Bugs in your Electronics ??

[n2ize]

Large old radios like old Viking 2's, Valiants, Globe Kings, R390A's, etc... often become homes to small spiders or other insects who find thair large, dark, warm interiors to be hospitable zones to reside, I have noticed the same to be true of desktop computers. Matter of fact I remember once someone gave me a desktop PC to repair and I got the surprise of my life when I opened the machine and saw a few thin brown roaches crawl out of the power supply. YIKES!!!

Probably the weirdest was the toaster at my parents home. One day I noticed it wouldn't turn on and the fuse was mysteriously blown. I assumed the toaster must have shorted or overloaded the circuit and blown out the fuse. Indeed , after resetting the fuse the toaster would still not work.

A few days later I set out to fix the toaster. I got the surprise of my life when I opened it and looked into the bottom. There was a dead (and well cooked) mouse in there !! Apparently the mouse got into the house and decided to dine on leftover crumbs in the toaster. So it crawled in and down into the bottom. But it's a tight squeeze down the bottom, even for a small mouse. At some point the mouse had apparently squeezed itself up against the incoming 120 Volt AC terminals. Since the toaster was plugged in they were energized, they contacted the skin of the mouse and ZZZZAPPP... it all turned into a mini electric chair for that mouse. The electricity not only electrocuted the mouse but literally cooked it. I guess as the mouse's skin became more and more carbonized the current passing through the mouse increased and increased until the fuse said, "hey something wrong" and shut down the circuit. had the circuit not been properly fused it is possible a fire could have started. In any event after removing the dead mouse and giving the toaster an complete and thorough cleaning and sanitizing it worked fine once again...

That was one of the strangest malfunction of electrical equipment that I have ever encountered. At work we have had cases where rats chewed through some network cables but that to me doesn't compare with the self-electrocuting mouse in the toaster.

So... wondering if anyone else out there has had strange malfunctions due to critters getting too close to sensitive or lethal electrical equipment ?

[PA5COR]

Not had that problem (yet) but that can change since it sounds perfectly reasonably.

Mostly i clean out the FT 847 and FT 100 once an year, clean or replace the blowers, and use compressed air to blow out the dust.

Same with the Heathkit SB-1000, the power supply, homebrew 45 amp.

The other gear gets an cleanup when needed, the tellevision onc every 2 years.

Found an few small spider remains once in the telly, but nothing else.

73,
Cor

[al2i]

The parka squirrels used to love to dine on telephone cable, but that seemed to only happen on cables made about 40 years or more ago. I haven't heard of any trouble lately.

I don't know if this is true or not, but an old-timer who was there when the Clear BMEWS station was first turned up told me that the ravens loved to fly between the feed horn and reflector because it made them feel warm. After enough ravens died from getting a touch too over-heated, the others stopped doing that.

If true, ravens are smart. In fact, a recent article I read in Scientific American suggested that ravens have substantial reasoning ability.

[al2i]

It is possible that with their understanding of the hazards of RF radiation, ravens are in fact qualified to hold a modern Amateur Radio License. If they could be taught to read, they would make excellent hams -- especially the kind that scavenges stuff from all over.

[w8znx]

Quote[/b] (al2i @ June 20 2007,01:45)]If true, ravens are smart. #In fact, a recent article I read in Scientific American suggested that ravens have substantial reasoning ability.
the Corvida family is smart
Crows, Ravins, Jays, Magpies

other smart birds are some
Parrots

have had a African Gray parrot
for
about 20 years

dam thing is like a willfull 2 year old

Mac

[ad1os]

I've seen neighborhoods lose power because of critters in the power lines. Guess that's common.
One shop I worked at had a policy of bagging and spraying radios and TV's before you could put them on the bench. Lotsa bugs. If the customer didn't want the "exterminator fee", they went elsewhere.

[KW4MW]

A friend of mine ran a TV/Radio repair shop. One day a little old lady returned her table model radio to the shop after repairs and complained that Phil had put a mouse in it.

Phil was perplexed but obligingly checked out the entire radio while the old gal stood nearby. He couldn't find a mouse anywhere. He decided to make sure the radio was still OK, plugged it in and turned it on.

"There, there, you can see its shadow" the old gal exclaimed.

Sure enough on the plastic slide rule styled dial was the shadow of what appeared to be a mouse head.

One of the repairs Phil had made was to replace the dial cord and in doing so had slightly repositioned the dial light. The shadow of the knot in the dial cord was projected upon the dial.

A slight readjustment of the dial light solved the mouse problem.

[WF7A]

We have a mouse problem living here, living on the prairie; we frequently hear the snap of a mousetrap when a mouse can't resist the peanut butter we leave in it...though the other day I found a drowned mouse in a can of fat we keep by the kitchen sink. (We use to it collect fat from meat after cooking it in the frying pan.) It drowned because its own body heat had melted the fat and it sank into it like quicksand.

[N2RJ]

I take compressed air to my gear regularly.

That way I don't have a wildlife haven in there.

[W1GUH]

I, too, had a "mouse in the toaster", but it wasn't so quiet. #Someone had put some bread in it and pulled the thingie down. #A while later were heard...


"SQUEAKSQUEKSQEAKSQEAKSQEAK" #like a bearing that had run out of grease.

I looked in the toaster, and there was a cooked mouse wedged between the heating element and grid. #He obviously had run the wrong way when we interrupted his dinner of crumbs. #That toaster was toast! # http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Then there's roaches. #Their favorite place is in my dishwasher. #I can't figure that out. #It's the cleanest place in my apartment, and at least daily gets washed out when it runs, so there can't be any food. # http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

BTW....boric acid makes an excellent insecticide against roaches and other critters.

