Mystery Solved . . .
Today was another hardware day at work, so I never did get back on the Shipping program.
We did solve what was apparently a long-running problem though. There are two standard connectors found on the foot pedal controllers for the machines, one rectangular and one round like this.
The problem was that some round connector pedals would work with some machines and not with others. But other pedals would work with those machines and not with the first group. So I was determined to get to the bottom of this.
Grabbing up several machines and several foot pedals, I started running tests by swapping things around, And as I was told, some worked with some and not others. So then I started testing the pedals themselves.
The pedals are just simple microswitches, either on or off, with the switch wired between the two outer pins, while the center shaft is grounded to the metal case of the foot pedal. And an ohmmeter across the pins confirms the switch continuity.
But, confusingly so, other pedals that didn’t show continuity across the pins, worked just fine on some other machines. So, activating the pedal, I checked the continuity between each of the outer pins and the center ground pin. And that was the problem.
Just to be sure, I took apart one of the machines to double-check and found that these machines were wired with the ground pin being one side of the switch, while other machines of the same make and model were wired differently.
Nobody seems to know why this was done. And it’s not just on the machines from one manufacturer. But it does explain why someone can order a replacement foot pedal and some times it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Tomorrow will probably be an errand day, WalMart for more stuff, Cracker Barrel to order Thanksgiving Cornbread Dressing, and a few other stops, as well as lunch somewhere along the way.
But a fun weekend anyway.
Thought for the Day:
It’s pretty simple. Life is really all about ass. You’re either covering it, hauling it, laughing it off, kicking it, kissing it, or behaving like one.
sfgfg
