Re: Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas

["Forrest W. Christian" <forrestc () iMach com>]

On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, David Lesher wrote:
> What DOES scare the shit out of me is battery rooms built by
> idiots; including those who THINK they know what they are doing,
> as well as the "It's just a few batteries" crowd.

Any battery capable of being recharged SCARES ME TO DEATH.  (Well not
quite).

Doing a fair bit of electronic design in the past, I realize how fragile a
circuit can be.   All it takes is the wrong thing to short out/go bad and
you have boining sulfuric acid and the resulting fumes.

The worst story I've heard about this is from a friend who was taking a
UPS maintenance class (We're talking the big 3 phase ones here).   While
he was taking the class, someone came in and asked if anyone in the class
had a specific model of UPS installed anywhere. 

What had happened is that due to bad design, a solder joint would melt and
"reflow" onto an ajoining trace and as a result the charger would turn on
full, eventually boiling the batteries.

I don't even want to think what equipment looks like after it has been
through sulfuric acid vapors.  

- Forrest W. Christian (forrestc () imach com) KD7EHZ
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