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Really? Youv'e never seen a production worker check a wiring harness before sending something to the next station?
Does it matter? Ours were checked by the in house cal lab every six months, and if the lab was busy they handed you another of the same model to prevent downtime. they would even change it out on your bench or equipment cart to prevent downtime.
Yawn. Not everyone is as anal retentive or as big of a cheapskate as you.
-- You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
Because it's not a safety course, it's a brief article in which they wanted a stock photo to illustrate the violence of an arc flash event in an industrial environment. I think most readers would get that.
You actually don't think the official enforcement organization should be able make suggestions regarding related legislation??
Currently about one electrician is killed every year in Ontario, with a population of around 12-15 million. That's probably about half the rate per capita in the US overall, but still one too many IMHO. It's been on a clear downtrend in both countries.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
The title says "Multimeter Accident Prevention Plan, An Inspector's Survival Guide". Carelessly placing material in there that is so clearly showing a safety violation is like a publication from a police agency that contains a photo of a driver that in not buckled in, safety belt flopping in the wind. They don't do that, unless it's to explicitly make a point about it.
Only if they are competent to do that. With some organizations I have my doubts.
What kills them usually? I've never heard of one getting killed. Except one whom I knew who almost got killed. He worked on an electric locomotive stopped on the tracks for service. Somehow out of reflex he stood up and touched the HV wire with his head.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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You are implying things that were not said.
It sure does. If the taxpayer or ratepayer pays the bill its easy to buy lots of stuff.
Not everything has to be calibrated. Unless you work in production or QC.
In private enterprise one has to be frugal and reasonable. There is no point in spending more money than needed to do a good job.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
For electricians, I think mainly failure to follow lockout procedures properly during maintenance and repairs, and deliberately working on live stuff and making a mistake (especially, they say, 347 VAC lighting systems, which are a bit more bitey than the equivalent
277VAC in the States).
Ouch. Permanently disabled? Was he actually strictly an electrician, or some other kind of electrical worker?
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
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WTH do you think PRODUCTION means?
You can really be stupid at times.
That depends on the company's policies, not your opinions. if the procedure calls for an actual measurement, it requires that all equipment be calibrated.
You don't know every detail of every electronics business, so quit pretending that you do. Waste all the time you want with less than optimal test equipment. You bill by the hour anyway. When you need to turn out the best possible quality, day in and day out you need the proper tools. Use all the crap equipment you want. It wastes time and will not meet a lot of companies standards.
-- You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
On a sunny day (Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:55:29 -0400) it happened Spehro Pefhany wrote in :
Many years ago I was looking out of my office window, next to me they were building a new building, and this fork lift comes out with a big round stone pipe on it. Huge piece of pipe, probably sewage or something. Behind him comes a nice car. The forklift is driving backwards, and I do not understand why the pipe does not roll off. He stops, intersection.. The nice car stops behind him. The pipe rolls off, on the engine hood of the car. Flat as a dime. Slight tilt of the road probably. I see them screaming at each other, had things to do, dunno how it ended.
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Quote "My company won't move from buying 'approved' Fluke 87s at £350 a pop .... No even for use as a simple continuity tester or " is there any volts there""
Please point out the word "production".
I could give that back but I am not that rude. What I do find arrogant is when you say that a company with just three meters is a "crappy business". How many meters do you think Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard had when they started their company in a garage? How many might Steve Jobs have had when he started Apple in his parents' basement? How many American jobs did those guys create? How many jobs did you personally create?
And who writes and ECO's those procedures?
Sorry, that's nonsense. Good engineers know when calibrated measurements are called for and usually also how to calibrate their equipment. Things like precision voltage references and WWV have been inventend many decades ago.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Come to think of it, as a kid I built an amp with a very stiff and big Cockroft-Walton cascade that generated over 900VDC. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to survive my teenage years ;-)
He was healed but it had a lasting effect. It's too long ago, AFAIR he was a railriad electrician trained to work on electric locomotives. Such things are human, they can happen. Somewhere I believe in North America a more grueling event happened, decades ago: A tour at a large utility plant. When in the switch yard the leading engineer who was obviously a neat freak kind of person wiped a fly off a rail, out of reflex. He died instantly.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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(Pssssst! Joerg! Look closely - that's a crash dummy)
When I was in the Navy all the multimeters were analogue. So the measurements were not all that exact, but I learned that if the voltages were kind of close to what was in the manual, the problem was probably somewhere else. DItto with resistors. Most resistors had a
20 % tolerance and usually did not have to be within spec. I can vaguely remember a circuit that would fail every couple of months. I tried talking my lead into letting me put in a resistor with a higher resistance. But no go. So I got the supply guy to let me check all the resistors of the correct part number. And found one that was out of tolerance that I used.=20 Dan
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WTF does Apple have to do with a company having only three meters?
