I love telling customers funny stories. When I meet a new customer, and start working on their machine, I like to inform them that I have 40+ years of experience working on office machines. Then I say, 'In 40 years, I've only ever set two machines on fire'.
This is actually a true story, the first time was working on a Toshiba 7816, in the loan department at the local credit union. I was in a hurry, and wanted to test the thermal fuse. I threw open the door, popped the clamshell, but failed to turn off the copier. You needed to pull the thermal fuse holder up through a gap in the fuser frame, kind of like the game "Operation". Well I touched the frame with the fuser holder, and shorted 120v AC to ground. It made a loud POP, and melted all the insulation off the wire from the fuse to the power supply. It literally made a mushroom cloud of stinky black electrical smoke, which rose above the level off the cubicles, and spread smoke all through the office. The bank manager came running with a fire extinguisher.
I was a bit "red in the face", but I ran down to the local Radio Shack, grabbed some new wire, rewired the fuse and had them up and running in an hour.
Have you ever lit one on fire?
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