# That Was Fun, Let's Not Do It Again



## Eboy87 (Dec 15, 2008)

Just had my second amp blow up in my face. Amp was just tagged "bad." So I go and plug it in to test it, and immediately hear "BANG!" followed by a bit of smoke. Turns out this one survived... well, survived probably isn't the best word for it... went through a lightning strike. It's a crappy little Soundtech, and if I remember correctly, it was outputting an interesting tone at full volume on channel two, probably somewhere around 200 Hz with a few harmonics. 

Guess it was bad. On the plus side, I now have a new doorstop!


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## theatretechguy (Dec 16, 2008)

I've had a soundtech powered monitor emit smoke and die (just after the warranty expried). That brand is total junk and I will never buy it again, regardless if it's "made in the USA"


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## What Rigger? (Dec 17, 2008)

"I am the (smoke) genie of the (L)amp! You have freed me. I grant you NO wishes. Goodbye!"


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## renegadeblack (Dec 19, 2008)

What Rigger? said:


> "I am the (smoke) genie of the (L)amp! You have freed me. I grant you NO wishes. Goodbye!"


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## Van (Dec 19, 2008)

Eboy87 said:


> Just had my second amp blow up in my face. Amp was just tagged "bad." So I go and plug it in to test it, and immediately hear "BANG!" followed by a bit of smoke. ............Guess it was bad. ........


 
Ummmm.. Ring ring, Captain Obvious? It's the Clue phone, it's for you.....


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## Eboy87 (Dec 20, 2008)

Well, you know, bad encompasses many things from "not passing audio" to "catastrophic failure." In hindsight, I guess it should've been tagged "Will blow up when plugged in."

What Rigger? I'm going to have to borrow that quote from you.


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## Esoteric (Jan 8, 2009)

Yeah it is nice when people are specific in their labeling. The last venue I walked into as interim lighting director had units tagged "sick", "very sick", "does not work", etc. Turns out one of them blew out an outlet because the guy before me grabbed a unit that said "does not work" and plugged it in, ceremoniously ending the life of that plug. That is why I always metered any light labeled bad before doing anything to it.

Mike


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## photoatdv (Jan 9, 2009)

Esoteric said:


> Yeah it is nice when people are specific in their labeling. The last venue I walked into as interim lighting director had units tagged "sick", "very sick", "does not work", etc. Turns out one of them blew out an outlet because the guy before me grabbed a unit that said "does not work" and plugged it in, ceremoniously ending the life of that plug. That is why I always metered any light labeled bad before doing anything to it.
> 
> Mike


Oh I love that (the labeling, not the plug blowing up)! Our problem is that we never know who labeled stuff unless we recognize the handrighting. Often it is incorrect (it could be anyone from one of the professionals to a band student who couldn't figure out how to use it)! Therefore we have to test everything anyway. I tried to start getting everyone to date and initial when the mark stuff, but it didn't really work. I did love it though when the teacher found some stuff I'd labeled and brought each one to me asking if it was really bad since he knew I'd marked it! If I didn't think it was bad, why would I have marked it as bad?


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## Esoteric (Jan 9, 2009)

photoatdv said:


> Oh I love that (the labeling, not the plug blowing up)! Our problem is that we never know who labeled stuff unless we recognize the handrighting. Often it is incorrect (it could be anyone from one of the professionals to a band student who couldn't figure out how to use it)! Therefore we have to test everything anyway. I tried to start getting everyone to date and initial when the mark stuff, but it didn't really work. I did love it though when the teacher found some stuff I'd labeled and brought each one to me asking if it was really bad since he knew I'd marked it! If I didn't think it was bad, why would I have marked it as bad?



Nice. Whenever we do maintenance we put the unit number and date on it, then if it is bad it gets a tag with the symptoms and possible cause on it.

Mike


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## coolbeam (Jan 10, 2009)

Does anyone else use "NFG" ?


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## waynehoskins (Jan 10, 2009)

coolbeam said:


> Does anyone else use "NFG" ?



That's industry-standard terminology.

I got a kick out of "sick" and the variations on that. It sure is helpful, though, when some sort of description of the problem accompanies whatever notation is used to indicate that the device no longer performs as it should. "Blows fuse" or "Smoke let out" is a different type of NFG than simply out of bench-focus or otherwise functioning in a sub-par manner.

