Those #+%^ engineers!

[Fixastuff]

All the engineers I know have to say “righty righty, lefty loosely” to figure out how to open a water bottle! My favorite is a navy “nuclear engineer” friend(engineering is like veganing they must tell everyone). I don’t know how many times I’ve had to fix things for him or tell him how to fix things.

 

[ray66v]

Believe me, I'm not one to defend engineers.

But, I do have family, and friends, that are engineers. (At least they are not lawyers). Guess who they call, whenever they need a problem solved with their own stuff?

However, many issues people rant over, are not actually the fault of the engineering department.

An engineer can easily design it, to include all the things that would make it easy to service, or even make it so it won't need to be serviced at all.

But, every part has a budget attached to it. Go over that figure, and, the budget department will reject it. Convince them, they have to increase the budget for that part, and they will expect someone to cut the budget on something else to pay for it. They may force engineering to have no option, but to use an existing part. And, refuse to allow engineering the money to make the changes, that would make a part more accessible in that application. Leaving to you, wondering why the engineers were so, "dumb"?

So, while it may seem like penny pinching, it all adds up when you have many hundreds of parts, and a budget that has to be met.

 

[WinterDeere]

Good post, ray. Add to that the time to even evaluate and propose these changes, and the engineers are usually cut off before they can even start.

I have shipped more than one design with known problems, in my life. Every time, it was because I wasn’t allowed the schedule or budget to make the fix happen, not because I didn’t want to fix them. In most cases these were problems I inherited from predecessors, but also occasionally problems of my own making discovered too late in the game.

The schedule in the automotive market is brutal, with a need to release new models each fall probably routinely cutting short development efforts and debug time on new designs.

 

[rontaki]

Those #+%^ bean counters!

 

[BravoXray]

Those #+%^ bean counters!

They're worse than the #+%^ engineers!

 

[Redbug]

I noticed most of the zero turn mowers no longer have any way to rope start the engine if the battery goes dead.

 

[Jstpssng]

I noticed most of the zero turn mowers no longer have any way to rope start the engine if the battery goes dead.

My 1982 (?) Yamaha XJ400 was like that. One day I accidently turned the key switch past off, and turned the parking light (taillight) off. I must havr pushed that bike a mile or more around campus, before finally finding somebody who could give me a boost.

 

[jjeff]

I bet it's really hard to pull start a larger 20+hp 4 stroke with or without a decompression valve imo. Quick backwoods hack I've used is remove screen guard on flywheel put a high torque drill with socket on flywheel nut it and use that as a starter with caution.

 

[kenmbz]

When I was an engineer for the government, all servicing had to be taken into consideration.
Including how each component could be fixed or replaced in the field.
Knowing how much each of our devices cost, I could never see a car company even coming close.
The test boxes to trouble shoot some of our systems , which amounted to 2 boxes in this case, cost about a million to produce. For only a dozen devices out in the field.

 

[WinterDeere]

I noticed most of the zero turn mowers no longer have any way to rope start the engine if the battery goes dead.

Between the size of the hydraulic pump, the fact that mine runs rather heavy 15W-45 oil, and the relatively large Kawi V-twin engine, I’d guess that pull starting a ZTR would be awful difficult in all but the warmest of weather. Even my electric start struggles quite a bit on a fresh battery, as temperature drops.

 

[jjeff]

Problaby why I have quite the assortment of battery maintainers on everything with estart.

 

[Oaktree]

The schedule in the automotive market is brutal, with a need to release new models each fall probably routinely cutting short development efforts and debug time on new designs.

Might have been true once, but unless there's a major revision, modern vehicles don't change all that much from one model year to the next.

 

[deserteagle71]

I bet it's really hard to pull start a larger 20+hp 4 stroke with or without a decompression valve imo.

