TIL that cheap chinese limit switch was costing me 2 hours

I was troubleshooting a intermittent door lock fault on an Otis in a 12 story building downtown. Kept chasing wiring issues, swapping boards, even redid a solder joint on the controller. After 4 hours across two days I finally realized the limit switch plunger had a hairline crack that would stick in the cold mornings. A $8 part swap fixed it in 10 minutes. Has anyone else had a tiny part like that waste a whole day?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota_patel9820d ago

a $8 part swap fixed it in 10 minutes" - ok but I gotta push back here. You're making this sound like the part was the whole problem when really it was your process that took 4 hours across two days. That crack didn't show up overnight, it probably been there for weeks if not months. You just didn't catch it because you were too busy chasing bigger things. I've seen guys blow days on stuff like this because they won't admit they missed something simple. The real fix here isn't the switch, it's learning to check the cheap stuff first before pulling out the soldering iron. Maybe spend those 4 hours next time just looking at every single mechanical part before you touch a wire.

lucasw8220d ago

Yeah man, you're totally right, it's rough when a tiny thing like that slips right past you.

jesse_williams6214d ago

Wait, isn't that the whole point though? Dakota's got it backwards. The real fix is never just the part itself, it's the whole mindset you bring to the job. Sure, you can spend a week staring at every little piece, but nobody has that kind of time. The guy spent 4 hours because he was trying to solve a real problem, not because he was lazy. The crack didn't show up overnight, but that doesn't mean he should have caught it sooner. Sometimes you just have to trust your gut and move fast, and if you miss something, you learn from it. What's the alternative, never making a mistake? That's not how real work gets done.