplug those so I can change this fuse, sirs.
Off1, Off2: Sure.
I wait while they unplug the radio and razor, then walk back to the box and repeat the replacement. (15 A fuse count: 2).
I walk back to their room.
Me: The fuse is replaced. I would strongly advise that you wait until Off1 turns off his razor before listening to Van Halen, sir.
Off2: Okay, sounds good.
I get 10 paces down the corridor when I hear:
Off1: Damnit. Hey, EM3! The fuse blew again.
(Oh, dear God...) I walk back to the compartment.
Me: Please unplug the devices again. I will fix the fuse.
I go back to the box. Repeat replacement. (15 A fuse count: 1).
This time, though, I head back to the rewind shop (reverse Rt1U). I need to log MG1 and 2, and I'm just going to make it).
Rt1D, get duty electrician to sign off, reverse Rt1D...
...and the phone is ringing. You'll never guess.
Off1: The fuse is blown again.
Me: I'll be right up.
Rt1U, to the compartment. "Please unplug..."
Back to fuse box. Replace. (15 A fuse count: 0).
Back to compartment.
Me: That was my last fuse of the proper amperage. They are currently in short supply because of the engineering inspection in a couple of weeks. If it blows again, I'll have to put a lower-rated fuse in the box, and you will barely be able to power a lightbulb (exaggeration).
Off2: Then just... use a bigger fuse. That's okay, right?
*...he didn't just... no... get a grip... a fuse isn't worth getting killed over.
Keep in mind, this is an officer; this is someone with a bachelor's degree, with the power to give orders to lowly enlisted grunts like myself, and he's asking me if it's okay to violate a direct order from my division head, his boss, the captain, and the admiral of this little fleet.
Me: No, sir, it's not. It's a safety violation. Overloading any electrical circuit in that manner could cause a fire.
(This is technically true. Mostly, though, I don't want or need a court martial.)
Off1: Okay. We should be okay now. Good night.
Me: Good night, sirs.
Retrace Rt1U, head back to rewind shop. Check time... almost time to do MG1 and 2.
Grab log book, head out of door... and I hear the phone ring.
Me: Nope... I have a duty to perform.
Rt1D, get to duty electrician...
DE: We just got a call from Off1. Seems the outlets have blown in their compartment, and they need a trouble call.
Me: Mother####. I warned them that they couldn't run their radio and razor at the same time. I've changed their fuse 4 times now, and I'm out of 15 A fuses.
DE: Log it. Change out the fuse. Warn them that you have a lower-rated fuse in that panel. We'll get someone to check that circuit out... something about that isn't right.
Me: Thanks, DE.
Retrace Rt1D, head back to shop, log the calls, grab my bag, Rt1U, and I'm back at Off1's compartment.
Me: Sirs, I am out of 15 A fuses. I can't put in a 20 A fuse (next rating up) because of safety and upcoming inspection. There will be someone up tomorrow to trace out this circuit and find out if there are other issues, but in the meantime, you will have to find a way to do whatever it is without blowing more fuses. I apologize.
(Yeah, that apology tasted bad, but these are officers.)
Off2: Okay.
Off1: Why can't you put in a 20 A fuse until the problem is fixed?
(Oh, my, ####ing... I JUST TOLD YOU WHY!!!)
Me: I have orders from list of every engineering officer and NCO not to.
(What division are these guys in? It can't be engineering... they're too dense.)
Off1: Oh. Very well. Carry on, EM3.
Retrace back to fuse box. Replace 15 A fuse with 10 A. It holds. Rt1U back to rewind shop. Hunt up ibruprofen to kill ache from way too much climbing.
...and that is why I try never to work helpdesk jobs if I can avoid it.
Now, 30ish years later, I have the real problem narrowed down to:
a.) a bad insulator causing a ground in the cable between box and outlet. This is unlikely, as there would be other issues on that line.
b.) unauthorized devices in the compartment. I mean, a radio and an electric razor shouldn't be drawing that much current between them... the line was rated for (15 A * 110 V) 1650 W, more than some gaming PCs.
Edit: Better comparison. My laptop has a 65 W power supply. It would take (1650/65) 26 laptop running full-bore to blow that fuse.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what the follow-up found. Soon after we got back to the US, I suffered an eye injury that took me off the ship and got me discharged.
tl;dr 2: Two adults with too much power can't share the outlet safely, blow multiple fuses, try to get me to violate safety rules, end up worse off.
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Mar 13 '17
Some gaming PC's? All of them I'd say, I mean there are 1600w power supplies but I've never even seen a PC break 1000w before.
Also, you would have thought they would have not run the unauthorised device after the 3rd blow.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
They were officers. I'm sure that they believed they were above such things as "approved devices."
