Troubleshooting - perhaps this could use its own section

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You can teach someone to be a good troubleshooter just like you can teach them to be a good artist...it can't be done. Even with all of the theory methods and procedures, many will never become effective troubleshooters.
Don
 
I want to add a tidbit:

Listen to the customer, but don't be jaded by what they say.

"I think that plug's gotta short in it" - could mean that there is an intermittent bad connection somewhere in the circuit.
 
Troubleshooting is about the hardest task that we face. Especially when the operator or HO knows exactly what the problem is. I can't count how many times that I have been told "The problem is right here" and it end's up being completly some where else. They always look at the symptom. One of the bigest examples was on a DC motor resistor bank. Of course the resistor bank was mounted was away from the controls and the motor was in a completly different room. Well the motor would'nt work right, they went into the control room and saw that the resistor bank was cherry red and even had a few melted spots. When I and the electrician walked in and said OK thanks for the information and headed off to check the controller. The production supervisor literaly ran to the superintendent and he went to the maintenance superintendent and it took all of about 15 minutes before my cell phone was ringing and I was being yelled at because we ignored the problem and walked away. I had to explain even to my boss how there are symptoms and there are problems. WE FIX PROBLEMS! I told him next time he goes to the doctor with a head ache, perhaps he would just like them to cut off his head, that would remove the pain.

Also since I'm rambling. You have to look for more than one symtom. I had an experience where an arc melt furnace tripped off on a ground fault. By the time I got there (it was at night and they didn't tell me till I got in). There were already plans to pull the transformer and change it out. Now we are talking about a 500MVA transformer that takes about 2 weeks to change out, we had just done it 2 years prior. So I go over, there is no typical electrical burn smell, no high temps., no burned wires, the only indidcation was that one of the ground lights was not on. No it was not as simple as changing a bulb. But, the problem ended up being burned up insulators on the bus arms to the electrode holders. I just had fun letting all the engineers yell at me as I made the guys crawl around for about 10 minutes inspecting the bus arms. I do mean the yelled at me because it took two weeks to change out the transformer and I was just delaying things. When my guy's threw down a chunk of melted copper from around one the insulators. They all just stood there with their mouths open. It was dead quiet, until I looked at the production suppervisor and just told him. You'll be running tonight, now get out of our way so we can get our job done.

Edit: Please excuse all the spelling mistakes, I haven't bothered to download the spell checker.
 
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I do a lot of machine control troubleshooting and have found when working on an unfamiliar machine to look on the inside of the door of the main control panel where the PLC, drive, etc. is located for notes, wire #'s, or comments from previous troubleshooting attempts.

Sometimes the previous guy will put something there that is helpful. Usually you don't have a paper to write on and the white interior of the door is perfect.
 
iwire said:
1)Many people can be taught the methods and can make their way through it.

2)Some people do not have to be taught they can just do it naturally...that is how their brains are wired.

3)And finally there is a small percentage of people that simple can't troubleshoot at all no matter what level of instruction they are given.


I don't see why anyone would assume electrical troubleshooting is a skill we are all born with anymore than saying all we are all born with the ability to play poker.

~Bob
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Bob now that I can agree with, and I now believe we are at least in the same book, if not same chapter, maybe not same page....

All analogies aside, as it is not art, natural born gift, it is an aquired skill. True some are great at it! And some, many of which fear it, should not bother to own a meter. But I feel that is a small percentage. The majority of people in the trade could be very good at it IMO, so long as they dispell this "Black Art" myth, and grasp the opprotunity to learn something out of the box. And it can be done.... Take a guy off the construction side of the trade, and put him on the Service side that learning curve usually flattens out if thats all you do all day.

What I have not mentioned is that some people, look at it as "More Work - Same Pay", and will play dumb no matter what you have to tell them, but that is a different story......

Minuteman, I love that.... You show up and someone tells you its a short....
As for some reason most people love to watch you work while troubleshooting, I take the moment to explain the difference in the language as I am asking questions and opening the gear they say something is wrong with. "So this short, you say there was smoke, loud buzzing, fire balls and explosions coming from here? Didn't the breaker trip/fuses blow? You mean theres no power, oh.... That could be an open...."

Anyway, I think a troubleshooting forum would ba great place to keep this type of info.
 
e57, I love the customer who wants to "watch and learn" while I troubleshoot a problem. I often use this line..." Labor rate is $65 per hour if I do the work, $85 if you watch, and only $150 if you want to help, you need to borrow a screwdriver or anything?" LOL
 
e57 said:
as it is not art, natural born gift, it is an acquired skill.
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Mark no offense meant, I can not agree to that.

It (in my experience) is simply not true.

Some people (quite a few really) can not be taught to be effective troubleshooters.

I will say the employees under you are indeed more fortunate than the employees under me.:)

I will give a employee a few chances to prove themselves a skilled troubleshooter and if they fail I do not bother using them for that task again unless they come asking for the chance.

It sounds like you will hold them by the hand and burn up however much time it takes to make them find the problem.

I don't have that kind of patience, I want the problem fixed now not tomorrow. :D

BTW, no one should think I am giving Mark a hard time, I have seen pictures of the jobs he runs and they look great. :)
 
iwire said:
I will give a employee a few chances to prove themselves a skilled troubleshooter and if they fail I do not bother using them for that task again unless they come asking for the chance.
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I will give them a few chances to show potential, but I don't expect magic in a few tries. Multifamily is good for practice, the crews are questionable (because several guys are required to get the job done, generally). There is potential for a lot of mistakes in a short time to diagnose. That's where I really got it down. I doubt I could operate on the same level as you guys, but I can hold my own in my niche. :)
 
iwire said:
Some people (quite a few really) can not be taught to be effective troubleshooters.

