So within about 10 minutes; first I watch myself connect the new battery to my UPS backwards! Sizzle crackle click POP! and it doesn't turn on anymore. Then a few minutes later I accidentally connect the ground on my scope lead to the hot on my other UPS while it's plugged into the wall. The lights in the room blinked, a small fireworks show BUT apparently my reflexes were fast enough to save the scope, yay! And props to Rigol for making a scope sturdy enough that I can momentarily short the ground without smoking it. lol.. So... I'm moving to something else and resuming electronics on another day.

Has anyone else had one of these days?

 

Yes! Few days ago blew a USB controller IC which is 5€ each,now I have to order a new one and pay 10€ for shipping.

 

So within about 10 minutes; first I watch myself connect the new battery to my UPS backwards! Sizzle crackle click POP! and it doesn't turn on anymore. Then a few minutes later I accidentally connect the ground on my scope lead to the hot on my other UPS while it's plugged into the wall. The lights in the room blinked, a small fireworks show BUT apparently my reflexes were fast enough to save the scope, yay! And props to Rigol for making a scope sturdy enough that I can momentarily short the ground without smoking it. lol.. So... I'm moving to something else and resuming electronics on another day.

Has anyone else had one of these days?

Yep!

Usually as soon as I do my first stupid thing I sit back and ask if I really understand what I did wrong. If the answer is No, then I go exploring confident that I will learn something useful. If the answer is Yes, then I ask myself if I really understand why I did something that I knew was wrong. Sometimes the answer is because I've gotten sloppy and have gotten away with it before. I remember in high school I replaced the alternator on my car without disconnecting the battery. I had done that several times and it was quicker -- plus I could listen to the radio while I worked. I had never been told (and had never thought about it deep enough) to consider the risk of shorting one of the leads to the engine block if I wasn't careful enough. Well, one day I wasn't careful enough and the alternator slipped out of my hands and shorted the battery lead to the block. The stupidity of what I had done was obvious, but so too was the fact that it wasn't an indication of that day being a particularly good day to not touch anything electrical. So I disconnected the battery and pushed forward. But if it's because I failed to do something that I do know better and that I normally do do, then I ask if other activities might be a better match for my mental state that day -- or at least maybe a fifteen minute break might be in order.

 

The old saying things go in three's is true! It all started when I went to start the car and the battery had failed so, as i was already running late, I jump started from the mrs's car and promptly blew the alternator on her car!!!!! Went to local tyre &battery dealer who charged me well over the odds to fit a new battery. As I driving, I could smell acid, checked the new battery and it had been clamped down onto a bolt and cracked the casing!!!!! Guess I should have just stayed in bed that day! Oh, and didn't make my appointment either

 

We've all done the most bone-headed thing imaginable that seemed totally logical at the time we did it and it's not always related to electronics. We had a couple of guys change a vacuum pump on a chamber. The old pump needed a thick adapter to bolt up, the new pump had a thin flange. So what did they do, use the same bolts, bottom them out in the drilled and helicoil'd chamber holes and then keep cranking the bolts to make the flange tight until the bolts punched a hole in interior side of the large Alum -7 torr range vacuum chamber. They make special epoxies to deal with these types of problems so the fix was fairly easy but we had a bit of fun making very serious faces with the two (very skilled) guys who did it.