When did you "know" you were meant to be an electrician?

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DakotaL said:
Not sure what a TR outlet is, but that "magic smoke" being the transistor? I hate that smell. I can smell it a mile away, same with antifreeze. Maybe thats why i'm an automotive technician right now.
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TR = Tamper Resistant. Harder to plug the two leads of the 4.5V motor into.
 
DakotaL said:
Not sure what a TR outlet is, but that "magic smoke" being the transistor? I hate that smell. I can smell it a mile away, same with antifreeze. Maybe thats why i'm an automotive technician right now.
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Magic smoke can come from wires (and their insulation) as well as from semiconductors.
Remember that semiconductors are devices that blow up under overcurrent to protect fuses from damage.
 
DakotaL said:
That makes no sense... Fuses protect the semiconductors in the circuit.
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From a practical viewpoint, they do not. In general fuses do not blow fast enough to protect semiconductors. They just protect what is left in the case that the semiconductor fails in a short rather than an open.

It was a joke, in terms of referring to the purpose of the fuses but funny because it is accurate in terms of the results.
 
DakotaL said:
Not sure what a TR outlet is, but that "magic smoke" being the transistor? I hate that smell. I can smell it a mile away, same with antifreeze. Maybe thats why i'm an automotive technician right now.
Click to expand...


TR = tamper resistant.
It's the new kind of receptacle where it seems like everything is going to break when you try to plug something in.
 
I have been playing with electricity since I was a kid. I was so curious, my mother and grandmother used to buy radios and electronic stuff from yard sales for me to tear apart so I wouldn't tear apart household items.

I had many jobs over the years, but I never could keep my hands out of broken stuff. Eventually, I got very good at fixing things, electrical being my favorite. I started a business doing electrical work on vehicles in the 80's. I ended up at dealerships in the 90's getting schooled in Detroit on the latest Chrysler automotive technical wonders of the day. I worked maintenance for a while, but I really didn't find any part of it enjoyable except the electrical stuff. I got my ham radio license in 1994. Finally, a buddy of mine talked into the apprenticeship in 1996. It was about 3 years into the trade that I realized it was really what I liked to do. I used to tell people that asked me what I did for fun I would tell them, 'ham radio', and add 'Lucky me, my work is play'.

I love troubleshooting electrical problems. I don't know why, but I get the same 'thrill' from solving a difficult problem as some of my friends do from hunting.
 
DakotaL said:
So my question: When did you "know", this was what you wanted to do?
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they weren't going to let me into the apprenticeship when they
found out my parents were married, but then they found out
that it wasn't to each other, so they said it was ok to join.

i was looking at apprenticeships, and i figured it would be
better to work electricity hot than do a hot tap on a sewer.

i had a few years in electrical manufacturing before signing up.
i've been doing this since 1977. seems to have worked out,
so i guess i'll stay with it.
 
K8MHZ said:
I have been playing with electricity since I was a kid. I was so curious, my mother and grandmother used to buy radios and electronic stuff from yard sales for me to tear apart so I wouldn't tear apart household items.

I had many jobs over the years, but I never could keep my hands out of broken stuff. Eventually, I got very good at fixing things, electrical being my favorite. I started a business doing electrical work on vehicles in the 80's. I ended up at dealerships in the 90's getting schooled in Detroit on the latest Chrysler automotive technical wonders of the day. I worked maintenance for a while, but I really didn't find any part of it enjoyable except the electrical stuff. I got my ham radio license in 1994. Finally, a buddy of mine talked into the apprenticeship in 1996. It was about 3 years into the trade that I realized it was really what I liked to do. I used to tell people that asked me what I did for fun I would tell them, 'ham radio', and add 'Lucky me, my work is play'.

I love troubleshooting electrical problems. I don't know why, but I get the same 'thrill' from solving a difficult problem as some of my friends do from hunting.
Click to expand...

My brother and I were the same way, tearing anything and everything apart. Making Jacob's Ladders with oil burner xmfr's., etc. Dad had a mechanical contracting biz, when we were kids helping on the job, he would have us work with the electricians, plasterers (yes, I'm that old) brickmasons, carpenters, roofers, anyone else who was working on a job. We did a lot of rehabs, houses built back into the late 1700's. Then came ham radio, been licensed since 1970... 73 de W4KAV.
 
mtfallsmikey said:
My brother and I were the same way, tearing anything and everything apart. Making Jacob's Ladders with oil burner xmfr's., etc. Dad had a mechanical contracting biz, when we were kids helping on the job, he would have us work with the electricians, plasterers (yes, I'm that old) brickmasons, carpenters, roofers, anyone else who was working on a job. We did a lot of rehabs, houses built back into the late 1700's. Then came ham radio, been licensed since 1970... 73 de W4KAV.
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1970 would have been about when I learned how much power a capacitor in an old tube type clock radio could store. Enough to propel about 120 lbs. (I was 13) half way across a 14 foot bedroom floor. I was secretly converting it from AM BC band to the shortwave BC bands by jumping the variable tuning capacitors. In my haste to put it back to normal one afternoon, I left the thing plugged in and, well, I am pretty sure you can guess what happened.

For most people, that would have been the end of it. Not for me. Instead, I was made seriously curious about the power of electricity.

