Oh we do the same job?

[insertNameHere]

I basically doing electronics support for the oil industry and can not stand the level of ignorance from people I work with especially considering we are supposed to be doing the exact same job. I get the fact our specialty has a vast array of areas and some people are better in some areas that most and worse in some areas than most.

But when someone manages to burn up their laptop charging it and gets a raise I really take issue.
Or has worked a few weeks less than me and essentially has done no projects or done any break fix on their own and always has to call multiple people for support and has no idea about a circuit breaker thingy that might be fused because i have power on one side and not the other with a burnt electronics smell so what do i do?
Or can not do a basic routine function that they were specifically trained on while verifying their equipment was functional on their laptop and claiming it has never worked, while also not being able to follow any simple directions given.
Or knows how to make the system appear to be working without actually fixing it and creates problems for everyone else that needs to investigate why a system isn't working properly

[HYHYBT]

How does a person burn up a laptop charging it, as opposed to its doing it on its own because of a faulty charger or something along those lines?

[Ginger Tea]

Possibly unrelated as most powerbricks these days are dual voltage, but you know those kettles that run off the cig lighter?

One of our drivers bought one in Europe when he was abroad and used it, I thought those were more or less universal, but it killed the electrics on his work van all for the want of a brew.

[kamn]

Aren't European electronics mostly incompatible with USA electronics? Something about usin it with the other's power supplies causing the entire thing to malfunction in less than a day? I know that was true for phone chargers 10 years ago, maybe it's been fixed...

[insertNameHere]

USA is 120V 60Hz, most overseas are 208-240V 50Hz,

Most phone and laptop power bricks are now dual voltage where you don't need a power transformer to plug them in when traveling you just need a socket adapter.

Here is how you burn a laptop up charging it, you leave your power brick at another location, so you hook in an adjustable DC power supply for bench testing equipment, using a cable someone else made for the purpose you connect to your laptop that takes 19.5V and then you decide your laptop is not charging fast enough so you turn it up to make it charge faster till it turns off.

[HYHYBT]

Ow. That would do it, all right.

[Ginger Tea]

Aren't European electronics mostly incompatible with USA electronics? Something about usin it with the other's power supplies causing the entire thing to malfunction in less than a day? I know that was true for phone chargers 10 years ago, maybe it's been fixed...

I should explain that we in England rarely call ourselves European, so he went from England to visit Prague and bought it somewhere along the way.

it might not be a voltage thing like the 110/220 but something to do with commercial vans vs domestic.

All I know is the brass were not happy about the van being in the shop for a few days as he was using one of the larger vans at the time.

[wolfie]

Possibly unrelated as most powerbricks these days are dual voltage, but you know those kettles that run off the cig lighter?

One of our drivers bought one in Europe when he was abroad and used it, I thought those were more or less universal, but it killed the electrics on his work van all for the want of a brew.

it might not be a voltage thing like the 110/220 but something to do with commercial vans vs domestic.

All I know is the brass were not happy about the van being in the shop for a few days as he was using one of the larger vans at the time.

One possibility: different vehicles have different current ratings on the lighter sockets. My car's lighter is on a 10 amp fuse, while my truck's lighter is on a 20 amp fuse (shared with the mirror heat). A lot of the gizmos sold in truck stops (North America) draw more than 10 amps.

What might have happened is that the kettle draws more current than the van's lighter socket can provide, so it blew the fuse. Driver wants his cuppa, so he puts in the biggest fuse from the spare fuse kit. This doesn't upgrade the current carrying capacity of the wiring, so that got damaged.

Does the van use ATC fuses (plastic "blade" fuses roughly 1 inch wide)? If so, there are manual reset circuit breakers available that are a plug-in replacement for these fuses. Such a replacement would allow for fixing a blown fuse (push the button) without needing a set of spare fuses that could be depleted (used and not reported to maintenance) or abused (overfusing a circuit).

[Ginger Tea]

I wouldn't know nor could I find out, the incident happened 4 or so years ago and the company was closed a year ago, it's just something I remembered reading this post.