Scary stories

[Wingwalker]

I was in a venue the other day and came across an exposed transformer which looked to be mains fed. It was in easy touching distance by anyone and it had to be presumed that it could well have been live given it's location. It was a little difficult to work out what it was being used for but needless to say, I wasn't going anywhere near it and reported it to the relevant people on site.

 

 

Thankfully, Health and Safety in venues are getting better and the standard is improving - although it looks as though not everyone has got the message yet.

 

 

But it did get me thinking, without naming names, what scary stories do you have of what you've come across and "how not to do it?"

 

David.

[sunray]

Door missing from control panel in a plant room and no internal cover on the exposed 2" x 1/4" bussbars. 1200A 3 phase supply.

 

Plant room was used for access by the kitchen to the outside world for deliveries and rubbish using metal trollies umpteen times a day.

[bigclive]

I was in a venue the other day and came across an exposed transformer which looked to be mains fed. It was in easy touching distance by anyone and it had to be presumed that it could well have been live given it's location. It was a little difficult to work out what it was being used for but needless to say, I wasn't going anywhere near it and reported it to the relevant people on site.

 

I've seen a variac with exposed terminals when the panel it was in was opened to adjust it. It was being used for noise free dimming of orchestra pit lighting.

 

In the past it was common to have open banks of rheostats with an operator sliding the bakelite handles up and down the spirals of hot live wire. To the best of my knowledge nobody died, and if someone got a bit too cocky then a sharp zap was all it took to teach them to respect electricity.

 

To me one of the scariest things is casual teenage event crew flippantly hooking up 400A tails with no true understanding of what they are dealing with. Worse still when other crew of the "event" companies they are working for show them how to tie into electrical distribution equipment and the person showing them has no experience other than what the person before showed them.

[john-sp]

About 15 years ago I was working abroad visiting venues at holiday resorts, some of the installations were worrying to say the least! My worst discovery was at an outdoor venue on Corfu. The covered stage had lighting installed above it and a small building at the rear used as dressing rooms, storage and the location of the dimmers etc. The two Pulsar 18 channel Datapacks were fixed to the wall just inside the entrance door with the incoming 3-phase fed from a 100A MEM switch straight into the lower Datapack - no distribution board or any form of protection. The upper Datapack was supplied with power by a parallel feed from the terminals on the lower pack with the cable run through the dimmer, out of a hole in the top and into the second dimmer through a hole in the bottom - no glands of course!

 

Well, I say two Datapacks..... actually the upper one had been removed at some point with the load cables left dangling, not too much of an issue, but the 3-phase that had fed power to it was left sticking out of the top of the remaining dimmer. Bare wires, not even a token piece of insulation tape! I switched the power on, gingerly measured the exposed wires and yes, they were live! Remember, this is just inside the entrance door where the acts would have walked in and out with live 3-phase bare wires at shoulder height for most people, difficult not to brush past them as you entered or exited the room.

 

I quickly turned off all power, removed the offending cable and blocked the hole in the top of the dimmer. This was followed by a meeting with a very disinterested venue manager who couldn't see a problem and a written report recommending closure of the venue until the wiring was made safe. I doubt that actually happened......

[Paul TC]

event crew flippantly hooking up 400A tails with no true understanding of what they are dealing with.

 

Was in the carpentry team :D (using my O level woodwork skills not), at an event 30 plus years ago.

 

Asked the lead for the electrical team how he was balancing phases over the two story exhibition venue with main stage downstairs and secondary stage and exhibition, chill-out area upstairs. Response was a blank look, later that evening, venue was operating on emergency lighting before doors opening and local power company looking at onsite sub-station.

 

Reminded me if organising a voluntary staffed event, you still need qualified competent people. (Not Disco Dave).

[Stuart91]

Rock concert taking place in a school after hours. I've turned up with a PA and a handful of lights. One of the locals is organising a projector to shoot onto a screen at the back of the stage.

 

Because of the throw required, it has to be mounted on a FOH lighting bar. Our local hero has got the local blacksmith to make up some sort of bracket, but the instructions have been misinterpreted, and there is bracing that prevents the projector sitting on the shelf.

 

His solution is to attach the projector to the underside of this bracketry, holding it in place with parcel tape. (Which coincidentally blocks the cooling vents on the side). This is going to be hanging over the heads of the audience, including the guy's own children. The projector itself weighs about 6kg, it's not some super-lightweight model.

 

He got quite cross when I pointed out the problem. After a protracted argument, it was agreed that a rope would be tied tightly round the projector handle, and then to the bar above, to act as a safety of sorts. I'd have been far happier if the whole idea was binned but was overruled.

[bruce]

I was asked to provide sound for a church hall panto. Hmmmm, autocorrect tried to change that to “pants”, clever autocorrect!

 

Their “usual guy” was doing lighting, I’d never met him.

