Remember that blog I wrote just a short week ago following Hurricane Irene?  You know, the one where I said that our staff would be here come hell or high water to repair your damaged electronics?  Well, the high water has actually arrived and boy has it!  Tropical Storm Lee continues to dump away here on the East Coast and refuses to get the heck out of town.

While some of our staff lost power at home, and some of us were late getting to work this morning thanks to flooded roads, washed out bridges, and gridlocked traffic, we are in fact ALL here and servicing your repairs.

When is a blush not red and not the tell-tale sign of embarrassment?  When it’s a cosmetic blemish on a finished plastic part produced by injection mold equipment, that’s when.  You might recognize it as a whitish spot where the plastic is bent, deformed or stressed beyond the elasticity of the plastic material.  A blush is often seen at the point of injection on the finished part.

Of course, if you are one of our injection mold customers, you will already know this.  You will also know that it takes a lot of big equipment for injection or blow mold manufacturing.  It is also a really cool process to watch…at least it never fails to amaze me!

Hurricane Irene has been no friend to the East Coast …and certainly no friend to your industrial electronics.  Some good news…our facilities are up and running at ACS.  Even though some of our staff’s homes still do not have power, everyone is pulling to keep ACS busy solving your repair needs.

If you’ve got water or storm damaged industrial electronics, not all is lost.  Many items may still be repairable.  Following Hurricane Katrina the ACS team was able to provide repair services to many companies affected.  Our techs were able to repair many pieces of industrial electronics including a large quantity of circuit boards coated in Louisiana mud.  It was messy, but we did it!

Three cheers for the facilities, maintenance, and plant managers out there!  No, make that TEN cheers!  What a great bunch of nimble and creative people who increasingly have to achieve more with less…and for the most part, enjoy that challenge.

Besides just flat out asking our customers what’s up in their world, I also like to participate in various online forums and social media for facilities, maintenance, and plant managers.  What I hear is that you all really love solving plant problems and finding solutions to nagging plant issues that effect energy efficiency, sustainability, construction, plant equipment, security, and safety.

As it is Friday afternoon and you are probably about to bail out of the office a little early to get a head start on your weekend, I thought I’d ask you to spare a moment of silence for the deceased circuit board pictured.  Mr. DJ, play us some  taps will you? (Can you all hear the bugle now?)

No power light on board.  No LCD on logic board.  CNC not working.  Work halted.  These are words no manufacturer of any size wants to see or hear.  It is the sound of work stopping – a mighty bad sound.

Such was the case recently for a precision turned parts company in Auckland, New Zealand.  Getting their Fuji servo amp repaired locally did not work out so they turned to ACS.   Now mind you, we are in the United States, not exactly around the corner for our New Zealand friends so you know they were anxious.  That CNC needed to be “earning its keep” and quickly.

Making a big investment in new automation equipment may cause you to become paralyzed with fear of making a mistake.  Buyer’s remorse is a gut-twisting feeling no one wants to have whether the item is as small as a new cell phone or a much larger purchase like a new automation system.

Here are some tips to remember as you begin your search for the perfect new automation system:

1. Know your specifications BEFORE you begin the search.  And not just generalities – get a detailed equipment specification by examining all aspects of the project.  Know your cycle times, yield, up-times, quality expectations, hardware preferences, design requirements, etc.

There are all kinds of keepers.  Goal keepers, lion keepers, game keepers, scorekeepers, book keepers and, of course, the big fish that was “a keeper”.   This morning, while having some intensely delicious coffee at The Filling Station, I met a new kind of keeper – the Gunpowder River Keeper.  Yes, this fellow is in charge of “keeping” the fabulous and famous fly fishing destination in Maryland, the Gunpowder River.  The common denominator?  Someone that keeps things safe or cared for.

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and…power supplies?  Oh yeah…power supplies are everywhere and in everything.  Ubiquitous and almost as necessary as oxygen, the underappreciated yeoman power supply runs the motors of your life, from the microscopic to the 40,000 volt monster variety.

And, at any given time, a considerable bunch of them are not working.  One minute everything is literally humming along smoothly and then suddenly, it’s not.  Not moving, not humming, not doing anything except maybe emitting smoke and that unmistakable burned electrical smell.  We call that the “smoke genie” and believe me, that genie is NOT there for you to make three wishes.