10 ms·

I used to do robotics, I can tell you that the fact that it was the cheapest or the most hacky does not matter in the least. Everything can and will go wrong, e

by isatty 5y ago

I used to do robotics, I can tell you that the fact that it was the cheapest or the most hacky does not matter in the least. Everything can and will go wrong, even the priciest and well documented part. I used to have multiple clamps around the controller, message bus, the firmware and also a physical barrier, and yet would not feel safe with my fingers or person around moving parts.

AlotOfReading 5y ago
Yep. When I have to work with robots, it's from a distance and with as much safety equipment as possible. I've seen too many physical, hardware, and software failures to risk anything I care about. Hearing protection is also important. A hundred pounds or more of metal slamming into itself at high speed makes a deafening sound.
- _pmf_ 5y ago
  Every hardware demonstration is like the board room scene from Robocop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvqDaFpXeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvqDaFpXeM
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  I’ve read a story somewhere, that someone trying to fix something in the toilet had to be in a position close to the toilet, then the lid accidentally fallen shut and the guy had his hearing damaged because the toilet bowl somehow concentrated the noise in one point where his head was. It’s weird how even ordinary things can be dangerously loud.
  - softblush 5y ago
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/979583605637877760.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/979583605637877760.html
- azalemeth 5y ago
  When I was a graduate student making something in the machine shop, another user of this (excellent) departmental facility had just spent most of the day setting up his CNC milling job on the oldest, shittiest (and therefore least-time-pressured) 3-axis mill in the building. Whilst I was manually turning something on the lathe about 15 m away, he shut the door and pressed the 'go' button. There was an absolutely almighty BANG, of the 'an explosion has just occurred' variety that made me very glad I wasn't actually cutting metal at that precise point in time. His g-code had an off-by-one error (I think) and it had dutifully picked up a ~20 cm HUGE flycutter, spun it at the speed of of a ~5 mm bull nose cutter, and driven it directly down into a piece of aluminium. The flycutter had broken and effectively welded itself to the aluminium, which had sheared down the middle, spun out, and hit the protective guards that completely encompass the machine. The person driving it (either a postdoc or graduate student) was maybe 40 cm away and saw this ~2 kg piece of metal bounce off a thick reinforced poylcarbonate guard directly at the level of his head. Safety equipment saves lives.
inter_netuser 5y ago
Not quite robotics, but some of our servers kept powercycling , had to plug in the physical terminal. It was close to lunch, so I kept eating. The finale was a jar of mayo spilled into the guts of a 50k server. Best mayo I ever had.
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  Best mayo it ever had, too.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- metafunctor 5y ago
  What kind of server room allows you to bring food?
  - nexuist 5y ago
    I mean, there's a reason why pain is involved in this story.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - defen 5y ago
    OP said a jar of mayonnaise spilled into the server, not food.
    - mekkkkkk 5y ago
      Which makes it even more confusing. Were they preparing a sandwich on top of the server? Did they eat mayonnaise straight from the jar? The condiment plot thickens.
Gravityloss 5y ago
Some small metal pressing machines for example have two buttons, one on each side of the machine. You have to push them both for the machine to operate. This means your hands can't be squished. Or a dental x-ray machine has the final "run" button in the hallway so the nurse taking x-rays must go there to do it, so they don't get repeated exposure.
- msrenee 5y ago
  There's lots of safety mechanisms like this in manufacturing. I've also seen "light curtains" which are essentially 2 bars on either side of a hazard. If anything crosses that plane, the machine stops automatically. There are also pressure pads. For one type, you have to be standing on for the machine to operate so that you are in a safe location when it starts. For the other, the pad covers the danger area and the machine will not operate if there's any weight detected. Trying to think of any others I've run into. It's actually pretty interesting stuff. You've got to keep in mind that the operator is liable to be in a hurry, tired, stupid, or any combination thereof.
  - gxs 5y ago
    Another one is machinery where you have to "enter" the machine to do maintenance. Think industrial ovens. You're supposed to turn off the circuit breaker and lock it with your own personal lock that only you have the key to. That way no one can turn it on even if they wanted to. I've heard no one, under any circumstances is allowed to take the lock off. If the person leaves after their shift and forgets to take it off for example, they have to come back in the middle of the night so to speak and take it off.
    - agency 5y ago
      I think this is called lock out tag out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout–tagout https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout–tagout
    - mdturnerphys 5y ago
      Not just equipment you have to enter. This is used in situations with "stored energy" or other systems that need to be turned off or otherwise disabled for safe maintenance. There are multi-lock hasps that can be used if multiple people have overlapping needs to lock out the system, and other devices such as valve handles covers, etc., that help with locking out components don't have a built-in place for a lock.
monocasa 5y ago
Used to work in robotics. The QA folk were obviously very much sticklers for the full process of enabling the hardware interlocks before getting near the moving bits. One time a manager got mad at them for taking so long going through the full interlock process while repeating a failure mode. He therefore went up to the machine saying "look, it failed so it's stopped, that's how the code works!" At that point our beta version of our CI requisitioned that bot (as the interlock wasn't the only process corner that the manager was trying to cut the bot wasn't marked as reserved in the CI system), it started initializing and broke his arm. I'm just glad that ultimately he was the only one who faced physical consequences for his poor choices. And thankful that the consequences weren't that bad at the end of the day; a broken arm is way better than a cracked open skull.
- neilv 5y ago
  I hope that the arm healed well, and that, after the painful demonstration, everyone in the organization was fully onboard with workplace safety protocol.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Yeah, the arm healed great, and whole situation (plus the subsequent "N Days Since a Limb Mangled" sign) contributed greatly to the manager's humility and respect for safety.
    - Digit-Al 5y ago
      > plus the subsequent "N Days Since a Limb Mangled" sign That made me actually lol.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  Oddly enough, I'm right now watching Shake Hands with Danger[0]. [0] https://www.rifftrax.com/shake-hands-with-danger https://www.rifftrax.com/shake-hands-with-danger
- CoastalCoder 5y ago

