VOICE
A voice from
the woods
62 MAY 20 18 FORESTRYJOURNAL.CO.UK
A
CONSEQUENCE of this long,
cold, wet winter is the multitude of
electrical problems which seem to
have arisen. In fact, currently, my
time seems to be involved in little
else as these problems appear to have taken
over my life! It began with the car when
the SAM unit (central control unit) blew.
‘Well, these things happen’ I hear
you say and yes, to some degree
you’re right. However, it’s a part of
the car which is totally unnecessary
and what I would describe as built-
in obsolescence. The vehicle was
expensive, is rarely used and was
purchased to last for a long time. So
much for value for money!
The same purchasing philosophy
was behind the next culprit; the
JCB. Again, bought brand new and
bought to last. It has a relatively
easy workload, around 600 hrs a
year, and is greased and oiled on
a regular basis. It has been very
reliable generally, until it suddenly
stopped with a blown fuse. It’s
uncanny, as the hour meter was
registering 900 hrs and in the car
the trip had just reached 90,000.
Maybe it’s just my imagination but,
yet again, there appears to be built-in
obsolescence.
With the JCB, however, I found that
after looking through the electrics I
could prevent the fuse from blowing
and get it to start by disconnecting the
shuttle lever. Furthermore, by joining
the correct connections with a piece
of wire, I could get the loader to move
forward and backwards, which pointed to
a problem in the shuttle itself and hopefully,
therefore, a quick and simple fix. A new
shuttle was ordered and installed, and hey
presto... nothing! This meant calling upon the
services of the local agricultural engineering
firm who, having run it through diagnostics,
identified the new shuttle as defective! The
entire electrical system was thoroughly
checked and a new shuttle installed and a
bill now equivalent to the SAM unit in the
car was dutifully received.
It lasted for three days before the
engineers were back out. After yet another
fix it waited for a week before it started to
develop a mind of its own. It began going
backwards instead of forwards and vice
versa and yet sometimes it acted quite
normally. On some occasions it would start
moving forwards in neutral – when that
happened it was time for action. Mindful of
the safety implications, it reminded me of
an incident some years ago where a loader
was being used to clean out a silage pit. The
farmer had got off the loader to deal with
an obstruction ahead when the loader
had set off of its own accord and the
bucket had chopped off his legs.
At this point, I did what I should
have done in the first place and
replace the shuttle with an indicator
switch. For this repair I used
the indicator switch from a
Mitsubishi forklift and was
able to wire in the original
safety features and to my relief it
has worked perfectly ever since.
At this point I must express
a personal take on modern
electronics. I absolutely
believe it will be the ruination
of most small businesses.
They just don’t have the
profits or the turnover to
keep up with the changes.
That small repair I had to
make to the JCB cost a
fortune and yet I ended
up finding the solution
myself. I believe lots
of manufacturers are
misusing electronic
technology and big
business will clean
up as the technology
makes small business
inefficient.
And so on to electronic fault number
three. The machinery in the sawmill is wiredup as simply as possible. All unnecessary
gizmos such as computers, PLCs, sensors,
scanners, light beam sensors, magic eyes
and any other nonsense is discarded.
Contrary to what people may think, I have not
shunned technology. Far from it, in fact. It’s
just that the efficiencies and technological
improvements that I have implemented have
one aim and that is to keep things as simple
as possible to avoid costly breakdowns. The
sawmill is a dusty and tough environment
and I rate reliability as my number-one
priority. I don’t need a computer to work
out the size and cutting patterns of logs just
for the sake of the technology. If you think
about it for a minute, our brains possess
all the sensory tools required; sight, sound,
judgement, anticipation, caution... why not
use them? After all, I spend enough of the
week changing blunt saw blades, oiling
and greasing things, and by keeping things
simple, I’m able to use my time productively.
So, fault number three, I promise! I have
an electrical tester which I use every month
as a safety precaution to help determine
whether anything is earthing out. If it shows
electricity is going to ground then something
is wrong. Prevention is better than waitingTechnology: not all it's
cracked up to be