I will say the employees under you are indeed more fortunate than the employees under me. Not really....

I will give a employee a few chances to prove themselves a skilled troubleshooter and if they fail I do not bother using them for that task again unless they come asking for the chance.

It sounds like you will hold them by the hand and burn up however much time it takes to make them find the problem. I make them do it again and again and again, I'll describe that in a moment. Otherwise I would have to do all of it, all the time. No there is a cut off, then I show up. That too I will describe.

I don't have that kind of patience, I want the problem fixed now not tomorrow.

BTW, no one should think I am giving Mark a hard time, I have seen pictures of the jobs he runs and they look great.
Thanks BOB..... ;)
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You're right, NOT EVERYONE can get it, but those same people can't figure out how to use a level, tape measure, a square, drill through thier own work, and the plumbers, staple through wires, kink 1/2" EMT, cut wires too short, get cranky when I make them fix thier own work 3X's, and take long breaks, show up late, leave early, or just hung over, pitch a twitch when I have them do something they dont like, and are incapable of learning new things. You know the type..... I write them up 3X's, and sack them, or ride them around the job site like a bicycle until they just dont show up again. So those type ARE incapable of learning, but the problem there is for the most part, that they don't want to, and have no pride in thier work, and they wont last long under me. So yes, I do keep the cream, and keep them happy, but sack the crap. The later have no place in the trade IMO, and I wont bother teaching them anything, and they wont work with me long either. They can go work for someone else. The same people go complain to the boss that I ride them, and Boss says 'Great!' ;)

On my plans, I have peoples initials for the work they did, I make that person go back.... And make them stand behind thier work. Not that I'm a Nazi, or infailable. I fix my own mistakes too... (I screwed up a whole lay out of 3 guys yesterday, and spent all day myself today sorting it out.)

The guys I do keep, I just dont throw them into the fire on thier own, they would be there all day, and wont learn anything. Often, if I have to go troubleshoot something I take one of my underlings with me to open and close what I need to see. (Yes thats 2 guys.... Dont freak out yet.... I get in and out quicker this way.)

For instance: (A simplified version)

Open that, that that that, and that.
I start checking....
Start a small drawing.
Do you have voltage there? No. Do you have voltage there? No. Do you have voltage there? Yes.
I show them right on the drawing where the problems going to be, and what it might be, and make them check it.
Ring that out, its good, throw the breaker back on, test, go shut it off again.
Close it all back up, turn it back on, check again.
(For the most part they are doing all the work.... And I drive them like a Ferrari.)
Then I debrief them on what we found, what we were looking for, and what we did to correct it. Why we looked in one place over another, etc.

After a few times of doing that, I throw them out there on thier own. If they take too long, I go over and rev the engine up the same way. It's not a comfortable experiance. The next time they go its usually over pretty quick, 'cause they don't want me to come solve it for them. Working directly with me you work and think at my pace. I drink 64 oz of coffee a day.... :) On your own you can go at your pace, within limits.
 
I have always found in the past that when I got away from the basics on troubleshooting it always came back to haunt me. Most of the time it is something basic like a loose connection, etc.
When you walk up to a call and know what is wrong before you start you are not clearing your mind and troubleshooting the call. I always start with voltage checks, amperages and the list goes on.
It seems like everytime I go do a trouble call they ask " what do you think is wrong?" I usually reply, " something don't work, that's why you called me". Then I try and go in a methodical manner to find and correct the problem.
 
I generally start with the mindset that the installation worked properly at some point. Therefore, something has changed, and the trick is to find out what and why, and restore the conditions to their pre-failure state. I narrow down the possibilities by asking several questions before lifting a single tool.
 
The first step in solving a problem is the aquisition of data.
The second is correctly defining the problem.
I asked the engineer at start of my shift what he was doing. He said he had spent most of the day working on a testbed unit (hot mockup). It was slaming the servo motor. Had changed all boards out to no avail. Asked if he had checked DC supplies voltages, he said they were in spec. I said did you check with a scope? Nope. He rounded one up, five minutes later changing out a DC supply with bad ac ripple voltage(cusing under his breath most likely.). Part of trouble shooting is knowing and understanding the limits of what your test equipment can tell you.
Note: You should have culled the herd before attemping training. lol
A neon lamp works to test wall outlets and high voltage field (TV picture tube anode).
 
e57 said:
Note if you look through them, they all have simular methodology.

An operator interview
A familiarization of the equipments true operation (What it is suppposed to do)
A familiarization of the problem (what it is not suppossed to do)
A generalization of the problem
Are the nessesary circumstances for the thing to operate present? Where are they not present?
An isolation of the problem through testing (And there are some general rules I mentioned earlier for that)
A confirmation by an appropriate method, be it replacement, by-pass, further testing or the repair itself.
A resolution, the actual repair...
And most importantly asking why it happened in the first place, there may be other things wrong....
Click to expand...

About 20 years ago I was the qualifier for the electrical department of a "Pump and Tank" business. We had me and 2 other electricians. One of them was installing a control panel for a pump set feeding a hospital day tank (or something like that, it was a long time ago). He called me and told me the controller was bad and we needed a new one. I asked him why he thought that and listened to the symptoms. After a few minutes, I told him he had landed a wire on the wrong terminal in the controller and if he corrected the termination (in the way I explained it should be) it would work fine. He corrected it and it worked. He turned to a co-worker and exclaimed, "How does he do that??

I could do that because I understood exactly how the system worked. The symptoms explained the wiring was wrong. I could conceptionalize (is this even a word?) the problem.

The number one skill needed for accurate troubling is to be able to conceptionalize (not really a word) the whole system. This is not something that is learned. This is something you have or don't (and not all people can do it). I agree with others that have stated not all electricians can be good at trouble-shooting.
 
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