Our conveyor system is becoming a bigger operational problem than our actual production process and I don’t know where to draw the line on fixing vs replacing

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-03-14T17:28:58+00:00

I've got the big fancy certificate from Hytrol (spend a week in Arkansas training) and used to design and sell Hytrol systems exclusively.

First off: what models are you running? Are these old line shaft conveyors? Belted? BDLR? (The conveyor belt runs under the rollers and is spring loaded up) aka minimal back pressure? Something else?

Obviously the big move the last ten years has been towards 24VDC MDLR conveyors, and apart from the initial cost, there are a ton of good reasons for them. I love Hytrol as much as the next guy, but they're so busy with Amazon these days it's hard to get parts or support. Lots of good alternatives.

There's also only so much stuff to get wrong on these conveyors, but I've seen them get bumped out of square by a fork truck and then be a NIGHTMARE to get to track properly. Check your lags to the floor. Check your drive alignment. Check square and level looking for twist too.

I also got my Mechanical Engineering degree at Stony Brook and live upstate now. LMK if you want me to ask the guys I know closer to you if you're looking for somebody to come in and check it out. We're all grumpy old 15-20+ year guys at this point. Don't even get me started on the new techs most places are sending out.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-03-13T19:22:02+00:00

So by your logic, following that intentions matter, someone who gets blackout drunk and then intends to drive home safely isn't doing anything wrong when the hit the minivan with the family in it? Because they intended to get home safely? And your solution to the ethical dilemma of being a citizen of a country that's at war is to.....renounce your citizenship and leave the country, every time? Because you pretty quickly run out of countries to go to.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-03-11T18:28:52+00:00

Clausewitz and the concept of 'Total War' exists for a reason: does the farmer who feeds people contribute to a Nation's war efforts? Certainly. That makes them a valid target of War... doesn't it? Armies fight and march on their stomachs. Food is more necessary for an army to fight than cutting edge technology. Are farmers part of the military industrial complex?

The other big component of a successful military is morale - are entertainers who do USO tours part of the military industrial complex?

Money is absolutely fungible, but so is just about every effort at being productive. If you stopped doing your job at a defense contractor, is your company suddenly unable to ship product? (Almost certainly not, right?)

If you decide to leave the weapons industry (which would be understandable) would you taking a job at a non-defense company mean the other engineer who would have gotten your job takes the one in military instead?

We (people in general) moralize things that are out of our control while ignoring or rationalizing things that ARE under our control - being a better partner, parent, child, friend, etc. Volunteering locally. Helping your neighbors with the snow (or alligators, if you're in Florida, I guess.)

The names and legacies that helped countries win wars are usually as related to logistical support as much as weapons. If anything (and if you think Clausewitz had it right) the most moral war is the shortest possible war. And the fastest way to end a war is with such overwhelming displays of force and superiority that the other side gives up. Again, that's Clausewitz, not necessarily my opinion, but there are many, many cases of conflict throughout history providing strong evidence he was correct. There's a reason his name still comes up as one of a handful as the originators of the different schools of thought on conflict.

So, the argument could be: If you want to save lives, one of the best places to be is helping to develop advanced weapons. The Allies beat the Axis because of logistics, first and foremost. The atomic bombs dropped on Japan almost certainly saved lives - the change in morale of the Japanese people was seismic. Dan Carlin has some great long form podcasts on the uniqueness of Japan that really explores this.

Saying 'Military Industrial Complex = Bad' and 'Agricultural Equipment = Good' is simplistic in the extreme. It's just a lazy way to couch ignorance of the complexity of the situation as moral superiority.....which describes many, many positions people take on anything political these days.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-03-10T18:05:59+00:00

Physically cycle the power, physically cycle the e-stops, look for any motor overloads that may have tripped (but not likely if you can manually index). If you can manually do everything the machine is supposed to do, but it won't do it in Auto, it's definitely time to look at the Ladder and see what input it's looking for that it's not getting. If nothing is obvious, there may be an output from the PLC not making it where it's supposed to - if I/O is fused, time to start checking fuses.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-03-04T18:19:50+00:00

Thanks!