 

He turned up with a pair of home made stands, made from tv aerial pole, with a couple of Par56 each side. His “big spot”, which arrived wrapped in a towel in a wooden box , was a patt23 on a.microphone stand.

 

He briought out a dimmer board, which looked a bit Flash Gordon. Spent ages telling me how it had been built by “a very clever man, a genius” and would cost thousands today.

 

It had dimmers built into the main chassis, with IEC outlets. MALE outlets.

 

It’s the only time I’ve ever said “either that goes, or I do”.

[Junior8]

Walking round the street outside a venue I noticed that yes the security gate beyond the fire exit was open as per. Trouble was the padlock was left open hanging on the catch and the gate not fixed back. It only needed an interfering passer by to simply lock it up and that is where the bodies would pile up. It took me some time to impress upon the responsible person that half a job is no job at all. Worrying that...

[sunray]

MALE outlets.

 

It's the only time I've ever said "either that goes, or I do".

I have done a fair bit of temp power supplies and frequently found trailers, particularly catering, that have female CEEforms as an inlet as the flap keeps the dirt and water out. On top of that they are often undersized and/or the cable too small.

 

No amount of 'it's been like that for years' or 'that's how it was supplied' protestations will persuade me to provide power to them.

 

 

Oh yes I remember the predecessors to the Strand Junior 8 style dimmers with no shrouds of any sort, in fact I only removed one from a junior school in summer of 2007. complete with frayed cotton insulated twin twisted flex and 2 pin 5A plugs.

 

The blowers on bouncy castles always seem to be the right place to look when the RCD goes, a quick check reveals the flex pulled and cores showing.

 

The blowers on bouncy castles always seem to be the right place to look when the RCD goes, a quick check reveals the flex pulled and cores showing.

 

On holiday last year the hotel pool had been closed as the pump wouldn't run. I hope it's ok to post a link to another forum: https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/shocking-discovery.483500/

[Stuart91]

The blowers on bouncy castles always seem to be the right place to look when the RCD goes, a quick check reveals the flex pulled and cores showing.

 

The staff left to operate the inflatables more often than not also have no clue about the loads of their blowers. I remember a fairly large event where five large inflatables lost power all at once. It was quite a spectacular sight, as they came down very quickly, but since most were full of children they were lucky not to have any injuries.

 

On closer inspection, it turned out that all the blowers were running from a single 63amp outlet, via the usual ramshackle collection of extension reels. Their staff were at a complete loss, and were assuming that the generator was broken until I pointed out that the other outlet was still powering my PA quite happily.

[nuttytechy]

I was asked to help out in a venue where their resident technician/cowboy was a bit of an..... How can I say it. He had a death wish to himself and those who worked with him. He managed to brake the socket end of a 16amp ceeform lead going up to one of the LX bars. What he did was replaced the broken socket and replaced it with a male plug then plug it into a a splitter then gaffer taped the male end of the splitter so he could use the female end of it.

 

When I asked him about why he did that, His reply was he couldn't find any female ends and he needed the cabled to be rigged that day.

 

I did ask him other questions and to cut a long story short. This guy could not be bothered about health and safety as a local B and Q and toolstation was only down the road.

 

I spoke to the venue manager about his antics and it's not the first time he has done dodgy stuff.

 

He got a telling off for wiring to lamps together into a terminal block then terminating it with a 15amp.

He used cable ties as safety cables/chains.

Showing the manager the lead which I confiscated then destroyed was the last straw as the idiot was asked not to come back.

[Stuart91]

A few weeks ago I was poking around the truss in a venue. They have about a dozen pars on an 8m span.

 

Most of the pars don't have glands on the incoming cable. Quite a few Par 56 are missing gel frames, so it's just the sprung ring stopping the lamp from dropping onto the customers below.

 

Cable up to the pars is twin and earth. It runs through the truss and each piece has several tight corners etc. Lanterns are paired via chocky block, which is wrapped in insulating tape, most of which has been baked by the heat and is falling off.

 

The icing on the cake is the dimmers, which are wall mounted units. They are sitting without the covers, apparently to facilitate quicker access for replacing triacs, which is a regular occurrence.

 

The thing is, the people who put this in aren't idiots. They just don't know much about electrics and worked it out as best they knew. They are pretty experienced (and seemingly safe) with other aspects of the building.

[bigclive]

That sounds like an enthusiast style install where the techniques and materials used in the theatre industry aren't known.

[Stuart91]

Yeah, that's right on the money, Clive. One of the folks involved is a builder to trade. To be fair, I'd make an equally awful job of putting up a house, but the difference is that I don't try.

 

There's something about our industry that makes people want to attempt jobs beyond their capability. It's very rare for a building to have a central heating system put in by untrained amateurs, but it happens all the time with audio and lighting systems, I wonder why?