Neanderpundit

not a train headed my way

For a change.

I don’t blog much about work, but this has been a thorn in my side.

I have been asked to add an accessory to a machine tool. The kind of thing I do a lot of, and do often. Like falling off a log.

And usually, they;re in and out jobs.

This one has taken four trips. And each trip, I discover some new horror.

SO Here are the pieces:

Machine tool with outdated control and outdated, budget software, which the manufacturer no longer supports.

External component with “black box” properties- it has certain functions which can be partially controlled, but the majority of it is hidden, and there is a piece of software which connects to it, which is in itself, a barely operable translaton to english from two other languages. Some screens are still in German, some still in Swedish.

Programmable controller which connects the two, but which has it’s own whole set of limitations.

Any two of the above obstacles make the task merely impossible. Four or more, well, it’s unheard of.

Add to this, the fact that many of the mechanical components of the machine are worn, and cause problems/mask errors of the other equipment. Add to THAT, the customer’s decided (and deserving) distaste of the amount of time this has required.

That’s where I am. Oh, and the area where I must work is travelled with stunning regularity by forklifts- I have to place orange road cones to prevent being hit, and have been hit twice just today despite the cones. And the area around the rest of the machine- well, I have to suck in my still not insubstantial gut to get there.

The first system went online today. With the help of a few incredibly talented people, I made the impossible possible. And it’s an incredible feeling of accomplishment.

Now I just have to do it all again, to a machine ten feet away.

May God have mercy on my soul.

Drove the Sploder on it’s first road trip today. Not a big trip, only a couple hundred miles.

But when you develop a relationship with a vehicle, when you lose it for a month odd, and you get it back… it’s like getting back on an old horse, one you know and knows you, and you fall into old patterns again.

She feels fine. She has more power than I remember but then who knows how long the pulley was failing. The exhaust guys also had some kind of trouble, which I think should be a simple enough repair (assuming they will, I think they will) It manifests itself in a small noise under load. All in all, miles better than before, and I feel ready for another 200,000 miles. She’s outside my window now as I write this from my suite in Ohio.

Yes, I do have an attachment to my vehicles. Even the van, now, has become one of the family and will be treated as such- so happens that the van will easily transport the motorcycle.

Broad is bemoaning the lack of useful warmage in her crapper, and I can definitely concur; this sucks.

When I was a kid, Gramps had bue ticks. Big, stinky smelly dogs. Partially smelly because t hey had a habit of sleeping in the crappers. Or on them, to be more accurate.

See, Gramps had indoor plumbing but for many years they;’d used an outhouse, and it was still there. Hell, if someone was using the house crapper, you STILL used the outhouse.

So as often as not, you had to chase off a dog. There was an old horsehair brush there, to sweep off the ticks and fleas that the dogs generally left on the seat- and we always dosed the dsamned thing with a liberal sprinkling of flea powder once or twice a week- but man, the seat was always warm when you sat.

Once I remember having to push the thing off it’s foundation so a dog could scrape his way out, having fallen down the hole. And I remember more than one cold fall evening, shooing a dog off a hole, and sitting down on the warm seat, scritching said dog betwixt the ears in thanks for keeping my place.