What was your biggest project Disaster? We are asking e14 in our Join, Share & Win Competition

Every field experiment has a few disasters.  The funniest one was when I downloaded video files from a site camera and saw pictures of the hotel room and trip in the car to the site, but nothing from the experiment days.  They must have been confused with the On/Off procedure.

Another time I spent several days constructing a 16 channel micro temperature probe using 40 AWG thermocouple wire that was supposed to measure temperature gradients just above and below the surface of a lake with a 0.5mm resolution.  As soon as we deployed the probe, a dragonfly landed on the top probes, and some little minnows started nibbling on the bottom probes, impossible to get any data.

One time we went oversees to capture radar data.  Just before the trip someone assessed the three RF cables we were planning on taking and flagged one as being bad and took the further action of quarantining it.  When I started assembling the setup at our destination I noticed to my horror that there were 3 cables.  Someone had packed the quarantined cable.  I assembled two cables together and took a cursory look at the first bit of data that was collected.  It looked fine and I counted my blessings for getting the cable combination right the first time around... or so I thought.  When I got back to the home office someone a little more knowledgeable had the opportunity to scrutinize the data and he didn't mince any words.  "There was something clearly wrong with your setup.  This data is useless.  What a waste of a trip."  I wanted to crawl inside a hole.  It took me a while to get over that episode.

Could have been worse...

Top Secret!  "...here in E Germany we use 220 volt..." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZzO6thDkkY&t=86s

Not a project, but when I got transferred to Germany many years back, I was setting up my US computer and forgot to change the voltage switch on the power supply.  I put the plug adapter on and shoved it into the socket.  POP!  Bzzzzzt!  Smoke.     Swearing.     The next day at work - ordering a new power supply.   Three weeks later, I was finally online.

My most embarrassing moment was a little glitch that snuck into my software design for my FLIR control on a search and rescue helicopter.

I inadvertently used the same variable name for two different functions. One of which was used to compute the position of the FLIR.

So randomly, the FLIR drive would go wild and move the FLIR in weird directions for a while.

It wasn't until training when I walked through the code for a customer that we found it.

The fix was easy and I sent him home with a new set of ROM's to plug in.

My worst "disasters" aren't really that bad in retrospect:

1) building a linear power supply I had designed, but reversing the polarity of all the electrolytic caps when I assembled it. They all swelled up and leaked... The worst part (I was like 15 at the time) was the substantial dent replacing them all made in my meager savings (cost something like $20 in 1970s money and the second most expensive part of my project). But I learned my lesson and always double-check polarities now.

2) plugging in a 7400 series chip reversed. "Ping!" as it blew a hole in the middle of the casing and tossed a wedge of plastic across the room. I felt fortunate my eye wasn't in the way, since I had been staring at the board when I turned on the power.

HAHA, OH no the self fulfilling prophecy.  Updated. 

I have a tendency to erase disasters from my memory, but I can still recall a few times when things didn't go as planned....

One time I tested a new 3-D printer using the supplied example file, not realizing it was set up to print ABS plastic. I printed with PLA and the part got so severely stuck to the build plate, I had to use a chisel to get it off.

Here is a video about my dubious attempts to use thermal toner transfer methods to transfer laser printed labels to 3D printed parts...

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SuperCap Magic Meter - Experimenting with Supercapacitors RE: What was your biggest project Disaster? [Ask e14 - Join, Share & Win Competition] October 2025

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https://youtu.be/Arpy_gVCfEE

Another time I had removed the clip from the end of my scope probe so I could probe some small pad, but I dropped the probe on the probe pin, which broke the pin off - I had no trouble remembering some choice expletives on that occasion.