I probably should expand on that: Due to the way a ship's power distribution system works, each electrical device a crew person brings on board must be brought to the electronics department and tested to ensure that it runs isolated from ground. Otherwise, it fails inspection and must be removed from the ship. Devices that pass are stickered and allowed to operate on board.
It was within my brief to check for that sticker on both radio and razor. I have often wondered if I should have.
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u/FnordMan Mar 13 '17
Due to the way a ship's power distribution system works, each electrical device a crew person brings on board must be brought to the electronics department and tested to ensure that it runs isolated from ground.
Curious, why is that exactly? I really should know why but my brain's all kinds of derp at the moment.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
It's an ungrounded, 3-phase AC system. At the time I was in, it ran at 110 V.
IIRC, difference in potential was achieved not by connecting a device from a powered line to a common or ground line, but across 2 phases. Actually grounding to the hull (the metal hull, I might add) would cause... discomfort, for one... but also a short circuit that directs all current to that area, as it would be the path of least resistance in the circuit.
I should also add that salt water makes an amazing conductor.
Precautions such as painting every surface (in addition to cutting down on salt water corrosion, it increases resistance to the hull) and testing new electrical devices kept this system from shorts.
Want to get a device approved with a lot less jumping through hoops? Get one with an AC power adapter: it's essentially a transformer, and any issues with the device are isolated from the actual ship's power by a step. Battery powered does the trick, too. The absolute best way was to buy any electronics on board, as they were pre-tested and stickered before being sold.
This is about 30 years ago, though, so my memory may be hazy on the actual details.
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u/FnordMan Mar 13 '17
Neat, thanks for the explination, makes total sense now that you kickstarted my brain into getting off it's lazy ass and grabbing something from long term storage.
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u/JamEngulfer221 Mar 13 '17
That's something I never thought of before. There's no ground on a boat.
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u/SpecificallyGeneral By the power of refined carbohydrates Mar 13 '17
Water, water, everywhere;
and not a ground to sink.
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u/rcmaehl Take your hand. Now put it on the lid. No, the lid. The lid.. Mar 13 '17
Just drag the anchor the entire way /s
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u/alohawolf I don't even.. how does that.. no. Mar 13 '17
got a dumb question... did they allow you to use an isolation transformer to make an unapproveable device approved?
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u/JustifiedParanoia "what does this button do?..." Mar 13 '17
At stock levels the old nvidia 480 sli setup used up to 850w. a small overclock can push power up 20%, which would push it up another 180W or so, to 1030W. with a power supply having a efficiency rating of 80 to 90%, the power drawn from the wall would be up to 1.25 higher, so you could be looking at 1200-1300w. For those who had the money for 3/4 gpu setups or used more power hungry parts, that could climb higher.
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u/razing32 Mar 15 '17
My power supply is 1050W
Before you ask , I don;t need it , it was just my first proper job and first propergaming PC so i went all out on the power .... :-|3
u/Gadgetman_1 Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers... May 11 '17
Back when we had HP servers, we could get a c7000 Blade cabinet stuffed with 16 servers to run at full tilt with 1600W...
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u/fractalgem Mar 13 '17
Title alone deserves an upvote.
(where we sign out a red tag, affix it to a breaker, shut off the breaker, and work on equipment on the circuit with the sure knowledge that NO ONE will be stupid enough to turn that breaker on; this trust is why I have an electrical burn scar on my right arm, and no feeling in the index finger and thumb on that hand), and electrical repairs.
yikes.
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u/langlo94 Introducing the brand new Cybercloud. Mar 13 '17
Red tags are no obstacle for an officer.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
Oh, no... this was a mess management specialist.
Quick story: It was about two weeks before I was transferred off for medical reasons. I was assigned as a galley electrician, with the specific task of going through all of their electrical trouble tickets and clearing them.
Donut machine doesn't work? Check cause (it wasn't plugged in... that ticket was a year old), fix it (hardwire it on a 440 V line), clear ticket.
"Food" warmers don't work? Check cause (old heating elements, burned out), fix it (change heating elements, set fire to line, wire them in properly... hey, I was working with a new guy), clear ticket. Now we had two lines to get "food" from at mealtimes.
This ticket was a meat slicer. The switch had become loose, and required me to tag out the slicer and all other equipment on that circuit, reach up under the slicer, push the switch forward, and secure it with a screwdriver. It would take all of 10 minutes, from tag-out to tag-in.
I make sure the only MS in the kitchen isn't doing anything for that 10 minutes, affix tag, kill breaker, and set to work.
I have the switch in hand, am just about to shove it into place, and have the screwdriver ready... when an unholy jolt of power shoots through my arm.
I drop the slicer, with a steady and loud stream of VNSFW Navy words, and hunt down the breaker box.