And speaking of crows....when I was a kid I kept hearing about talking crows...is it true that they can talk?

(I mean other than "nevermore") #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[kl7aj]

Quote[/b] (n2ize @ June 20 2007,00:26)]Large old radios like old Viking 2's, Valiants, Globe Kings, R390A's, etc... often become homes to small spiders or other insects who find thair large, dark, warm interiors to be hospitable zones to reside, I have noticed the same to be true of desktop computers. Matter of fact I remember once someone gave me a desktop PC to repair and I got the surprise of my life when I opened the machine and saw a few thin brown roaches crawl out of the power supply. YIKES!!!

Probably the weirdest was the toaster at my parents home. One day I noticed it wouldn't turn on and the fuse was mysteriously blown. I assumed the toaster must have shorted or overloaded the circuit and blown out the fuse. Indeed , after resetting the fuse the toaster would still not work.

A few days later I set out to fix the toaster. I got the surprise of my life when I opened it and looked into the bottom. There was a dead (and well cooked) mouse in there !! Apparently the mouse got into the house and decided to dine on leftover crumbs in the toaster. So it crawled in and down into the bottom. But it's a tight squeeze down the bottom, even for a small mouse. At some point the mouse had apparently squeezed itself up against the incoming 120 Volt AC terminals. Since the toaster was plugged in they were energized, they contacted the skin of the mouse and ZZZZAPPP... #it all turned into a mini electric chair for that mouse. The electricity not only electrocuted the mouse but literally cooked it. #I guess as the mouse's skin became more and more carbonized the current passing through the mouse increased and increased until the fuse said, "hey something wrong" and shut down the circuit. had the circuit not been properly fused it is possible a fire could have started. In any event after removing the dead mouse and giving the toaster an complete and thorough cleaning and sanitizing it worked fine once again...

That was one of the strangest malfunction of electrical equipment that I have ever encountered. At work we have had cases where rats chewed through some network cables but that to me doesn't compare with the self-electrocuting mouse in the toaster.

So... wondering if anyone else out there has had strange malfunctions due to critters getting too close to sensitive or lethal electrical equipment ?
My computer has a dead mouse. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[KW4MW]

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USNR, (1906-1992) found the first computer bug in 1945.

Quote[/b] ]The First "Computer Bug"

Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found". They put out the word that they had "debugged" the machine, thus introducing the term "debugging a computer program".
In 1988, the log, with the moth still taped by the entry, was in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Computer Museum at Dahlgren, Virginia.

Courtesy of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, VA., 1988.Click and scroll down to "The following image shows an organism of great historic significance, reportedly first identified and named by Lieutenant Grace Murray Hopper while she was on Navy active duty in 1945. (http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu5HUYHlG2aoAKttXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB2bWJzNWI 1BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2UEdnRpZAMEbANXUzE-/SIG=12jfddhno/EXP=1182446164/**http%3a//www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-h/g-hoppr.htm)

[kf6rdn]

When I was in the computer repair biz, I found a dead mouse in a computer.

It had nothing to do with the failure, as there's only low voltage in it, and it wasn't laying on anything, but I never could figure out how it got IN there.
All the back panels were on, or covered by an IO card.
This was when the 386 was the best proc.

[W4HAY]

Our church's organist complained that the organ's volume wouldn't "get as loud as it used to" and the #pedal "made a funny, crunching sound".

I took the back off the organ and found a dead pigeon under the pedal.

Our stable upgraded their printer because "it just quit working". I took it home and found a dead mouse wedged in the gears. That was over five years ago and I'm still using it. The printer, not the mouse.

Our stable owner started the tractor and p*ssed off a nest of wasps that had taken up residence between the fan and the radiator.

But this one really got hissed off! (http://www.sptimes.com/2003/06/25/Tampabay/Under_hood__a_hisser_.shtml)

[al2i]

Quote[/b] (W1GUH @ June 20 2007,07:06)]And speaking of crows....when I was a kid I kept hearing about talking crows...is it true that they can talk?

(I mean other than "nevermore") http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
When I was in my yard a couple of years ago a large raven high in one of the trees was making a "caw" sound. I was messing with a hose or something when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a kid throwing rocks really hard -- grunting as he tossed them. I spent some time looking for the rock thrower before I realized the raven was making the sound of a kid throwing rocks. It kind of spooked me a little, and I can see why there are so many native legends in this area about ravens.

[KC9KOC]

It's not suprising. Secluded and(to an animal) safe enclosure and it's warm. I've heard many stories of cats, squirrels, etc climbing up into a car's engine to keep warm and getting splated on startup the next morning or even carried hundreds of miles.

[VK2TIL]

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3981/23980545rx0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1967/21824435qq7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[NC5P]

The army has a site up on a western NM peak that is invaded by moths. (Bred by insurgents?) They crawl into the electrical outlet boxes and short them out. The repeaters run on battery power then quit, when somebody has to go up there and blow the moths out of the outlets, then reset the breakers.

The moths are so bad some years that TV and radio stations go off the air due to air intakes becoming completely clogged up.

[kb2vxa]

Boat Anchor Bob says "600V B+ tends to discourage squirrels from chewing coax." I got the idea from a friend of mine, an electrician who works for the NYCTA and something he calls hissing poodles (puddles, third rail arcing).