What would you do?

[MrWhoopee]

Theres nothing special about Italy….

John

My experience with pasta machinery taught me that there are two things "special" about Italy:
1. The replacement parts always require some modification or tweaking
2. God help you if you need parts in August.

 

[matthewsx]

My experience with pasta machinery taught me that there are two things "special" about Italy:
1. The replacement parts always require some modification or tweaking
2. God help you if you need parts in August.

I sold Italian go-karts and parts for a while, they have very good CNC machining capabilities. And they are very proud of the part$ they make....

John

 

[Inferno]

Well, it turns out I own a new stepper motor.
why?

I was going off memory when I bought the replacement motor and I forgot that this stupid machine is overly electronically engineered. Every stepper has an encoder on it. Even the drive motors that are not synchronized with with anything else, have encoders on them.
I bought a single shaft motor. The motor in the machine is a dual shaft to accept the encoder.

Of course the MM bought the motor and encoder as a unit which is why it's "proprietary". He just can't be bothered to put the old encoder on a new motor.

At any rate, his technician was able to get the machine going, for now, by drilling through the coupler and shaft and pinning them together. It's a matter of time before it blows up but it got us through the day.

I have a coupler showing up on Monday and verified with his tech that there's nothing wrong with the actual motor or encoder. The softer metal of the coupler is what became the problem and it didn't score the shaft of the motor.

So, we're waiting for an entire motor to arrive rather than sourcing a coupler. That's smart, NOT>

With the fix, though, I checked out the motor. It was running at 180 degrees external temp. A stepper shouldn't be doing that if engineered properly.

This motor we're talking about is a NEMA34 format. It is built like a 1000ish oz/in with the length being in the 112-114mm range.

Here's the one I bought

E Series Nema 34 Stepper Motor Bipolar 1.8deg 8.2Nm(1161.22oz.in) 6.0A 86x86x114mm 4 Wires - 34HE45-6004S|STEPPERONLINE

E Series Nema 34 Stepper Motor Bipolar 1.8deg 8.2Nm(1161.22oz.in) 6.0A 86x86x114mm 4 Wires - 34HE45-6004S - Nema 34 - 86 x 86mm - Electrical Specification Manufacturer Part Number: 34HE45-6004S Number of phase: 2 Step Angle: 1.8deg Holding Torque: 8.2Nm(1

www.omc-stepperonline.com

It hardly seems beefy enough to run the drive it's running but with the transmission dropping 8:1 it is giving a lot more torque than it would by itself. It just has to spin a lot faster than a counterpart that wouldn't need a transmission.
Oh well, that's how those Italians designed it.

Monday we will have a better short term solution. It might even be a permanent solution. Either way we will have a backup for the coupler and something to fall back on the next time this part goes out.

It should be mentioned that the operator(s) of this machine have been reporting that, for the last 6 months or so, this unit spontaneously stopped working on a regular basis and the MM said there's nothing wrong with it and they didn't know why it kept stopping and was, likely, operator error.

NO, what it was was the encoder saying there was product moving into the product zone but no product being detected in the product zone. Overly, electronically, engineered. Physically, extremely under engineered. Making a NEMA 34 motor do the work of a NEMA 52 motor.

 

[mmcmdl]

It should be mentioned that the operator(s) of this machine have been reporting that, for the last 6 months or so, this unit spontaneously stopped working on a regular basis and the MM said there's nothing wrong with it and they didn't know why it kept stopping and was, likely, operator error.

?????????????? Time for a new MM .

 

[Papa Charlie]

This is what happens when people are promoted into positions they have no experience in, too often caused by bean counters.

You just can't fix stupid.

 

[Inferno]

?????????????? Time for a new MM .

It's been time for a while. He has to have some sort of leverage over the owners.
I know he was seriously injured on the job about 15 years ago and has a permanent limp for it. I'd think the statute of limitations would have ran out on that by now.

 

[mmcmdl]

Maintenance managers should be on the floor listening to the mechanics and operators . If he can't perform this task , time for a desk job . This is no excuse but if the owner puts up with it .

 

[Inferno]

Maintenance managers should be on the floor listening to the mechanics and operators . If he can't perform this task , time for a desk job . This is no excuse but if the owner puts up with it .

He won't even communicate with the operators. Or the production managers, for that matter.
Never says he's taking a machine down. Never says when it's back up and running. Never says an ETA for it coming back online.

A production manager can have a complete plan for the day, walk in, and find a machine has been taken out of service for a non-critical repair. There's no tech around. Just the machine will be locked out.
Send him an email asking what's up and never hear back. The manager has to hunt down a tech to find out why.
Then the usual scenario is the owner will see its not running, ask the PM why it's not running. After hearing the MM took the machine out of service he will just walk away.
PM hands are tied.
Later on, could be an hour, day, or days later the owner will ask why the machine isn't running. The PM has to reply "is it fixed?".
Then two hours or more later the owner will send an email "the MM says it's been foxed for a while so we should be running it."

This pattern repeats at least monthly on my machines alone.

Horrible communication but the owners allow it.

 

[mmcmdl]

Tell the owner to get with the program , It's his own money he's wasting ! No LOTO program in use I presume ? Let him know that if he's willing to waste money , waste some YOUR way on your paycheck !

 

[woodchucker]

option C, get it done, if it works, move on. If it doesn't then can it be modified to make it work...

let's get it done and working.

In the Airplane business, they can't do this.. it has to be an original certified part. And I am sure in the medical field probably the same.
But in all non- life and death situations... get it working.