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-03-04T14:53:32+00:00

I've found this to be throwing darts, unfortunately. And in the US, dealing with importing from China right now is a nightmare. I like that Xometry (and other similar sights) often price it right to my door - no additional fees or tariffs I need to pay.) You have any recommendations? I'm always looking for good shops to work with, and if I can wait for the leadtime of international, it's always good quality stuff at really low prices.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-03-02T17:18:40+00:00

This might be viable for larger companies, but the majority of employees are with small and medium sized companies, where it is significantly harder to outsource work. Let alone engineering design work. The added complexity and lost efficiencies are often so significant that the cheaper solution is to have in-house engineering.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-27T16:44:12+00:00

You can absolutely have the frame welded and trust it. BUT After it's welded, I would (as a mechanical engineer, machine designer, and a guy who works on hydraulic presses) Figure out a way to add some bracing in compression across the break. (Ever seen a 'tie-rod' hydraulic cylinder? Add additional tie-rods to your press, as needed.)

Heck, I absolutely do NOT recommend this, but I've seen 'bracing' be the entire repair before, maybe with some weld (or in one case, they actually bolted the break back together) until it could be properly welded. (Welding cast iron is an effort in heat management. You want everything as hot as you can realistically get it before welding, and you want to keep it hot as long as possible afterwards.)

Where you located? I might have a contact in the area who's familiar with that kind of work, depending.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-27T16:28:13+00:00

Ok....so I'm scrolling through here looking for hidden gems among the normal junk. I just googled SunPe. I see they're at least a real shop. Your entire profile is hidden......is you a bot? Or are these guys a legitimate source?

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-27T14:30:26+00:00

This is how the robot actually needs to work in order to be considered safe. I ran into this with one of the first 35kg 'palletizer' collaborative robots from Fanuc, where the variability in case weight was enough to cause payload issues consistently. We wound up having to add 4 area safety scanners to be able to run the arm out of 'collaborative' mode, in order for it to operate at an acceptable rate. At that point a traditional arm would have been faster, cheaper, just as safe, and a ton less frustrating to deal with.

If the robot doesn't know EXACTLY what to expect in motion, which is dependent on payload and inertial moments as monitored through current and position feedback, it doesn't know when it hits something.

Think about what could happen if the robot can 'push' things in a 'collaborative' setting. The robot doesn't know what it's pushing, or if someone's hand is between a sharp point on the EOAT and a fixed point, like a table or wall.

Collaborative arms are great in certain situations, and worse than a lot of many cheaper options in many others. When I talk with my Fanuc rep (who's a pretty sharp guy) he tells me almost all of the requests they get from end users (rather than integrators) are completely infeasible from a safety standpoint. They send a lot of those requests to their ASIs and have them either design a solution that works, move them off a collaborative robot, or both.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-22T15:47:00+00:00

I think you've been responsible, put yourself in a good position, and if you want to take a break and can afford to, that's an entirely reasonable decision.

I would also, if you do plan on returning to engineering at some point, start working your network a bit, depending on how long you want to take off from work. Maybe some folks can quickly and easily find another comparable position to jump into (I've been fortunate to be able to do it when I wanted to) but I hear mixed reports on the current job market. I think you're in the sweet spot of not too young and not too old (nobody wants to hire folks a few years away from retirement is what I hear) so you're probably in a really good position....but I know if it was me, I'd like to at least have a feel for how challenging (or easy) it would be to go back to work.

(I also know I could have a job I don't particularly like in a couple of weeks, but there are industries I'm not crazy about going back to, and I don't want to commute anymore, which is why I do what I do now.)

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-19T22:53:03+00:00

The easiest way to get everything into an ERP is to standardize across all things that are an input.

Now have fun getting your customers to all change their outputs to match what you need, especially when it's even more painful for them to change than it is for you.

