Hear my rant...

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Jraef

Jraef

Moderator, OTD
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Location
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
I just have to unload this on some (hopefully) sympathetic ears, and my office is deserted today.

Fielded a call from someone complaining that a VFD I installed for him has failed and is costing him a ton of money because it is down. I cannot recall ever having done anything for this guy, let alone a VFD. But I listened patiently to his tale of woe, trying all the while to glean what I could from him as to what lead up to this horrific event. Finally he got to the part where he divulged the make and model of the VFD. It was an A-B 1336 drive. I have not worked on one of those in over 30 years! Sure enough, I apparently installed this for him on a project in Alaska in 1988, then he closed that plant and moved parts of it to California where it has been running since around 2000. So now, 30 years after I sold him this project in a fish processing plant in Alaska, the machine, having run trouble free for 30 years, ends up following me here and this guy comes across my name somewhere, calls me up and whines about it failing.

:rant:
 
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Dzboyce said:
But did you offer to sell and install a new drive for him??
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He already did that. He apparently called me just to chew me out when he found out I was around and got my number. Turns out he got it from the guy that put it in... who just sent me an email about it too, warning me (2 hours too late) that this guy was likely to call me.

Note to self; no Christmas card for him...
 
zbang said:
Your rant has been heard!


He got 30 years out of it, that's not too bad. (And I assume you don't now work for the company you did back then, either.)

Time to talk about contracting rates :D.
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I was my own company back then, but yes, that's correct.

No more working for free for me... I have a deep respect for those that can manage to run their own company. I've tried it twice, I'm done. Give me a desk, a steady paycheck and a health plan now and I'll work (almost) as hard.
 
I guess I would have jumped down his throat if he had called me for something like that. I would have said "you're kidding, right". If he was serious I would have told him he needed therapy and hung up.
 
tempurpedic-complaints.png



~RJ~
 
Jraef said:
I just have to unload this on some (hopefully) sympathetic ears, and my office is deserted today.

Fielded a call from someone complaining that a VFD I installed for him has failed and is costing him a ton of money because it is down. I cannot recall ever having done anything for this guy, let alone a VFD. But I listened patiently to his tale of woe, trying all the while to glean what I could from him as to what lead up to this horrific event. Finally he got to the part where he divulged the make and model of the VFD. It was an A-B 1336 drive. I have not worked on one of those in over 30 years! Sure enough, I apparently installed this for him on a project in Alaska in 1988, then he closed that plant and moved parts of it to California where it has been running since around 2000. So now, 30 years after I sold him this project in a fish processing plant in Alaska, the machine, having run trouble free for 30 years, ends up following me here and this guy comes across my name somewhere, calls me up and whines about it failing.

:rant:
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Makes you wonder what he got out of moaning at you......
What is the rating of the drive, do you recall?
 
Jraef said:
I just have to unload this on some (hopefully) sympathetic ears, and my office is deserted today.

Fielded a call from someone complaining that a VFD I installed for him has failed and is costing him a ton of money because it is down. I cannot recall ever having done anything for this guy, let alone a VFD. But I listened patiently to his tale of woe, trying all the while to glean what I could from him as to what lead up to this horrific event. Finally he got to the part where he divulged the make and model of the VFD. It was an A-B 1336 drive. I have not worked on one of those in over 30 years! Sure enough, I apparently installed this for him on a project in Alaska in 1988, then he closed that plant and moved parts of it to California where it has been running since around 2000. So now, 30 years after I sold him this project in a fish processing plant in Alaska, the machine, having run trouble free for 30 years, ends up following me here and this guy comes across my name somewhere, calls me up and whines about it failing.

:rant:
Click to expand...

Did you give him a lifetime warranty on this drive? If you did I think it's time to have this guy killed and void the warranty.

No kidding I can't think of any industrial equipment that's in constant use that's expected to even last 30 years without a complete refurbishment. 'I'm sure that A-B would be happy to know that one of their drives lasted so long.
 
I have a place that has a 250 HP A-B drive that we installed new in ~1995.

Wasn't there for very long then the plant shut down, was sold to a different company but that new company didn't use the equipment the drive was a part of. We eventually connected it to a 50 HP motor then later to a 100 HP motor, mostly because it was there and not being used. But it sat unpowered and unused for maybe around 10 years. Still using it today, only repair so far has been to replace the cooling fan.
 
growler said:
Did you give him a lifetime warranty on this drive? If you did I think it's time to have this guy killed and void the warranty.

No kidding I can't think of any industrial equipment that's in constant use that's expected to even last 30 years without a complete refurbishment. 'I'm sure that A-B would be happy to know that one of their drives lasted so long.
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We built some fairly big variable speed drives that were commissioned around 1990 and that are still running. But you are right. They need regular maintenance.
Electrolytic capacitors, for example, have a finite life expectancy. Some maybe 20,000 hours at maximum rating.
 
I would have told him I just opened a can of fish from back then and it didn't taste very good and was looking for his phone number; as I have medical bills that need paying.
 
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