Customer installs

[OVerLoRDI]

You know that wonderful feeling when you have something that works perfectly when you build it out in the office but falls flat on it's face when you bring it to the customer site? Love it.

How is everyone else's Friday going?

 

[RearAdmiral]

What are you trying to build?

 

[JoLLyRoGer]

Gremlins eh..? Been there, feel your pain buddy.

Skin out a hour early and go have a glass of wine..

 

[BUTCH1]

Configuration issues or is it DOA?, tell us you didn't skimp out and used the power supply that came with the case..

 

[rudeguy]

well lets talk about that

I've been working on a project to upgrade memory in our machines. They say it can't be done, I say let me find out for myself. I still don't know after 2 months of working on it. BGA is a whore and it needs to die in a fire. But I'm too stubborn to give up on it, so I continue banging my head into the same spot on the wall.

But today was my break from that. I got to install GPS trackers which is fun and easy. I ordered the stuff a while ago and tested out the unit and the software. They worked great, I just had to wait for the right SIM card. Today I spent all morning drilling through aluminium, wiring these things in. Drove to the store to pick up supplies that didn't get ordered. Finally get everything working! Open up the software and Google has disabled its Maps API for that software. So its useless. All that work for nothing. Now I get to find a new way and hope the same thing doesn't happen again.

Oh..and I want to stab whoever invented BGA.

 

[destrekor]

well lets talk about that

I've been working on a project to upgrade memory in our machines. They say it can't be done, I say let me find out for myself. I still don't know after 2 months of working on it. BGA is a whore and it needs to die in a fire. But I'm too stubborn to give up on it, so I continue banging my head into the same spot on the wall.

But today was my break from that. I got to install GPS trackers which is fun and easy. I ordered the stuff a while ago and tested out the unit and the software. They worked great, I just had to wait for the right SIM card. Today I spent all morning drilling through aluminium, wiring these things in. Drove to the store to pick up supplies that didn't get ordered. Finally get everything working! Open up the software and Google has disabled its Maps API for that software. So its useless. All that work for nothing. Now I get to find a new way and hope the same thing doesn't happen again.

Oh..and I want to stab whoever invented BGA.

ball grid array? eww - why force that upon yourself?

 

[rudeguy]

ball grid array? eww - why force that upon yourself?

because someone told me it couldn't be done

that...and I'm a moron

 

[OVerLoRDI]

What are you trying to build?

Network HID card readers talking to an authentication server that than passes the info over to copy machine.

We discovered that the card readers only work via broadcast, meaning that the authentication server has to be on the same subnet as the card reader. Which isn't possible currently.

Then this particular copier cannot use USB card readers.

 

[mmntech]

Frequent problem here. We do remote installs of our traffic software at other stations down in the States. Their biggest problem is someone will go and turn off the computer while it's remote installing the software. Which means we have to phone them and tell them "no, bad boy" and set it all up again. It's a big program too so it takes a while to download.

Thankfully that's not my job.

 

[Soundmanred]

I save the company thousands of dollars!

(But had them spend thousands on wasted projects)
Can't wait until they found out they have wasted so much time and money because someone said "it's impossible, but I can do it!".

LOL

 

[Jeff7]

And it gets better when they send it back and it again works perfectly.
Fiddle with it to try to make it fail.
It stubbornly works exactly as designed.
Ship it back.
Stops working.

*sigh*



Also fun are the times when the reported problem is nothing like what's actually happening.
- "A few of the components aren't working" = The entire thing won't even power up.
And vice versa.


Or when critical information is left out.
- "The unit isn't functioning. No data's getting through." Missing information: A car had slammed into a nearby wall, crushing some conduit that's running to the unit.
- After 2 days of back-and-forth troubleshooting: "I don't know if this might be it, but I guess I did drop the handheld remote onto concrete. Twice." Yeah, that can cause problems.
- "I don't know if anyone said anything about this to you during the design stage, but the 24V line that this is getting hooked up to will see 600V spikes a few times a day. How well will your hardware hold up against that?"
- The always-ambiguous "It ain't doin' anything!"


Or when the person doing the on-site troubleshooting isn't familiar with electronics, and every component is a "diode" or "relay."

 

[Matthiasa]

That is every install ever for larger anything.
It takes a while to get it up and running properly, which is why they are never sent directly into production.
I was out in Detroit last weekend for such things.

 

[ultimatebob]

So, what was the problem?

Judging from what I see in QA, I'll bet that it was network related. I don't know how many times I've seen a server or workstation work perfectly in the factory, and I get a report from the field that it wouldn't connect to the network there. Well, duh... your network is probably subnetted differently than our test network was, and your IT team probably didn't send us the right configuration information.

 

[Puppies04]

It is always best to be honest with the customer in this situation, the conversation should go something like this.

Technician : Hi, we have your setup working 100% fine over in our testing area so we are going to bring it to site to see how amazingly quick the system falls over?

Customer : What?

Technician : Don't worry about it, we will be there at 9am, will have it set up for 3pm and will have it disassembled by 8pm ready to ship back to our office where we will spend 2 months trying to replicate the fault with no joy at which point we will make a shit ton of alterations in the hope that one of them prevent the problem occuring and will then bring it back.