WTF moments

[Joe Polenchar]

We added 4 Fire Sticks to the show this year. While waiting for the lights to arrive, I figured I would make up the wiring harnesses so as not to waste time. I went out and measured the lengths to where the fire sticks would be. Measured 3 times so as to not make any mistakes. I wrote down the measurements, can't trust my memory any more. Got out the vampire ends and the spt cord and away I went. Finished up and every harness nice and tidy and labeled. Another project checked off the list.

Saturday was a beautiful day here in PA. Time to put up the fire sticks. Got all four of them up and secured. Told the wife here is where we are going to save some time. Remember the custom cords we did in March? Watch how fast this goes. Ran the cords to fire stick 1,2,and 3. This is going great. Ran the cord to fire stick 4 and WTF I am a foot short. Now I am getting a bit peeved. Scratching my head, I start walking back up the yard and get to the location of fire stick 2. Look down and say to myself, wow that's a lot of extra cord lying there. You guys know how this one ends. Go figure.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Joe Polenchar

[csimmon5]

I feel ya...I went to assemble my CCP circle this weekend and was nothing but a headache...sharkbite tubing not working right, circle too big, couldn't feed CCP's through it, etc....what could go wrong, did....ended up totally changing plans and just wrapping CCPs around two windows....overcome and adapt

[dgrant]

I was asked to help a neighbor and found they had vampired a couple of circuits together but in this case, left a powered male laying there. I suggested it wasn't such a great idea to have the exposed leads there...

[EvilM0nkey]

Should have used more Elbow Grease

[Gman7711]

I bought a different defuser for my light boxes then the one that I tested out. The ones I ended up with didn't defuse as much.

[harrison0550]

Ive had 2 so far this year.

1: DMX universes: Had everything thoroughly tested early this year inside. Took it outside and nothing but the first 8 universes lit up. After multiple hours of head scratching, irritated data line replacing, up and down ladder climbing, and controller resetting. I realized I forgot to add more than 8 universes to the network utility wtf really!

2: Fried pixels: My last point of power injection in my entire display (of course) I hooked up backwards. I ran the show and strange things started happening around universe 15.

Neighbor: Are the windows and door supposed to be off the entire show? Why does only half the house light up on the right side? Is that how its supposed to look?

Me: Nope, thats what we call a WTF moment.................

[JeffBlan]

I was setting up my controllers yesterday. I was doing them one-by-one adding them to the network so I knew all the lights would go from blinking to steady.

To get them steady, I just put the show computer to "Run the Light Show".

I left to eat and visit my parents. When I came home at 10:00, The lights are blinking so I turn on the Radio and here it is running my Halloween show with my Christmas lights! Pretty wierd results as you would expect.

I don't start my show for Christmas until Friday but I forgot to end the show after I had everything setup.

Jeff

[Frank Farmer]

Jeff,

I did that last year, I couldn't figure out what sequence was playing until I turned on the radio and it was "time warp" playing on my christmas display!

Got a good laugh out of it.

[Brett H.]

I had a WTF moment on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I put a brand new bulb in our donation box sign, plugged it in and nothing, So I put a different bulb in and still nothing.... Take sign back up to garage and plug it in directly into outlet and still nothing...hmmmm getting a little frustrated by now. Grabbed the light which is actually a spotlight that stakes into ground and tilted it up alittle...light went on let it go light went off... grabbed it again and light went on. WTF is going on is what i am asking myself... maybe a short in a wire....nope.... I am an idiot. forgot there is a sensor on the switch. so either the light is always on or it waits til its dark enough to turn on. and everytime i grabbed the light housing my hand was covering the sensor. Had a bad day and was about to give the light a good old boot and walked away and came back and figured out the switch was on sensor mode...now i can sit back and laugh.

[Aaron Maue]

Opening night tonight. Had another that was too good to keep to myself, especially since I was blowing my stack trying to figure it out...

Planned to run 2 shows tonight. One at 5:30 for the neighbors only. It was to run one time through and then stop manually via control panel. One from 7:00 - 10:00 for the public. Both to be started with a switch.

First one went off without a hitch. Came back in the house to make a couple of last-minute adjustments before the public show. Adjustments made, I re-enabled the schedule expecting it to wait for the 7:00 start time I'd programmed into the calendar, but the damn thing started up as soon as I enabled the schedule. Shut it down. Re-enabled it. And the first sequence started again. Shut down the show and then shut down the computer and started it back up, thinking a restart might help. Nope. As soon as I enabled the schedule, the first sequence launched again. WTF?

Finally looked at the scheduler. Though I had my show set up in the calendar at 7:00, I'd forgotten I had a daily show set up to run from 5:30 - 10:00. So, the neighbor show worked perfectly, as the show scheduled from the calendar took priority over the daily show. But, in between the 2 shows, there was no calendar-scheduled show scheduled to override the daily show. So, the software was happy to run the daily schedule, just like I told it to.

...What an idiot... Happily, the wife didn't send me off to the looney bin right away for freaking out when I couldn't figure it out.