(stay with me on this one, it really does apply to this group) I call this one: Just when you thought you were finally smarter than your parents.....
[background information: My father (who recently turned 83) is a retired heavy construction equipment (bulldozers, cranes, dump trucks, etc.) operator & mechanic.] I was talking to my father the other night and I was explaining about some of the emissions and susceptibility testing we were doing on our IT equipment. Beyond the concept of not interfering with his tv, I thought to myself that he wasn't going to really understand what the point was. After I got done my long winded explanation he said 'oh, its like my friend Joe [name changed] a couple of years back and his crane problem'. He then relayed the following story while I stood there looking like a cheap fly trap <:O This guy Joe was a crane operator. He was operating an enormous crane with a boom nearly 200 feet long at a major construction project [If you didn't know: new construction equipment is all push button and joy stick controlled due to the "advances" in microprocessor based controls linked with "advanced" servo hydraulic systems]. He was having some minor difficulty with this very new and very expensive crane. So, with the crane idling, he went to his truck and got his cell phone to call the factory tech rep. He came back and called the tech rep from the cab of crane. While talking to the factory rep on his portable cell phone, the crane operator happened to move to a different position within the cabin of the crane. Without the operator touching any of the controls, the crane simultaneously started booming up, swinging, and lifting on the line. The factory rep at that point, based on what he was hearing over the phone [and to his credit in my opinion] figured out what was happening. So he screamed to the crane operator; shut your #$@#% phone off and run. The operator got clear of the thing and no one was hurt. However, there was major damage to the crane because it tried to pull blocking attached to the lines through the pulleys and sheaves in the boom. Obviously my father understood the concept of EMC interference in a very real world sense. So besides the obvious EMI/EMC lesson learned, this story is also a reminder that if you ever think that all your advanced education and vast industry experience makes you smarter than the people that raised you, think again. Happy holidays, Richard Cass --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to [email protected] with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] (the list administrators).