73!
 
just the cowboy said:
When I was in 6th grade I did a science project with a lattern battery, pushbutton and bell. Well since I was a lazy kid I made a handle to carry the battery with a piece of wire wrapped from the easiest place to hook it, the + and - terminals. When the wire burnt my hand I wanted to know "WHY". My teacher said he didn't know, to take shop class next year and find out. After 10 years of school and 40 years in the field I "THINK' I know why.
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I didn't have the pleasure of that particular experience until I was in my late 40's. You'd think I'd have learned something at the very least by keeping my eyes open, but no. I was rigging a panel in the training room and needed to trim the FPLP that was hooked up to the battery set. I merrily clipped the cable and went on to the next task. Suddenly I smell something burning and the insulation is smoking around the battery terminals. When I cut the cable, the fresh ends wound up crimped together creating a dead short across the pair of 12-7 batteries. For my second brilliant move, I grabbed the wire with my bare hand to jerk it free of the terminals since it was wound loose around the flat terminals. Well, that worked, but now I had a pretty impressive blister across the palm of my hand. And naturally, my two technicians witnessed the whole thing. Man, they got a lot of mileage out of that.

I think I knew from 11 or so that I was going to be doing something technical. There was a book at the library for home electronic projects. I never built any, but I used to take that book out again and again trying to look at the diagrams and understand what was going on. And the rest, as they say, is history.
 
DakotaL said:
Not sure what a TR outlet is, but that "magic smoke" being the transistor? I hate that smell. I can smell it a mile away, same with antifreeze. Maybe thats why i'm an automotive technician right now.
Click to expand...

Magic smoke being a joke for what makes all electrical things work. When they burn up, aka 'release the magic smoke', they stop working. There's even joke "smoke replacement kits" to get your electrical gear working again (if only it were that easy!).

Last time I smelt something truly burnt was working hotel maintenance years ago; some guest's kid decided to put the TV remote in the microwave. We had to clear the FLOOR of guests the smell was so bad. Stupidly, I tried to save the microwave, which still worked. Even a month later, it still smelled of burnt batteries, circuitboard, and plastic... and in the dumpster it went.
 
When the Navy said so...I wanted to be a jet engine mechanic....so they made me a nuclear electrician and put me on a SUBMARINE! Can't get much farther from jets than that! Worked out good, though. Retired and loving it!
 
I was seven years old when my brother became an apprentice electrician at a car parts manufactures, that’s when I made my mind up. Later I was offered an apprenticeship by the same company, it shocked brother when I turned it down. I’d been offered an electrical apprenticeship by a chemical company.

There have been a few deviations along the way. I’m still not sure how I became a food plant production manager, the job just seemed to evolve from my original role as an engineer. I just couldn’t hack dealing with the personnel side of the job and so escaped back in to engineering until retirement.
 
Tony S said:
I was seven years old when my brother became an apprentice electrician at a car parts manufactures, that’s when I made my mind up. Later I was offered an apprenticeship by the same company, it shocked brother when I turned it down. I’d been offered an electrical apprenticeship by a chemical company.

There have been a few deviations along the way. I’m still not sure how I became a food plant production manager, the job just seemed to evolve from my original role as an engineer. I just couldn’t hack dealing with the personnel side of the job and so escaped back in to engineering until retirement.
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We engineers tend to be problem oriented. To paraphrase an American admiral, "Damn the sensibilities, full solve ahead". Fire alarm panels can be cranky in their own way, but they don't go running to HR if you throw a few curses at them from time to time.
 
gadfly56 said:
Fire alarm panels can be cranky in their own way, but they don't go running to HR if you throw a few curses at them from time to time.
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Ina a related story...

Back when I was in the semiconductor biz, the Sun workstation on my desk often gave me problems. On several occasions I had a sysadmin in my cubicle helping me get it back under control.

One day an HR rep came by and told me that they had gotten a complaint about me; someone walking by my cubicle had reportedly heard me verbally abusing a coworker. This was puzzling to me; I try to always cultivate mutually respectful relationships with my colleagues, and something like this would have been very much out of character for me. I inquired about the timing of the alleged incident and I was able to determine that it had occurred during one of those sysadmin visits concerning my misbehaving computer. I immediately knew what had happened.

I told the HR rep, "I wasn't cussing my coworker, I was cussing the computer."

"Oh," she said, "Never mind, then. We all do that."

:D
 
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I was in my second year of college as a business major and one summer my friend and I started a cleanup/hauling business and we worked for a couple of contractors on more than one occasion. I was working nights doing retail. One of the contractors that we had worked for the summer before came into my work just as school was letting out for the summer, asked what I was doing and if I would be interested in going to work for him. I was hooked by August and quit school and stayed with him. My dad, a Regional Administrative Director for NCR, was furious, but I was making almost three times what I was making before.


That was almost 40 years ago, my dad used to tell people, proudly, that I was the Chief Electrical Inspector for the city.


I was thinking about it the other day, and there's nothing wrong with getting your hands dirty and working for a living. If you can feed and clothe your family and you have a roof over your head, then you've done a good job with your life.
 
About 8 years old

About 8 years old

I was about 8 years old. My dad brought a doorbell kit he got from work (was in sales at General Electric) I hooked it up with an extension cord. I decided the push button wasn't enough and added as I called it then a wall switch. I just knew since there were 2 screws on the toggle switch white must go on one and black on the other. Got it all connected. Of course dad was upstairs watching tv. Plugged it in and flipped switch...out go all the lights. Dad replaced fuse and I was amazed a small glass screw in thing could shut off all the lights

at that time I had to figure out how all those wires in the house made stuff work.
the rest is history. Been gettin paid for it the last 24 years
 
gadfly56 said:
We engineers tend to be problem oriented. To paraphrase an American admiral, "Damn the sensibilities, full solve ahead". Fire alarm panels can be cranky in their own way, but they don't go running to HR if you throw a few curses at them from time to time.
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The company sent me to university to do a management degree. I didn’t want to be there, I hated the extra (unpaid) work the course placed on me, I hated what my work had become. In short, I hate dealing with people!

I was in one of my bad moods during a lecture when I was asked how would I deal with various situations regarding staff, “it’s your ******* problem, you sort it out!” apparently was the wrong answer.
 
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