by isatty 5y ago

AlotOfReading 5y ago

Yep. When I have to work with robots, it's from a distance and with as much safety equipment as possible. I've seen too many physical, hardware, and software failures to risk anything I care about. Hearing protection is also important. A hundred pounds or more of metal slamming into itself at high speed makes a deafening sound.

_pmf_ 5y ago
Every hardware demonstration is like the board room scene from Robocop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvqDaFpXeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvqDaFpXeM
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
faeyanpiraat 5y ago
I’ve read a story somewhere, that someone trying to fix something in the toilet had to be in a position close to the toilet, then the lid accidentally fallen shut and the guy had his hearing damaged because the toilet bowl somehow concentrated the noise in one point where his head was. It’s weird how even ordinary things can be dangerously loud.
- softblush 5y ago
  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/979583605637877760.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/979583605637877760.html
azalemeth 5y ago
When I was a graduate student making something in the machine shop, another user of this (excellent) departmental facility had just spent most of the day setting up his CNC milling job on the oldest, shittiest (and therefore least-time-pressured) 3-axis mill in the building. Whilst I was manually turning something on the lathe about 15 m away, he shut the door and pressed the 'go' button. There was an absolutely almighty BANG, of the 'an explosion has just occurred' variety that made me very glad I wasn't actually cutting metal at that precise point in time. His g-code had an off-by-one error (I think) and it had dutifully picked up a ~20 cm HUGE flycutter, spun it at the speed of of a ~5 mm bull nose cutter, and driven it directly down into a piece of aluminium. The flycutter had broken and effectively welded itself to the aluminium, which had sheared down the middle, spun out, and hit the protective guards that completely encompass the machine. The person driving it (either a postdoc or graduate student) was maybe 40 cm away and saw this ~2 kg piece of metal bounce off a thick reinforced poylcarbonate guard directly at the level of his head. Safety equipment saves lives.

