On 12/31/2021 22:49, James Gordon Beattie Jr wrote:
How many Engineers does it take to replace a lightbulb?
None.
Correct. They design them, not service them.
I worked on a piece of equipment designed ~1963. A few hundred thousand
units were built and spread around the globe, I personally serviced 3-9
units a day in the field for several years.
Adjustment to a sensor was made by way of a potentiometer- under several
circuit boards. I guess it looked clear when the one board was viewed
on the blueprint, or held in the hand by itself.
This pot was on a vertical board about 2" square, paralleled with a high
precision resistor, nothing else, so it's not like space was tight. The
pot pointed up, into the bottom of a stack of circuit boards, of course
both sides were clear, as was the back of the equipment, where one would
have been able to just reach straight in, like adjusting the volume knob
on a radio, or TV.
Every single unit was damaged during the process of twice-yearly
inspections and adjustment, whether it was the slot on the pot, the pot
body getting mangled, and interfering with adjustment, the pot being
snapped from the board, or damage to any one of the circuit boards,
wiring harnesses, or magnetic shields on some of the boards, when trying
to weave tools through the equipment to get to the pot.
Eventually, the units could no longer be adjusted, and were pulled from
service, to be repaired, overhauled, re-calibrated, and certified to an
absurd number of standards, and traceability, at considerable time, and
expense. Not the customers, they got a swap in a few minutes, and
didn't even know- the company paid for the repairs to their poorly
designed equipment.
100% of the units were built like this, with a 100% damage rate, and
100% complaint rate for servicing, across 40+ years, globally.
But, you know, engineers know better, they designed it that way.
Kurt
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