The "oops I've bust it" moments in life!

DHR

DHR

DHR

Soldato
Joined
30 Apr 2003
Posts
3,486
I want to hear about your disaster moments, where you've messed something up but learnt a lesson from it all the same.

I've had one tonight (albeit hardware related) and it's put me in a right stink, but ultimately it's my fault and a lesson learnt :rolleyes:

Picked up a cheap old Corsair H100i for £10-15 a while back, intended to refill and run on a near silent storage build, not done it before hence it being a bit of fun.

It went well, was refilled and working fine but curiosity or caution (undecided) got the better of me and I decided to check the top side of the pump and PCB for moisture/spillage etc. I didn't know about the tiny fragile coil wires being attached to the PCB and motor. SNAP. Dead pump, gutted.

Zero chance of reattaching then now because of the design of this version of the h100i, so it's off to be recycled and I'm in the market for another to replace it with :o

Only £10-15, but a loss and waste all the same *facepalm*
 
Loads, most recent about a year ago and cost me £6k for a new boiler. Long story short, moved into a new house that had an old boiler about the age of Jesus. Kept tripping the power so I looked at the fuse, 3amp. “Hm, that can’t be right for a boiler, surely? That’s why it keeps tripping!”

Replaced with a 13 amp, the boiler worked alright, the PCB caught fire! No spare parts, new unit complete boiler needed…to this day I never told my wife!
 
HoneyBadger said:
Loads, most recent about a year ago and cost me £6k for a new boiler. Long story short, moved into a new house that had an old boiler about the age of Jesus. Kept tripping the power so I looked at the fuse, 3amp. “Hm, that can’t be right for a boiler, surely? That’s why it keeps tripping!”

Replaced with a 13 amp, the boiler worked alright, the PCB caught fire! No spare parts, new unit complete boiler needed…to this day I never told my wife!
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:cry: :cry:

I had a problem with a Ford General Electric Module (GEM) in a Fiesta once and did a similar thing. Went from a 3amp to a 5amp and blew the whole electrical system. Sold it as a non-runner :(
 
About 6 months ago I went about learning a bit of soldering, with the mind to replace a charging port/cable within an iPad Air. It was only a gen 1 which had served me well for about 10 years.

I bought a beginners setup, and practiced on little kits that have LEDs etc to get the hang of it and was getting pretty confident.

The big day came, and I completely ****ed it. :-D
 
Went to top up my car oil with the screw opened and the engine exposed, and carefully opened the oil bottle up as loads of leaves and **** from the oil bottle toppled into the engine directly. Makes me feel sick to this day that I did it . I haven’t noticed any issues but I’m sure the engine didn’t like it
 
Liquid_Entity said:
Used a dinner knife to try and ease a blind in to a bathroom window. After 3 seconds of light pressure the whole window smashed. Not too costly for new glass but still peed me off I'd done it.
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Just yesterday I was using a butter knife to take off my bike inner tube as it had a puncture.
Got it 80% out the tyre and then stuck the knife through the inner tube.
When inspecting it, it didn’t have a puncture and just needed pumping up.. until I stabbed it.

Let’s start using the right tool for the job eh?
 
Yes, most of the time is because I try to fix something that isn't broken, but merely annoying the way it worked. Now days I live more with the mantra of "if it aren't broke, don't fix it."

plus.

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And if I am doing something, right tool for the job.
 
I have been trying to change the cartridges on the kitchen deck tap for ages, to stop all a worsening drip (cold tap but may as well change both), both sides have been very stubborn.

I finally got the hot side out and changed but the lever screw on the cold side is stuck firm and the head is slightly rounded. I have tried everything I can to break the corrosion seal but I have just this minute completely buggered the head. Going to need a screw extraction bit now.

On the plus side hammering a screw driver to try and get it bite seems to have stopped the drip for now.
 
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Few years ago the evening before a 100 mile cycle event, gave the bike a quick once over including the headset.
Tightened up the head bolt & thought, "just 1/2 a turn more" then snap!
Many rude words were uttered!

I've since invested in a proper torque wrench!
 
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I used to work for a CCTV software company and got tasked with testing our softwares compatibility with a variety of drones. Managed to bin 2 into trees and one into the company building.

They kept giving me new ones to break as well. Good times
 
I placed my gaming monitor on the floor on NYE and a soundbar propped up behind it to make room for fitting my new mouse. Both were still connected to the PC.

I unfortunately tugged the cables too hard and this led to the monitor crashing over hard on the floor and then a brief moment later the very sturdy soundbar toppled over and crashed on top of the monitor.

The new monitor arrived on Friday.
 
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Adjusting a motherboard fan while it was on, slipped and short circuited the motherboard. Was difficult to source too.

Wanted to unblock the sink, didn’t realise the plug screwed off, pulled it and the whole mechanism exploded down the U bend. Managed to fix it though in the two hours or so before my wife got home!

Popped out to take a colleague home while in the middle of a night shift. Got back to find the barrier had locked me out, managed to squeeze around it in the dark, only to be presented with unhappy security and a couple of squished plants.
 
Dismantled dishwasher to find problem with it.

Completely dismantled, found the problem (blocked out pipe just after the macerator). Fixed. Hurrah, saved loads of money!

Put it all back together again, turned on...... no life, burning smell, breaker trips :(

Dismantled it all again and found a single wire on one of the looms had got pinched against the chassis as I put it back together, which had shorted and fried the PCB. New PCB was £££ so it was buy a new dishwasher time.

Hero to zero in one second. Bah.
 
Moving Cherry picker in the warehouse, didn't wait for the shutter to go all the way up i ducked under it back of the picker ripped through the door :rolleyes:
 
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So me destroying what I did... based on all of the above, collectively feeling a little better now
 
Needed to fit a replacement battery to an Ipad.
Watched loads of videos, bought the kit, started out.

Struggled to do what looked so so easy on the videos so thought, ah I can use a scalpel instead. Cut through two ribbon cables, (screen and mic).
Bought a replacement screen for £20 or so. Total cost by this point was like £45.

Never worked. Spent ages trying to get the non-backed up photos etc off.
Finally managed (it kept timing out) and bought a new pad.

All the photos returned on powering up and setting up apple id etc. on new ipad.
Old pad had had cloud backup setup all the time.
 
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