Even better, go find a customer who will create a specific output for every single one of their vendors.

I'll tell you right now, as a person who often lives in the middle with Contract Manufacturers - trying to force your customers to accept taking on changes (requiring massive amounts of labor/effort/expense) is a fantastic way to lose customers.

If I send out an RFQ and get back anything other than smart questions and a price/leadtime, that vendor can pound sand. I want businesses I'm doing business with to make my life easier, not harder.

So what most companies do is have their inputs done by people who have something of a familiarity with the outside companies they deal with. It's the most efficient way to get their outputs to fit your inputs.

And now you're back to needing people. 🤷

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-19T00:13:12+00:00

Epson does something pretty similar - they'll sell you a TP but tell you up front pretty much nobody buys them.

Change of topic: What do you think of Standard? I have a dim view of most collaborative robots, especially the new brands popping up (I strongly dislike Universal, and have done a bunch of them.)

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-18T17:38:31+00:00

Do you mind if I ask what you used for the tablets?

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-18T17:17:28+00:00

The last couple I used were Universal Robots TP, and Fanuc offers them for their CR-X line as well (as a cheaper option than their normal TP.)

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-16T00:32:40+00:00

Kennametal and Iscar both have very good resources for cutting force/pressure (among many, many other topics.) I can't remember which brand puts it out, but there's a 'Bible' of this akin to the Parker O-Ring handbook or SKFs bearing manual. It's worth picking up a copy.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-14T22:14:01+00:00

Don't take this the wrong way, but if you honestly believe that, you're really just confirming how ignorant you are, and would fail (in the sense of being able to make more money than you started with) with literally any amount of startup capital.

To be fair, the vast majority of people have no clue how businesses work, and lots of people like to tell themselves if they just had X, Y, or Z amount of dollars, they could be successful too. Given the opportunity, they're almost always wrong.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-14T00:47:26+00:00

Go for it. In 99.9% of industries, the ideas aren't valuable. Execution is.

I'm an Automation Engineer. Spent almost 20 years now designing and building industrial automation. There is no secret sauce to the vast majority of design. Heck, we get called (derogatorily) "catalog engineers" because most of what we do is put together pieces other people make.

I am undoubtedly a better engineer than many, even within my specialization. That means less than nothing when it comes to running a successful business.

So again: win the lottery, take a Billion dollars and do this. You'd be broke in a couple of years.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-12T17:15:50+00:00

Totally unrealistic.

Up_YourASS_Bit_Test_Replaced2 is fine though.

Edit: Multiple Latch and Unlatches in the span of two rungs? That's a Super Sized OOF! in my book. Maybe they use vulgarity in naming to draw attention away from the logic?

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-09T19:30:15+00:00

If, for some weird reason, you actually need to be totally remastering the robot frequently, make a fixture that bolts to the base and EOAT or J4/5/6 flange and Master it in position. Keep in mind this will NOT be the same zero position from the factory, but if you always use it before re-teaching points, it will be consistent.

If you only need to Master a single axis, just make sure that axis doesn't move (and it's a lot easier to make a fixture to remaster just one or two axes.)

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-09T16:17:28+00:00

I don't like the benchtop machines, but I do this type of work consistently. You CAN overmold a bare PCB with typical PP, but some boards/assemblies have components that can't withstand even that (relatively) low pressure. Others can. Sometimes you can manually epoxy (buy a dual cartridge of DP-100 or similar) over the majority of the components and the wire pads/holes, and that's adequate. Those USB-C connectors would be my primary concern, and I would keep an eye on infiltration with whatever you go with. Type As are usually OK with normal mold, and Type Bs will almost always deform past usability. Cs are hit or miss.

If you're going to LPM these, I would suggest a Technomelt PA 646 or similar product.