I used to be a fan of keeping track of what's wrong with this or that: green tag means no lamp, red tag means out of bench, and so on. Later on I became much more a fan of fixing things as necessary, or at least putting a plain-text note on there as to the nature of the problem so that it could be fixed next week.


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## Esoteric (Jan 10, 2009)

waynehoskins said:


> That's industry-standard terminology.
> 
> I got a kick out of "sick" and the variations on that. It sure is helpful, though, when some sort of description of the problem accompanies whatever notation is used to indicate that the device no longer performs as it should. "Blows fuse" or "Smoke let out" is a different type of NFG than simply out of bench-focus or otherwise functioning in a sub-par manner.
> 
> I used to be a fan of keeping track of what's wrong with this or that: green tag means no lamp, red tag means out of bench, and so on. Later on I became much more a fan of fixing things as necessary, or at least putting a plain-text note on there as to the nature of the problem so that it could be fixed next week.



I am a bigger fan of the note myself Wayne. I like to keep a database to figure out if a unit is having the same problems over and over again.

Mike


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## Pie4Weebl (Jan 10, 2009)

waynehoskins said:


> That's industry-standard terminology.
> 
> I got a kick out of "sick" and the variations on that. It sure is helpful, though, when some sort of description of the problem accompanies whatever notation is used to indicate that the device no longer performs as it should. "Blows fuse" or "Smoke let out" is a different type of NFG than simply out of bench-focus or otherwise functioning in a sub-par manner.
> .



MY favorite broken gear humor was one day I walked up to some people around a 1ton motor on the bench and asked what was wrong with it, my boss turned to me and told me that "all the smoke leaked out of it"


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## icewolf08 (Jan 13, 2009)

Pie4Weebl said:


> MY favorite broken gear humor was one day I walked up to some people around a 1ton motor on the bench and asked what was wrong with it, my boss turned to me and told me that "all the smoke leaked out of it"



Once you let out the blue smoke you can never put it back in!


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## waynehoskins (Jan 13, 2009)

People think that electricity is what makes things work. No, it's the magic smoke. Once you let the magic smoke out, it stops working!

I'm pretty sure that's an old engineering or ET joke; I heard it from my dad who's a EE.


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## kbbear (Jan 14, 2009)

everything is made with smoke deep inside, it takes a genius to get it out.


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## philhaney (Jan 14, 2009)

kbbear said:


> everything is made with smoke deep inside, it takes a genius to get it out.



And lamps don't emit light, they suck darkness. Which is why I never buy new ones. When mine fill up, I drain them.


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## photoatdv (Jan 14, 2009)

Good one!


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## TimMiller (Jan 20, 2009)

I have a light in the shop labeled "bad, dancer kicked it off stage during LA show"....
Well it is well labeled, i am just not to happy about it......


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## LightingPenguin (Jan 20, 2009)

TimMiller said:


> I have a light in the shop labeled "bad, dancer kicked it off stage during LA show"....
> Well it is well labeled, i am just not to happy about it......



That seems like the stupidest label. no offense to who wrote it.

What's bad on that light? Does it work? the plug? does it turn on? the lens?
I wish we could have a standard for our business, besides the generic NFG. NFG is good, but it tells you nothing about the problem. If you don't know the problem, hell, just write NFG IDKY (I don't know why). Stupid, yes. More specific in a very small sense, yes.


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## waynehoskins (Jan 21, 2009)

TimMiller said:


> I have a light in the shop labeled "bad, dancer kicked it off stage during LA show"....
> Well it is well labeled, i am just not to happy about it......



I thought it was funny. And useful. It doesn't tell you about what particular item(s) inside it is in need of repair or replacement, but it tells you about the nature of what caused the damage. And since this is a road or rental unit, the guy who finds it dead offstage doesn't have much chance to open it up and check it out (especially if it's a mover). The note for the bench tech (that the dancer kicked it off stage) tells the guy that it needs to be opened up and checked out from front to back (especially if it's a mover, which I'd guess it to be).