I have a 2006 Yamaha Kodiak ATV. 450cc - and it has a pull starter in addition to the electric start. Twice in the 20 years I've owned it I've had to use the pull starter because the battery broke. Yes, broke - I could get juice by tapping on either the positive or negative terminal but otherwise no power. No compression release. Procedure was to bring the engine up to the compression stroke, crouch down, and then stand up while holding the arms straight. No way I had enough strength to "pull" start the engine just by pulling with my arms. Luckily the Yamaha was a real easy starter - one revolution of the engine, hot or cold, and it will start and idle. And it doesn't need the battery to run once the engine is running.

 

[Jstpssng]

When I was an engineer for the government, all servicing had to be taken into consideration

A while back there was a big to-do about the price of things such as hammers in the Defense Department. Could this be a reason? I imagine that something used to pound nails all day would be a high maintenance item.

I know, this isn't the "Groan" thread. I'll show myself out now.

 

[Renze]

Aww well..an engineer speaking here, once chief designer at a now defunct wheel loader manufacturer, then R&D engineer at a slurry applicator manufacturer, and after an accident with nasty brain injury, engineer at a company that builds truck superstructures such as container systems and cranes.

You can nag and whine all you want, but when the plan is made on the shop floor, it will always be more expensive than to fully engineer it. Because paper is more forgiving than steel (although i understand that there are "engineers" out there that never seen practice...)

 

[bigtiller]

I bet it's really hard to pull start a larger 20+hp 4 stroke with or without a decompression valve imo. Quick backwoods hack I've used is remove screen guard on flywheel put a high torque drill with socket on flywheel nut it and use that as a starter with caution.

That's for sure.
Around 1990 I had a 115 hp Mercury outboard boat motor. It had electric start and a pull rope. I tried starting it while parked in my garage. Even standing on the ground I couldn't pull that rope. So I put some jumper cables it the boat...it had 2 batteries up front for the trolling motor.

 

[KennyG]

A while back there was a big to-do about the price of things such as hammers in the Defense Department. Could this be a reason? I imagine that something used to pound nails all day would be a high maintenance item.

I know, this isn't the "Groan" thread. I'll show myself out now.

Having worked as an engineer in a defense industry, I know something about this. The problem wasn't the design, it was the inflexible standards and the procurement process. If an item needed 4 bolts we had to require full material certification and traceability. Eventually we made some progress in being able to buy larger quantities to maintain in stock but many things are one of a kind.

 

[WinterDeere]

I spent much of my career in the EMC industry, which was nearly all commercial prior to 2008, and then became more and more about military equipment hardening thereafter. We would routinely have to charge several times more for any military project than for the exact same hardware going into commercial applications, due to the small internal army we'd have to build to satisfy all of their documentation requirements. You could almost figure on doubling the total man-hours for military, over our usual commercial applications.

And all of that was just for domestic testing facilities. I can't even imagine the documentation and testing requirements if we were designing or building hardware for actual deployment. The stuff I design is used for testing tanks, jets, bombs, and missiles... but it doesn't go into tanks, jets, bombs, or missiles.

 

[not2old]

My son is a ticketed millwright. About fifteen years ago,while living in Vancouver B.C., his company sent him somewhere in Texas to either make or assemble some equipment that was necessary in the production of a new fighter jet. Apparently the military specified the millwright ticket and no US citizens were available for the work with the required designation or no such designation existed for the ticket.

 

[paulsharvey]

So, the guys building stuff complain about engineers, and often rightly so, but the number of guys that dont actually understand the big picture, that might be good at their trade is high.

Anyone who has done any form of QC/Inspection has heard something along these lines, "we have never had trouble with density before, we just put 3 ft of fill and tire roll it twice and it passes everytime" or "water doesnt hurt concrete, it hardens underwater, adding 40 gallons to the truck is fine"; "ive never failed an x-ray, that weld is perfect".

I dont really think company's really build in an intent for the product to fail, but everything is this world is built with a design life. In my line of work, short design life is 25 years, and much is 50+ years; but very little is designed to make it easier to replace later.

If you look at vehicles, the life span is Way better, components and the whole thing, but no, they aren't spending too much R&D budget on ease/time/cost of repair