It's done...
Ok, it's the day after shipping deadline.
Too bad I can't say that things went swimmingly, 'coz they didn't. The biggest disappointment came from the electrical/controls group who steadfastly claimed that "it'll only take about an hour" to get the drive and compressor going.
Well, that didn't happen. On Monday, they toiled away until 11PM when we put the machine into its shipping crate and walked out of the building. Never drove it, tried to grab up a tetra off the floor or attempted to work off the autoload station.
After our unveiling on Thursday of last week where several of the teams that our sponsor helps showed off their machines, I was pretty confident that we had a winning machine. Drive was working, but the compressor wasn't, and so it seemed pretty straightforward as to what was causing it.
We looked pretty good, and I must say that for that short instant that I watched from a distance, it seemed that we were pretty much done.
Wrong. Sloppy assembly and "good enough" attitudes prevented the lift from extending. The racks were installed such that as the lift extended, the inner sections of the lift wedged together. No amount of pulling was going to get it to rise any higher.
At first glance on Friday of last week, it appeared as though the vandoor motor wasn't powerful enough to lift the stages. On further inspection, we discovered the problem with the slides and made repairs. A little care in assembly would have certainly prevented this near catastrophy.
So, by the end of the weekend, two 12-hour days, we had the lift and arm mechanisms functional.
Too bad I can't say that things went swimmingly, 'coz they didn't. The biggest disappointment came from the electrical/controls group who steadfastly claimed that "it'll only take about an hour" to get the drive and compressor going.
Well, that didn't happen. On Monday, they toiled away until 11PM when we put the machine into its shipping crate and walked out of the building. Never drove it, tried to grab up a tetra off the floor or attempted to work off the autoload station.
After our unveiling on Thursday of last week where several of the teams that our sponsor helps showed off their machines, I was pretty confident that we had a winning machine. Drive was working, but the compressor wasn't, and so it seemed pretty straightforward as to what was causing it.
We looked pretty good, and I must say that for that short instant that I watched from a distance, it seemed that we were pretty much done.
Wrong. Sloppy assembly and "good enough" attitudes prevented the lift from extending. The racks were installed such that as the lift extended, the inner sections of the lift wedged together. No amount of pulling was going to get it to rise any higher.
At first glance on Friday of last week, it appeared as though the vandoor motor wasn't powerful enough to lift the stages. On further inspection, we discovered the problem with the slides and made repairs. A little care in assembly would have certainly prevented this near catastrophy.
So, by the end of the weekend, two 12-hour days, we had the lift and arm mechanisms functional.
posted by CBPetrovic at
18:28
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