The old timer who taught me to listen to the cables before looking at the board

I was working on a Miconic 10 in a hospital in Pittsburgh about 5 years ago, chasing a phantom door reopening issue. An older mechanic named Dave, must have been in his 60s, walked over and just stood there for a minute listening. He said 'stop staring at the controller, you can hear the cables binding on the sheave about 3 feet before the door zone.' I checked it and sure enough, one of the compensation ropes was frayed and catching. Has anyone else had luck diagnosing issues just by sound rather than going straight to the black box?

3 comments

3 Comments

adam_lewis21d ago

Boy, that Dave sounds like he knew his stuff. I've had my own version of that experience with an old Schindler 3300 that was dropping passengers off at the wrong floor. The building superintendent swore it was a logic board fault, but I spent a morning just sitting in the machine room with a cup of coffee, listening to the contactors click. Sure enough, I heard a faint hesitation in the brake release pattern that pointed to a sticky relay coil. It's easy to get tunnel vision with a multimeter when the ears can sometimes tell you exactly where to narrow your search first.

the_ryan20d ago

That line about "tunnel vision with a multimeter" hits hard @adam_lewis, it's the same with troubleshooting anything in life. The more you rely on tools, the more you forget the simplest senses like hearing and patience can do the job first.

murray.spencer20d ago

Nodding my head over here...