jaevina.blogg.se

If it was in the wrong position while the device was being powered up, or powered down. The joys of old buildings and new science equipment.

You had to reconfigure the wiring in the room to ensure that all the excess electricity would travel directly into the ground and not directly into the main circuit (which would have had the effect of putting ~3/4 of a lighting bolt directly into the building's wiring after the main circuit breaker). Enough juice was running through it that you couldn't just turn it off. You see, it was a switch that controlled the grounding system for a high powered device. We had what looked like a normal light switch, painted red, with the wall surrounding it covered in warnings.Īt the same time though, just walking into the lab with nothing else turn on, you could flip it for hours and do nothing unless the building happened to get struck by lightning and the lightning rod failed. I'll speak from a bit of experience having once had a job with, "Do not let anyone flip the red switch over here without following all proper safety procedures," as part of the duties. In almost any room with something that would qualify as a big red button of doom, it is never just as simple as flipping a single toggle.