If I'm out doing a show, I don't care much exactly why a light doesn't work. I just care that it doesn't work, and that to get the show up I had to use one of the spares because this one doesn't work. If I have time, I'll open the thing up to find out why it doesn't work, and sometimes even try to fix it. "NFG, fell from the truss" means something different than "NFG out of the box".


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## LightingPenguin (Jan 21, 2009)

waynehoskins said:


> . "NFG, fell from the truss".



If your fixture fell from a truss, I imagine it would be in a few pieces. That is, depending on from how high up it fell. But I do believe that would be an obvious NFG


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## philhaney (Jan 21, 2009)

waynehoskins said:


> "NFG out of the box".



If I have one of those I write "BOOB" on the toe tag ("Bad Out Of Box").


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## w3st0n21 (Jan 21, 2009)

ok, question. if you have something that is bad why not just throw it away? if u dont know who labled it, then test it (unless it will blow up) and if it is bad then throw it away.


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## philhaney (Jan 21, 2009)

w3st0n21 said:


> ok, question. if you have something that is bad why not just throw it away? if u dont know who labled it, then test it (unless it will blow up) and if it is bad then throw it away.



1. If it's a BOOB, I can send it back and get a replacement.

2. It is usually cheaper to repair most equipment (to a point).


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## waynehoskins (Jan 21, 2009)

w3st0n21 said:


> ok, question. if you have something that is bad why not just throw it away? if u dont know who labled it, then test it (unless it will blow up) and if it is bad then throw it away.



It's only a short-term thing. If I have a bad light, I want to fix it. But if I don't have time now (because I'm cueing the show), or if someone else like a bench tech handles repairs, I would mark it as bad, to be fixed shortly but not immediately.

Or if I'm out doing a gig, I can't fix it now; it has to wait until we're back at the shop.

Or in the case of a video switcher I have, we took it to a gig; its power supply broke. I know exactly what's wrong and what needs to happen, but it's been four months and still I haven't fixed it. The tub is sitting on my office floor with a note that reads "check out". I know exactly what's wrong with it, and I'm going to fix it eventually, but I just haven't done it yet. And why fix instead of throw away? To fix it will cost me, oh, in this case, under a nickel. And probably a half hour of time. To replace it with a new unit would take between four and five figures.


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## derekleffew (Jan 21, 2009)

w3st0n21 said:


> ...if you have something that is bad why not just throw it away? ...


Hardly the proper sentiment, particularly in today's earth-friendly atmosphere. *Anything* (except consumables) can be repaired--it's just a matter of weighing the cost of repairs against cost of replacement.


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## LightingPenguin (Jan 21, 2009)

Also, if its a mover and its NFG, I can almost guarantee its cheaper to repair it than to buy an completely new mover. Most theatres dont have the budget to simply chuck everything. And even if they did, why would you? Its such a waste of almost good equipment


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## photoatdv (Jan 21, 2009)

Can whatever theatre is just throwing away everything that doesn't work perfectly please send it to me?


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## waynehoskins (Jan 21, 2009)

photoatdv said:


> Can whatever theatre is just throwing away everything that doesn't work perfectly please send in to me?



Ooh, count me in too!


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## Esoteric (Jan 21, 2009)

Me too!

Mike


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## philhaney (Jan 21, 2009)

photoatdv said:


> Can whatever theatre is just throwing away everything that doesn't work perfectly please send it to me?



Add me to your list, too!


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## Van (Jan 21, 2009)

photoatdv said:


> Can whatever theatre is just throwing away everything that doesn't work perfectly please send it to me?


 My brain doesn't work too perfectly sometimes.... I could put it in a box and ship it to you.....


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## zuixro (Jan 22, 2009)

At work this summer I was cleaning out some shelves. I found a piece of paper that said "Smoked beyond repair" and had a date on it from 2001. (it had been a while since the shelves had been cleaned) That note made it's way around the shop. Spent a little bit of time on the fork lift. Some time on a (fully functional) sub woofer. Even a mic rig for a while. It kind of became a joke.


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## photoatdv (Jan 22, 2009)

Well after I said that, I found out my drama teacher told the tech dept teacher to throw away the trouperette followspot because the fan doesn't work and he didn't want to buy a new ($20) fan...

Never fear one of our pro guys to the rescue... he's going to explain the logic of that and add the fan to one of our orders .


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