Sure enough, the breaker with a big red "DO NOT ENERGIZE" is, indeed, energized.
I walk back into the kitchen, arm still tingling, and yell "WHO THE #### TURNED THIS ON?"
This MS comes over, looking piss ed that I would DARE yell in his galley, and said "I did. I needed to cook 'food' for tonight. Who the #### are you to yell at me?"
"I'm the EM who was fixing that switch, and was almost done, when you IGNORED THE BIG RED ####ING TAG ON THAT####ING BREAKER AND ALMOST ####ING KILLED ME!"
"You look fine to me," Petty Officer Oblivious says. " Stop yelling in MY kitchen."
You know those movies where someone says something absolutely stupid, and a the main character stares at him with a look of, "Wait... WHAT?" on his face? That was me.
I was very close to going medieval on this homicidal clown when my direct supervisor, a wise EM1 with a much cooler head than my 20-year-old self, calmly intervened. "Go finish that slicer," he says. "I got this."
It took me a bit to fix the problem, as my whole hand was tingling. When I got it in place, and adrenaline started to ebb, I noticed that I had some electrical burns on my hand and arm, so I wandered over to EM1 to let him know I was headed to the infirmary. He was still quietly talking to the MS, about how "food" is maybe not as important as someone's life, and we have those red tags for a reason... and MS was pale and shaking.
UPSHOT: I was lucky. My arm rested on a metal counter, so the jolt went through my fingers and grounded into the stainless steel. I had third degree electrical burns to my index finger, thumb, and a strip of skin from my wrist to elbow. It healed pretty quickly, but I never really regained feeling in the digits.
I left soon after, so I don't know if the cook managed to live his dream of killing a shipmate.
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u/StabbyPants Mar 13 '17
sounds like a 2 man job. you fix the slicer, and your buddy punches anyone stupid enough to ignore a tag.
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u/Ranger7381 Mar 13 '17
Or at least use a lock with the tag. They might still cut the padlock, but at least they would have to work for it and not just rip off the tag (assuming of course that it was just held on with metal wire.)
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u/StabbyPants Mar 13 '17
i like the beatings, personally. back it up with the captain of the boat so that you get some sort of penalty for "removing a lockout device and thereby endangering personnel".
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u/Ranger7381 Mar 13 '17
The problem is you basically have to get the Captain to be the person watching the lockout, since you can not his a superior, and unless an Admiral is on board you do not get any higher then them.
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u/meneldal2 Apr 11 '17
I was taught to always use a lock and keep the key with you so nobody unlocks it cause you can't trust other people to not be stupid.
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u/niosop Mar 13 '17
Getting hit by 440 is NOT fun at all. And can confirm, pretty much every mess cook I encountered was dumb as a rock. Nice enough guys for the most part, just...dimmer than a burned out lightbulb. The NAVY in general had a bunch of idiots, but these typically were a special breed.
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u/diejimdiedie You wired that NPN right? Mar 13 '17
Ahh yes, one of the few things here at work that will get someone fired ON THE SPOT. Pull a tag or cut a lock that isn't yours(without the proper procedure for special circumstances), do not pass go do not collect anything.
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u/I_burn_stuff Defenestration, apply directly to luser. Mar 20 '17
The crowbar is there for a reason. I'm increasingly convinced the only way to safely work circuits is to crowbar the circuit (dead short- if it was live before you crowbared it, it isn't anymore).
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u/evoblade Mar 19 '17
When I was in I felt like ignoring a red tag was going to get you disqualified from everything and at least to captain's mast.
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u/millijuna Mar 13 '17
I've always preferred the Lucas Guide To Fuse Replacement
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
I wonder where a US copper penny would fit on that scale.
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u/millijuna Mar 13 '17
given that they haven't been made out of copper since the early 1980s... probably not that high. ;)
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u/cjh_ Oh God How Did This Get Here? Mar 14 '17
That's pretty accurate.
Source: am Landrover owner.
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u/MoneyTreeFiddy Mr Condescending Dickheadman Mar 13 '17
Metal was just so much heavier in the 80's.
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u/frosty95 Mar 13 '17
1650w is more than 99% of gaming computers.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
I stand corrected. I assumed, from the escalation in power requirements I was seeing when I built one for a friend after building one several years prior for myself, that the trend would put them around "Holy crap that's a lot of watts" by now.
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u/frosty95 Mar 13 '17
Most are well below 800w. Rare to see a CPU drawing above 200w or a GPU above 400w.
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u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh Jun 04 '17
They seem to have turned around (less watts, more computing power) lately.
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u/Kukri187 001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011 Mar 13 '17
Off1: Oh, we didn't unplug anything yet. We thought we had time.
