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Am I the only one who thinks the new digital diagnostic tools are making us worse at the job? | Elevator Mechanics - Guest Forum

park.tara•7mo ago

Am I the only one who thinks the new digital diagnostic tools are making us worse at the job?

I've been working on elevators for 15 years, and last year our company in Cincinnati got those fancy tablet-based diagnostic kits for the whole crew. Everyone was excited, but after 6 months, I've gone back to my old multimeter and wiring diagrams. The tablet told me a motor controller in a 10-story office building was shot, based on a single error code. I spent half a day waiting for the part, but when I got in there with my meter and traced the circuit, it was just a corroded terminal block on the floor selector. The tablet didn't even have a test sequence for that. It makes you follow its logic instead of building your own. How can you trust a tool that costs more than your truck but can't find a bad connection? Has anyone else found themselves ignoring the flashy tech to just do the basic checks?

3 comments

3 Comments

derek8687mo ago

Totally get what you're saying. I mean, it feels like the software just gives you the answer it wants you to find, not the one that's actually there. I had to replace a whole door operator because the tablet said so, but it was just a loose plug on the safety circuit. You start to lose that gut feeling for where the real problem is.

the_ivan7mo ago

Honestly, our shop in Dayton pushed those same tablet systems on us about two years back. The thing kept telling me to replace a perfectly good logic board in a hospital service elevator. I spent an hour with the wiring schematic and found a single pinched wire in the cab harness. The software had zero checks for physical damage. It just reads codes, it doesn't think. I keep the tablet in my truck for the paperwork, but my real tools are still in my bag.

sandrap406mo ago

You mentioned the software had zero checks for physical damage, and that's exactly right. It's a fancy code reader, not a mechanic. The danger is when shops treat its suggestions as orders instead of just clues. A good tech uses it to point in a direction, but you still have to walk down the road yourself with a meter and a schematic.