06-06-2003 02:59									#1
	Sparkin' and Arcin' Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Since the ship came back from a cruise, the crew's on standdown for awhile and most have gone on leave. I'm the only CTM on the ship.

This morning I was rousted from bed (standdown, and it wasn't my duty day) by a CTR3.

"Bucher?"

"Yeah?"

"Hey, get up, the Divo wants you to look at some of the equipment in SSES."

Groaning, I get up and lurch my way up a few decks, cursing on coming back before my duty day (saturday). "What's the problem Sessions?"

"The Divo wants you to look over the ACCESS. We'd been having problems with it when we were deployed."

"What kind of problems?"

"Well, we put in a CasRep on it 6 times."



"So why isn't there anyone from Spawars here (The Civilian tech grunge guys)? What's the problem now?"

Without saying anything CTR3 walks across the space and flips a switch. Near where he was, there's a sudden noise and a few sparks go flying. I can smell the burning fuses.

"Holy sh*t! Why didn't you call Spawars?"

"Well, you did go to the C school for this thing...got your notes?"

And after much deliberating and studying a glancing, Lonestar came to the conclusion he had no idea how to fix it. Once pressed why he didn't, Lonestar said it was because that's eltech stuff and Jesus, I'm only human. I've only been in the Navy for a year, and they didn't cover 'sploding racks for troubleshooting in school. (well, they did, and I think it's a power supply problem but, surprise surprise, we don't have any more power supplys and there's no way in Hell I'm going to try to fix it. Power supplies was the one place I sucked at in A school)

Civilian Tech guy comes in a week. You learn something new everyday, I say.

	06-06-2003 04:02									#2
	Support Apolyton

Hell, it was always my experience that tech reps aren't worth the time or money wasted on them.

No offense, but why in hell are the asking a boot to solve a problem they couldn't?

ACK!

	06-06-2003 04:52									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Tuberski Hell, it was always my experience that tech reps aren't worth the time or money wasted on them. No offense, but why in hell are the asking a boot to solve a problem they couldn't? ACK!

I suspect to harras me. I knew I shouldn't have revealed my plethora of notes and schematics.

The CTA1 went nuts when he found out I had the notes and schematics on my person. "You can't have that!"

"Why not?"

"They're classified!"

"Like Hell. Only the Cryptologic machines are, the rest of the equipment a community college could build."

Etc...etc..

	06-06-2003 04:59									#4
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

When I was in C School for CIWS, we would take our books to a blueprint shop and have them copy all of the prints so that we could write on them.

The school was worried at first that we had copied the classified pubs but we showed them otherwise.

Most if the stuff covered in the classified pubs is simply replace one "black box" with another.

ACK!

	06-06-2003 05:01									#5
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I tried swearing at the machine, that didn't work. Any advice?

	06-06-2003 05:11									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

If you happen to have two systems switch out the power supply.

If not, try sleeping on the machine to see if you can figure it out by osmosis.



ACK!

	06-06-2003 05:25									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Tuberski If you happen to have two systems switch out the power supply. If not, try sleeping on the machine to see if you can figure it out by osmosis. ACK!

There is no more power supplies.

	06-06-2003 06:08									#8
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by Tuberski ... Most if the stuff covered in the classified pubs is simply replace one "black box" with another. ACK!

This is of course, the big problem with military fixits these days. Anyone can replace a spare part, given the right training (and assuming they can requiistion it through a tortuous system).

REPAIRING a part, now that's when a degree and maybe 5 years training come into play.

What was the chief up to? Or is he a mechanics guy who won't touch a toroid (sensible chap). I'm guessing here folks.

	06-06-2003 06:12									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Couple more guesses;-

1) isolate the problem. Is it with the feed on the lighting circuit or is it a problem with the lighting circuit itself? The latter will be a lot easier to fix.

2) A problem with the feed into the lighting circuit (which sounds like what you are looking at) may need a temporary bypass from a separate power feed. However, make sure that lighting circuit is secure first - if that's where the problem lies, you are just going to screw up another system, to add to your worries.

	06-06-2003 06:17									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Do resistance checks on everything directly connected to the power supply. If those seem okay, it's most likely the power supply itself, if not then keep branching out.

If you have what we refered to as "monkey charts", they can be nominally helpful, to at least remove the obvious from the equation.

ACK!

	06-06-2003 06:26									#11
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Once you've checked the lighting circuit for shorts etc, it's time to make sure it's the PS output. You could do this first, but it makes sense to check the lighting circuit as well (you could have 2 faults, not just 1).

If you've got an oscilloscope handy, try checking the output from the power supply. USE RUBBER GLOVES.

If it's FUBAR you'll see a non-sine wave running at levels way outside what it should (spikes on the line).

If it's REALLY FUBAR then it will fry the scope. Aren't you glad you wore those gloves?