inter_netuser 5y ago

Not quite robotics, but some of our servers kept powercycling , had to plug in the physical terminal. It was close to lunch, so I kept eating. The finale was a jar of mayo spilled into the guts of a 50k server. Best mayo I ever had.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
Best mayo it ever had, too.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
metafunctor 5y ago
What kind of server room allows you to bring food?
- nexuist 5y ago
  I mean, there's a reason why pain is involved in this story.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- defen 5y ago
  OP said a jar of mayonnaise spilled into the server, not food.
  - mekkkkkk 5y ago
    Which makes it even more confusing. Were they preparing a sandwich on top of the server? Did they eat mayonnaise straight from the jar? The condiment plot thickens.

Gravityloss 5y ago

Some small metal pressing machines for example have two buttons, one on each side of the machine. You have to push them both for the machine to operate. This means your hands can't be squished. Or a dental x-ray machine has the final "run" button in the hallway so the nurse taking x-rays must go there to do it, so they don't get repeated exposure.

msrenee 5y ago
There's lots of safety mechanisms like this in manufacturing. I've also seen "light curtains" which are essentially 2 bars on either side of a hazard. If anything crosses that plane, the machine stops automatically. There are also pressure pads. For one type, you have to be standing on for the machine to operate so that you are in a safe location when it starts. For the other, the pad covers the danger area and the machine will not operate if there's any weight detected. Trying to think of any others I've run into. It's actually pretty interesting stuff. You've got to keep in mind that the operator is liable to be in a hurry, tired, stupid, or any combination thereof.
- gxs 5y ago
  Another one is machinery where you have to "enter" the machine to do maintenance. Think industrial ovens. You're supposed to turn off the circuit breaker and lock it with your own personal lock that only you have the key to. That way no one can turn it on even if they wanted to. I've heard no one, under any circumstances is allowed to take the lock off. If the person leaves after their shift and forgets to take it off for example, they have to come back in the middle of the night so to speak and take it off.
  - agency 5y ago
    I think this is called lock out tag out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout–tagout https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout–tagout
  - mdturnerphys 5y ago
    Not just equipment you have to enter. This is used in situations with "stored energy" or other systems that need to be turned off or otherwise disabled for safe maintenance. There are multi-lock hasps that can be used if multiple people have overlapping needs to lock out the system, and other devices such as valve handles covers, etc., that help with locking out components don't have a built-in place for a lock.

monocasa 5y ago

Used to work in robotics. The QA folk were obviously very much sticklers for the full process of enabling the hardware interlocks before getting near the moving bits. One time a manager got mad at them for taking so long going through the full interlock process while repeating a failure mode. He therefore went up to the machine saying "look, it failed so it's stopped, that's how the code works!" At that point our beta version of our CI requisitioned that bot (as the interlock wasn't the only process corner that the manager was trying to cut the bot wasn't marked as reserved in the CI system), it started initializing and broke his arm. I'm just glad that ultimately he was the only one who faced physical consequences for his poor choices. And thankful that the consequences weren't that bad at the end of the day; a broken arm is way better than a cracked open skull.

neilv 5y ago
I hope that the arm healed well, and that, after the painful demonstration, everyone in the organization was fully onboard with workplace safety protocol.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Yeah, the arm healed great, and whole situation (plus the subsequent "N Days Since a Limb Mangled" sign) contributed greatly to the manager's humility and respect for safety.
  - Digit-Al 5y ago
    > plus the subsequent "N Days Since a Limb Mangled" sign That made me actually lol.
CoastalCoder 5y ago
Oddly enough, I'm right now watching Shake Hands with Danger[0]. [0] https://www.rifftrax.com/shake-hands-with-danger https://www.rifftrax.com/shake-hands-with-danger
CoastalCoder 5y ago