How many did H&P need to build one audio oscillator?
I created about a half dozen, but I'm not a know it all who proclaims that you don't need test equipment, tools or stock to make billions.
That depends on the type of ECO, and the process. Some were written by production, and signed off by engineering. Others were generated by engineering, but they all had to have three signatures, including the engineering manager's. I wrote dozens of them, especially on older products.
What kind of poorly run place lets 'good engineers' set corporate policy? The policy was that all test equipment was either fully functional and in calibration, or locked in the call lab bone yard where no one could get to it. The only exemption was were the HP 5245L counters with a bad time base. They were used on the GPS derived 10 MHz in house standard, through the 32 port distribution amp I built for them. There was enough spare equipment that it VERY rarely ever affected production or engineering.
What kind of half assed place uses WWV for a frequency standard? It's OK for a ham radio cheapskate, but decent standards are available for less than $50. GPS derived frequency standards have been around for decades and are available on Ebay.
We were an ISO9000 certified facility with our in house cal lab. An hour's downtime cost us around $300, which would buy a good meter.
You're about 50 years out of date. PLONK. I should have done this when I had to replace the hard drive and lost all my filters.
-- You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
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The same dealer offers a clamp on ammeter for slightly less money. It is an MT87. Has anyone bought and used one?
I have a clamp on adapter for a multimeter that I got eons ago, But it would be nice to have a compact solution to measuring AC current.
I picked up a Radio Shack digital multimeter off ebay that is a 3 3/4 digit meter. It auto ranges and that is very annoying. It may be because I am set in my ways, but auto ranging and auto selection of AC or DC measurements seems slower to me than manually selecting the range and function.
=20 Dan
On a sunny day (Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:15:13 -0700 (PDT)) it happened " snipped-for-privacy@krl.org" wrote in :
I dunno, but I just ordered one for fun. The clamp is AC only, the range is big though. iirc 8 Euro 20 inclusive shipping. Sometimes these things can be useful to measure AC current for PCs and such. You could be better of buying an AC/DC one, more possibilities.
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I assume one. And according to you strange judgment that makes it a crappy business. One that created 45,000 jobs. So far for your great judgment.
I think now you are beginning to understand :-)
So who proclaimed that?
Correct. So the writer of the ECO can make valid and convincing arguments in his paperwork why this procedure needs a calibrated tool but that other one does not.
A well run company does. It's called "empowerment" and makes for a very rewarding workplace. Everyone can make an input to change or set up a policy. Then it goes through the usual reviews. Now what again was the problem with that?
If WWV is good enough for a certain task why should it not be used? Of course, if you've always worked in taxpayer-subsidized ventures this concept might not be familiar. One does not need a Ferrari Testarossa to pick up the fresh rolls at the bakery.
We were certified as well although much of such certs is not worth a lot. We've had better certs than ISO9000. If downtime cost $300/h your business was run rather wastefully. Private industry is roughly 3x more efficient.
Ah, the arguments run out and a plonk is the answer?
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
I agree with you- autoranging is worse than manual ranging.
Also, a lot of the cheapie meters have a continuity beeper function that is mostly useful as a check box in the specs- it's too slow to be of much use in buzzing out cables or whatever.
Both are useful. Choice is good.
...and drives everyone else in the lab nuts.
The diode function is useful, too.
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On my "upscale Chinese meter" which cost $19.95 plus tax this beeper function is instant, very useful for beeping out cables, and is fairly muffled. Not like that annoying beeeep-beeeep every time the bulldozer at the lot next door moves backwards.
Also the capacitance meter. In a pinch I've built RF filter using a DVM to measure the capacitors and then a function generator to resonate out LC circuits, in order to measure inductors. Ok, I also needed to turn on my trusty old HP11C, so three tools.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
It's the quick "is there any volts there", test where you're most likely to let your guard down.
The Fluke 87 (at least the Mark V that I use), has the feature of shouting at you if you select a non-current range with a lead in a current socket. That has actually saved me a couple of times. Unless you do a lot of current measurements, and are accustomed to swapping leads, you tend not to notice where the leads are, when you pick the meter up.
--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
(Richard Feynman)
On a sunny day (Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:51:24 -0700) it happened Fred Abse wrote in :
I have a simple rule: I always put the leads in the voltage connectors, and select the highest voltage DC range after I used the meter.
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