Daveraj Sikder

We all want the to be able to disassemble and reassemble a machine smoothly. Sometime we run into a bit of a headache trying to fit in the screw, squeeze yourself into a small gap, or barely having enough finger grip to tighten it.

For a few months I’ve been doing heavy maintenance on a wire Edm Charmilles 330F. I’m replacing a linear slider that control the x axis. The original screw I took out was a low profile one. Which I replaced with a normal profile one since I didn’t think it was an issue and got lazy (who has the time to final the original). Then for 2 days I was trying to figure out why the x axis would not move further to the centre point. I tried to do some programming, swap parts, and clean everything. Until I noticed that the other sliders had low profile screw. Once I replaced the screw, it fixed the home centring problem.

Every single thing on a machine has a certain reason to why it’s like it. We can question why they made the decision but will never know why.

I’m not sure why exactly everything is placed in a certain way. However, I am able to understanding that you don’t need to know why everything is in a specific way. Look around in your house. Pens, paper, lights, bottles, vases and etc. Questioning every single item, why it’s built like that will surely cause to much of a headache.

Taking the longer path

All to often we try to get caught up in just putting something together that “should” hypothetical work. The screw is the same pitch and size but the length and screw profile is longer different but it should be fine.

This attitude of assuming but not testing is what slows down the process of being a technician during urgent times. Everything was built by a certain person in a certain way. We can’t always be the same person but we can always build it back the same way.

Being a better technician means, stop taking the shortcut and assuming something should work in a hypothetical way. Until you do the testing. Start assuming that you didn’t put everything in the right way and always compare if you have the ability. And remember if the original part look good. Always use it. If it’s working once it will work again