Question about the push for all-digital diagnostic tools on new units

Honestly, I was working on a KONE unit at the new hospital complex in Springfield about six months ago. The main board threw a weird code, and the service tablet just said 'check wiring, general fault'. Took me three hours of old-school meter work to find a single pinched wire in a conduit run that the fancy system never would have caught. Everyone seems to think these new digital interfaces are the only way forward, but they can make you blind to the simple stuff. I've seen guys just stare at the screen waiting for an answer instead of listening to the car or feeling for heat on a contactor. Ngl, I think relying on them too much is creating a gap in basic troubleshooting skills. Has anyone else run into a situation where the tech told you one thing, but the real fix was something totally basic the computer missed?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennifercooper1mo agoMost Upvoted

Tell me about it. We had a brand new Otis gearless last month where the drive temp sensor kept faulting. The handheld kept telling us to replace the sensor and then the drive board. Spent two days on that wild goose chase. Finally just pulled the motor cover and found the cooling fan was full of construction dust, running at half speed. The system never even checked airflow.

felixw681mo ago

Ugh, that's the worst! My buddy had a similar thing with a fancy new car scanner that kept pointing to the throttle body. Turned out it was just a loose ground cable the computer totally ignored. Makes you wonder what we're missing when we just trust the screen.