"Finished" can mean wildly different things to people.
One of the maintenance guys made this for the mission, sharp as a witches tit and not painted.
When I was an apprentice, if I left a burr on a piece of metal my boss would get me sweeping the workshop for an hour if I was lucky.
We all think differently, but when something is going to be used for years an extra 30 minutes with a file and a lick of paint goes a long way.
Working on a printing press for ciggie packets. Customer invited me to a mission saying one of the motors wasn't regulating consistently and they need a field service visit.
The motor uses an edge scanner to maintain the position of paper material running through the machine. Checked with an oscilloscope and the noise was really bad. Then looking at the connections and all the shielding has been cut so no ground.
Invoiced the customer USD 2000 for putting 12 cable ties back on.
Like the old story, USD 1 for installing cable ties, USD 1999 for know which cables to tie.
Was called out to a customer in Germany for a machine down.
They've had issues for months, doing the classic power off and on to fix it.
Eventually cycling the power stopped working...
Wire was making contact with the insulation rather than the copper itself, classic noob mistake.
I'm finding more and more low quality terminations these days, like any man and his dog can be electricians.
Spend an extra minute making the proper crimped terminations and it will make the machine so much more reliable.
Felt quite bad invoicing the customer a few G's for such an easy fix
The machine i'm working on needs water between 15 - 25 degrees.
It's a vacuum metalizer, essentially puts aluminum onto plastic for crisp packets etc.
Customer has the mind set that colder means he can run the machine faster...
So chilled water supply is 4 degrees, means we have this condensation on the motors, making it rain all over the floor and electrical components.
There needs to be a study where a technical guys tells a manager i need 15 degrees water and he tried to do better and gives 5 degrees.
Mate we asked to have 15 degrees for a reason
Got called out from FindFST for a machine down in Durban, South Africa.
On a packaging line, firstly I asked the operators who was in charge of the machine maintenance and they pointed to themselves...
The communications would "randomly" drop out and they would fix it by turning the power off and on. Best trick in the book. But we know nothing is truly random in field service.
After some investigating I found the Arcnet plug barely making a connection, insulation tape and wires twisted together. If anyone here has worked with Arcnet, im sure you can understand how delicate these comms cables are.
Took 2 hours of driving around Durban to get hold of a sub D plug, been a while since I last soldered but holding it with teeth is surely industry standard right?
This is the kind of stuff you get when companies don't hire a proper maintenance person.