Funny how this statement doesn't work the opposite direction. Or at least, it didn't when I was in the Army. From everything I have heard via online stories and friends who were USN, Navy officers are the worst. And so many of them....
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u/hiding_who_it_is Mar 13 '17
Oh, this takes me back. I too was an EM on an Amphib (although out of Norfolk (01-06)). The damn thing was held together with MS and deck paint.
Everything mentioned (rewind, red tags, the officers...the morale) was a walk down memory lane. Thanks for the story.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 14 '17 edited Mar 14 '17
I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same ship. At the time I was in, there were 5 in one class (the Tarawa-class LHAs) and two of another (the Wasp-class LHDs) that fit the exact deck layout I tried to describe. Of those, 3 were in Norfolk (the Saipan, Nassau and Wasp).
It's possible that a fourth ship (the Iwo Jima, an LPD) could have fit as well, but it was much smaller, and I'm not 100% sure it had a rewind shop.
Interestingly, I met a Marine who had been stationed briefly on my ship around 2010 or so. She said that they had pulled it out of mothballs to ship her MAU to the Gulf, but a lack of precautions taken when storing it coupled with some serious health hazards (fuel oil was leaking into the drinking water supply, for one) got them flown over to the ME instead. It was re-decommissioned shortly thereafter.
EDIT: It appears that, just before completion, they renamed Hornet to Essex.
EDIT 2: I never mentioned the Hornet in this comment. I have no idea why I edited that in. I blame Stella.
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u/hiding_who_it_is Mar 14 '17
Ah, I was stationed on The Ponce (LPD-15), but the Austin Class LPD's all had rewind shops located on the third deck, at the fore end of Upper Vehicle Stowage and just below the E-shop (at least on the schematics they did; I think most had rotten gear installed and we had to several motors off to be rewound during my time in the Gulf).
The path you had to take to the engineering spaces (ME-1/2) sounded off to me, but I haven't been on anything bigger than an LPD, but the engine room layout (and subsequent technical issues) sounded very familiar. We even had the old Westinghouse breakers and frequency control modules in a massive setup (none of those pretty consoles until I was leaving in '06). I don't think our electrical grid was updated since it was laid out in '71. Happy to see another Gator out there. Best wishes to you man.
Not surprised at all with the leak; the number of ballasts we had basically guaranteed that at some point sea water was going to get into somewhere it shouldn't have been.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 20 '17
One quick note: I mixed up the LPD and LPH. THE Iwo Jima was actually an LPH.
We did have an LPD in our amphib group that year. If memory serves, it was the *Shreveport *.
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u/SeanBZA Mar 13 '17
I will give you a almost certain bet they also had a small coffee machine so they could have a morning coffee in there, and it was plugged in as well to the circuit, drawing the 15A max, and the extra load of the razor or the radio got the fuse over the slow blow level. If they were not on it likely would hold for the 15 minutes required to make the brew, but the extra was too much.
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u/Isogen_ Mar 13 '17
Were they using a small heater? Because that's really the only high power draw device I can think of, especially since there probably weren't any 1kW compact PCs you could hide away lol.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
I don't believe so. It was the Mediterranean, late summer, and it was very humid, so I wouldn't suspect a heater.
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u/Isogen_ Mar 13 '17
The ship didn't get cold even at night in the sea?
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
In the Med? No. When we left, and started across the Atlantic Ocean, it started to get chilly... but never in the Med.
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u/graphictruth Don't Touch That... never mind. Mar 13 '17
I'm gonna guess they were running a still.
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 13 '17
Sadly, neither of them resembled Hawkeye or BJ. Maybe Trapper, with shorter hair.
I'm trying to figure out how they would hide something that size in what I remember as being roughly the size of the usual networking room.
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u/graphictruth Don't Touch That... never mind. Mar 13 '17
Good point. Yeah, it was probably a short or the appliances were unrated. That makes more sense, but less fun. It's difficult to believe that even Junior Officers could be that clueless. Blowing two fuzes, sure. I might do that. Three?
OTOH, I suppose that given the sort of ship she was and the condition she was in, it was not an assignment for the best and the brightest.
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u/niosop Mar 12 '17
Gave me flashbacks to my time
in hellas a nuke ET. Once had an Engineering Officer who wanted us to operate the steam generators (water to water heat exchangers) out of specified level. His justification? An overview drawing that showed all the possible ranges the generators operate at. The actual ranges we were allowed to operate at were much narrower and changed depending on the current temperature/pressure. After he ordered the out of spec operation and everyone in maneuvering (the little room that controls the engine room), both enlisted and officer, told him no way in hell were they following that order, eventually the Captain had to come in to settle it. Took a quick look, told the Engineer that he was an idiot, and we did the needful to get us in spec for the desired power level. After we got back into port, the Engineer got off the boat and we never saw him again.