Deadwood And The Noise Filtering Caps
Deadwood and I have been alternating on the power supply assembly station for our vintage signal generator line. Usually we build enough power supplies a week or two in advance of customer orders so when we start the instrument chassis we can grab power supplies off the shelf and slap them into the frames.
This afternoon I took over for Deadwood. She left a partially built power supply on the workbench and something caught my eye. Parts were missing. The outer case to the supply wasn't closed yet, there were some more parts and wires that needed to be soldered into place. I couldn't put my finger on what it was that seemed wrong for a while, and then I spotted it. Three red capacitors were not soldered into the ground hub on the chassis and the line module of the supply. It was odd, but I figured she hadn't got to it yet and I went ahead with the install of the missing capacitors. We only add them on the full scale version of this product. The smaller unit doesn't need them, for whatever reason I don't know. On the big box these capacitors are there specifically to filter out dirty power spikes and voltage drops that are common in many other countries.
In countries where the power grid is poorly maintained, it's typical for line voltage to be excessively noisy and dirty. That is, loads of power surges, spikes, and voltage drop. Dirty power can instantly destroy sensitive equipment. We are aware our product might be utilized in a third world country where the power grid is bad and designed the power supply to operate flawlessly under these conditions. But, it needs those noise filtering caps as a first line defense. If they aren't there, the box could take some bad line voltage and crap out.
I walked over to the area where we keep completed instrument chassis and I opened up a few of Deadwood's most recently built boxes. I didn't see the noise filtering caps in any of them. That raised my eyebrows a bit. Deadwood is a nice lady, but her work is consistently shoddy. I had a bad feeling she screwed up these boxes but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I caught her before she left for the day and I asked her to come over to the power supply bench for a minute. I asked her about the missing caps on each of the boxes she built. She looked at me and said, "I only put those on option 003 boxes just like the documentation says to". Okay. I asked her to show me the page in the assembly docs where it says to do that. Deadwood flipped through pages in the documentation binder until she came to the step she was talking about. "There", she said. She pointed to the top line of the page. In red ink it mentioned something about an option 003 power supply, but it had nothing to do with building a full version box. The instructions plainly stated that if you build full version, add the noise filtering caps to the chassis. I guess the way she was interpreting the page she only placed these parts on full version option 003 boxes. We don't build too many of those, they're kinda rare actually.
Deadwood has been building power supplies and instrument chassis for months. I had a bad feeling she's been omitting these capacitors the whole time. I did my best to politely explain to her that these parts have to be installed on one hundred percent of the big boxes. As what I was saying to her sunk in, the expression on her face changed to worry. She was scared. I felt bad for her and I decided I didn't want to fink on her or anything. She asked me, "What do you think I should do"? I thought for a moment about it and said it would be best if she brought this up to management herself and asked them to look into it. Previous experiences have taught me that when something like this happens it's best to 'fess up to it and just get the problem taken care of. When unforseen problems like this creep up and nobody steps forward to say, "Hey, I fucked up" the rest of the group is left to solving the mystery on their own. That means engineers, managers, and technicians are engaged. Scenarios like this can end up costing a company excessive amounts of time and money if no one comes forward to simply say they made an honest mistake. So, I suggested Deadwood approach management on her own and tell them she goofed. She's going to talk to Squirmy about it today.
We'll see what happens. I feel somewhat guilty for catching this, especially if she gets into trouble. I wish her the best of luck.
This afternoon I took over for Deadwood. She left a partially built power supply on the workbench and something caught my eye. Parts were missing. The outer case to the supply wasn't closed yet, there were some more parts and wires that needed to be soldered into place. I couldn't put my finger on what it was that seemed wrong for a while, and then I spotted it. Three red capacitors were not soldered into the ground hub on the chassis and the line module of the supply. It was odd, but I figured she hadn't got to it yet and I went ahead with the install of the missing capacitors. We only add them on the full scale version of this product. The smaller unit doesn't need them, for whatever reason I don't know. On the big box these capacitors are there specifically to filter out dirty power spikes and voltage drops that are common in many other countries.
In countries where the power grid is poorly maintained, it's typical for line voltage to be excessively noisy and dirty. That is, loads of power surges, spikes, and voltage drop. Dirty power can instantly destroy sensitive equipment. We are aware our product might be utilized in a third world country where the power grid is bad and designed the power supply to operate flawlessly under these conditions. But, it needs those noise filtering caps as a first line defense. If they aren't there, the box could take some bad line voltage and crap out.
I walked over to the area where we keep completed instrument chassis and I opened up a few of Deadwood's most recently built boxes. I didn't see the noise filtering caps in any of them. That raised my eyebrows a bit. Deadwood is a nice lady, but her work is consistently shoddy. I had a bad feeling she screwed up these boxes but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I caught her before she left for the day and I asked her to come over to the power supply bench for a minute. I asked her about the missing caps on each of the boxes she built. She looked at me and said, "I only put those on option 003 boxes just like the documentation says to". Okay. I asked her to show me the page in the assembly docs where it says to do that. Deadwood flipped through pages in the documentation binder until she came to the step she was talking about. "There", she said. She pointed to the top line of the page. In red ink it mentioned something about an option 003 power supply, but it had nothing to do with building a full version box. The instructions plainly stated that if you build full version, add the noise filtering caps to the chassis. I guess the way she was interpreting the page she only placed these parts on full version option 003 boxes. We don't build too many of those, they're kinda rare actually.
Deadwood has been building power supplies and instrument chassis for months. I had a bad feeling she's been omitting these capacitors the whole time. I did my best to politely explain to her that these parts have to be installed on one hundred percent of the big boxes. As what I was saying to her sunk in, the expression on her face changed to worry. She was scared. I felt bad for her and I decided I didn't want to fink on her or anything. She asked me, "What do you think I should do"? I thought for a moment about it and said it would be best if she brought this up to management herself and asked them to look into it. Previous experiences have taught me that when something like this happens it's best to 'fess up to it and just get the problem taken care of. When unforseen problems like this creep up and nobody steps forward to say, "Hey, I fucked up" the rest of the group is left to solving the mystery on their own. That means engineers, managers, and technicians are engaged. Scenarios like this can end up costing a company excessive amounts of time and money if no one comes forward to simply say they made an honest mistake. So, I suggested Deadwood approach management on her own and tell them she goofed. She's going to talk to Squirmy about it today.
We'll see what happens. I feel somewhat guilty for catching this, especially if she gets into trouble. I wish her the best of luck.
posted by factory_peasant at 8:34 PM
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