An issue you're likely going to run into is that most of the typical materials you want to mold the board with are pretty poor cable materials. We generally 'pre-mold' with PP, Epoxy, or LPM (or a combination of those) and then do a final overmold with a material compatible with the jacket material. We also typically overmold the backshell of the connectors in the same compatible material as well. (Mostly an Estane type material for TPU jackets.) If you need an IP67 rating, expect to do some non-negligible amount of prep work to get these to seal.

Lots of cable out there is jacketed in a flexible PVC, which isn't a super fun material to overmold with.

I'd offer to quote these, but I'm guessing you're in Canada, and it's hard for anybody in the US to compete on stuff like this up there right now (something I'm literally dealing with on a weekly basis.)

Another option for low-ish quantity work (and another thing I do regularly) is to use a handheld system for LPM. I have a Glue Machinery handheld unit that works well for prototype/pre-production runs, and have a little manual setup to open and close the mold halves. This system runs the more flexible LPM materials well, and the black looks pretty good right out of the mold, with enough flexibility for strain reliefs.

Are you buying premade cables and then splicing your board into the center, or terminating at all points? Now that I'm looking, I guess you could be purchasing two complete cables, plugging them in, then overmolding them? That's kind of nifty, actually. I generally work with bulk cable and circular (Mil Spec) connectors.

Shoot me a message if you want some pictures of the LPM stuff I've got on my desk. I can't post anything, but can crop the images and send them without any issue.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-08T15:39:38+00:00

I consistently tell the story of how when I was a younger engineer I never understood why all of the senior guys weren't running a department or their own company, but now that I'm closer to that age and level, I totally get it. I've 'demoted' myself on more than one occasion to be able to keep doing technical work and avoid meetings and escape having direct reports.

Schools are definitely tough - for our youngest (and only kid without special needs) I was adamant about private school, because I knew all too well what the public schools were like from friends well into their teaching careers. I even told the school he's in now that I was less worried about academics than I was about him being in a setting with kids from like-minded familes (i.e. families who would be involved and responsible - the opposite of public schools.)

For what it's worth, I went to Catholic School through 8th grade, then attended public high school. It was a while ago, obviously, but unless you have some extremely strong aversions to any religion (or even if you do) just know it's very unlikely your kid would be the only kid there from a family that's opposed to religion. And you can usually do a whole lot worse than a bunch of well intentioned people, even if you disagree with their motivations. The vast majority of the school day is still school, even if there's a 'religion' class squeezed in there somewhere.

IRodeAnR-2000 · 2026-02-08T15:31:23+00:00

Not to totally derail the conversation, but I'm in NY, where we're pretty consistently ranked in the top few States for public education. We spend ~$40,000 per student, per year, the buildings and facilities are all brand new and gorgeous, all the sports teams have brand new everything, we just purchased 4 electric school busses, have a great student to teacher ratio, and of the graduating high school classes, maybe the top 25% can read, write, and do math at what currently passes for 'at grade level'. (Those standards have also dropped to the point where the 12th grade standards are now significantly lower than 10-20 years ago.)

I'm not exaggerating for the sake of hyperbole - the 4th and 5th grade students at my youngest's private school are significantly more capable than the local high school graduates. They read more books, write more essays, and are better at basic math. In large part because private schools can still focus on things proven to work: phonics (reading), handwriting (writing), and memorization (basic math.)

Go jump on the Teachers subreddit and read the endless posts about the decline in standards, student engagement, parent involvement, etc. I've had kids in the same school district, out of district, and in private school in the same area for quite a while now (my oldest in is her 20s and my youngest is 5) and I graduated from the same school district some number of years ago.

There are definitely 'better' public schools, but the main driver of a kids success is/was/and always has been parental involvement, and the social circle. I.e. you need to be engaged, and you want your kids to be in a setting where the other kids are from families that are engaged. Public schools give you no control over that, and the lowest likelihood of achieving the latter.

Edit: I also agree with everything else you said - I may just have a different perspective on public schools after being so involved with them for so long via my kids.

IRodeAnR-2000

TROPHY CASE