Michael G
30th Jun 2019, 10:05 AM
I had a conversation with one of the engineers (Matt) at work the other day and some of the conversation is relevant to what is done here.
As most would have seen, when an electrical question is asked the mods sometimes post a warning along the lines that electrical work should be done by qualified people and the forum bears no responsibility for advice offered and so on.
However, every so often someone asks about the strength of a beam or whether someone can make a part for compressed gas line, or some other action that if it failed, could damage property or injure or even kill people. This is an area where you need to be very careful, as a court will take the view that someone is liable if they should have known better - and as Matt pointed out, this almost always includes engineers as their training is broad enough to cover all the common things and give them an appreciation of the un-common. This has added complications if there is a mandatory standard or code involved, as those things rarely allow any wriggle room.
Engineers who work for an employer are usually covered by their employer's insurances provided they are working on their employer's projects in an approved way. Matt tells me that because he does private work he has his own insurance (that costs thousands per year), but his cover has limits on what he can and can not do.
A simple example of this would be a beam to hold up some weight at the end of it - say you had a MIG wire feed unit you wanted to suspend. A person on the street may set something up; maybe triangulate it for strength (have it looking like half a roof truss) - perhaps test it by hanging twice the weight on the end and it would be considered fit for purpose. However, if an engineer was asked to advise on that, the expectation (of a court) would be that the engineer has done the necessary calculations to be able to prove that it will not fail under reasonable conditions (like having someone's 4 year old swinging on it). As it may be considered a lifting device, there would be an expectation that the crane standard has been referred to, to make sure it complies if it is covered by that. Apparently it does not matter if there is no payment involved - a qualified engineer 'should have known'.
Another was back in the days when papers were delivered as a rolled up object was a paper thrower. The requester wanted to have a machine in the back of his ute that would throw papers on a signal. Not difficult and even rather interesting, but then he mentioned linking it to a GPS unit. The end result was that he could drive down the street while the machine on the back would automatically shoot rolled up newspapers into yards. effectively, this made it into an automatic weapon (imagine if you were standing in your yard when the ute went past, or your car was parked in a different spot...). Trouble could accumulate to eyebrow level very quickly.
The reverse of this is true too - if someone who 'should know better' sees something that looks to be unsafe, they have a 'duty of care' (legal term) to point that out.
It was interesting conversation, but as it applies to the forum, I guess it can be summarised as -
If you see that someone has posted something that looks unsafe, then you need to say something
If you want something made that could fail in a nasty way or cause injury while in use, then you need to be clear in pointing that out, and (if it is your specification or design) accept all liability for that, although the maker still has some responsibility.
If you are soliciting advice from others for something that could fail in a nasty way or cause injury while in use, remember that if you outline a situation too specifically, those who are best able to help may become liable for failure. As an example for the beam issue above, a question about what is good design to support a 20kg cantilever load would probably not cause an issue, but as soon as specifics are involved (I want to use some 30x 3 RHS), it gets awkward. Asking for general advice is fine but advice specific to your situation is not.
Illegal is illegal. If you are asked to make something and you suspect that it is for something that will not be legal, then you should not be making it, even if that means stopping half way through.
Michael
As most would have seen, when an electrical question is asked the mods sometimes post a warning along the lines that electrical work should be done by qualified people and the forum bears no responsibility for advice offered and so on.
However, every so often someone asks about the strength of a beam or whether someone can make a part for compressed gas line, or some other action that if it failed, could damage property or injure or even kill people. This is an area where you need to be very careful, as a court will take the view that someone is liable if they should have known better - and as Matt pointed out, this almost always includes engineers as their training is broad enough to cover all the common things and give them an appreciation of the un-common. This has added complications if there is a mandatory standard or code involved, as those things rarely allow any wriggle room.
Engineers who work for an employer are usually covered by their employer's insurances provided they are working on their employer's projects in an approved way. Matt tells me that because he does private work he has his own insurance (that costs thousands per year), but his cover has limits on what he can and can not do.
A simple example of this would be a beam to hold up some weight at the end of it - say you had a MIG wire feed unit you wanted to suspend. A person on the street may set something up; maybe triangulate it for strength (have it looking like half a roof truss) - perhaps test it by hanging twice the weight on the end and it would be considered fit for purpose. However, if an engineer was asked to advise on that, the expectation (of a court) would be that the engineer has done the necessary calculations to be able to prove that it will not fail under reasonable conditions (like having someone's 4 year old swinging on it). As it may be considered a lifting device, there would be an expectation that the crane standard has been referred to, to make sure it complies if it is covered by that. Apparently it does not matter if there is no payment involved - a qualified engineer 'should have known'.
Another was back in the days when papers were delivered as a rolled up object was a paper thrower. The requester wanted to have a machine in the back of his ute that would throw papers on a signal. Not difficult and even rather interesting, but then he mentioned linking it to a GPS unit. The end result was that he could drive down the street while the machine on the back would automatically shoot rolled up newspapers into yards. effectively, this made it into an automatic weapon (imagine if you were standing in your yard when the ute went past, or your car was parked in a different spot...). Trouble could accumulate to eyebrow level very quickly.
The reverse of this is true too - if someone who 'should know better' sees something that looks to be unsafe, they have a 'duty of care' (legal term) to point that out.
It was interesting conversation, but as it applies to the forum, I guess it can be summarised as -
If you see that someone has posted something that looks unsafe, then you need to say something
If you want something made that could fail in a nasty way or cause injury while in use, then you need to be clear in pointing that out, and (if it is your specification or design) accept all liability for that, although the maker still has some responsibility.
If you are soliciting advice from others for something that could fail in a nasty way or cause injury while in use, remember that if you outline a situation too specifically, those who are best able to help may become liable for failure. As an example for the beam issue above, a question about what is good design to support a 20kg cantilever load would probably not cause an issue, but as soon as specifics are involved (I want to use some 30x 3 RHS), it gets awkward. Asking for general advice is fine but advice specific to your situation is not.
Illegal is illegal. If you are asked to make something and you suspect that it is for something that will not be legal, then you should not be making it, even if that means stopping half way through.
Michael