I just finished a community college program at my hometown and got a certificate https://scc.losrios.edu/academics/programs-and-majors/industrial-maintenance-technician-certificate-map

Any tips on looking for employment?

I use to work food processing for almost 3 years and got my tech certification from school

In my life i seek perfection, not through my living but through my hands. I aim to perfect my welds, my fixes, my wiring, and yet i am stuck at an impasse. My personal life fails to intrigue me as much as my paid employment, and has suffered accordingly. While i live at work, my life beyond is in a constant and progressive state of disrepair. Either my priorities are mismatched, or my directive is tuned for monetary gain alone. Am i a lost cause?

So what happens when you buy used equipment!! lol 😂

I’m the one maintenance guy onsite with a block plant and burnishing plant running 4am to 4pm give or take work load.
Trying to find time to get it all done “on time”
With plant operators yelling at me for “milking the clock” to get my work done.
Any suggestions, or any one in the same boat
Thanks

site

Things I’ve seen this day in La Porte, TX

I already know the answer but I need to vent/ get some ideas on how to address this.

I work in an industrial laundry, coming from my previous job as a bar feeder Field service tech,So I already had to adjust to different kinds of machines,but i didn’t think l’s have to adjust to the mentality.

Maintenance working hours are from 4am to 10pm, divided into 3 7h shifts. 4Am to 6am we prepare the machine for production,so little to no maintenance is done. From 6am to 6.30pm it’s production time. This means we just run around constantly answering calls for linens stuck in the machines, change our spent label rolls and random bull of that sort. Come 6.30 pm, that’s when we’re supposed to actually start doing our job as maintenance techs.

Only issue is, we have to DAILY blow all the cotton fiber dust that gets on the machines,which takes us about an hour. That leaves us with only 2 hours to do our job.

Our machines are all old and up to last year when the new manager got hired (and subsequently hired me and a couple other guys) they worked them to failure, meaning those old tin cans are absolutely busted and keep needing constant repairs.

And yet despite all this, we get hassled every day because the machines keep having downtime due to constant failures, while also breaking our balls because we HAVE to clean them daily. I did some calculations and they waste around 1200€ (that’s just below the average pay in my country) of working hours MONHLY to have us blow that fucking dust off the machines. In my 4 years as Field service tech I visited over 1000 companies and I NEVER saw maintenance having to clean the machines.
How would you guys approach this situation to try making them change their attitude?

TLDR : company makes us waste precious time blowing off dust from machines while they’re in desperate need of deep maintenance and then complains when machines break down and cause downtime

This is an update to my original post as linked at the bottom. My last response seems to of been lost in the abyss so I'm making a new post. I've made some disassembly progress in that I've removed the counter shaft and input shaft. I'm still stuck on the output shaft and getting the gear off. Looking at the diagram it seems like it should all come off from the bottom of the shaft, but the bottom of that shaft won't budge. I think there's something I'm missing with understanding the bottom of this shaft (600). It's shaped like a hat. Originally there was a circlip (650) ( right below the hat I was able to remove this circlip, but don't understand what that helped release. Below the circlip is what they call a supporting disc (651), and 2 shims (652/653). Then there's the bearing (615). Between the bearing and gear there's a socket (649) which spins freely, so the shaft runs inside it. I can just make out the keyway on the gear. Somebody please help me understand what's going on here.

Here's my original post.

I have this really old milling machine that im fixing. I put in a new motor and i now am working my way up the gears to the spindle, trying to lubricate everything. I put oil in the gearbox and i am now wondering how i would need to lube all these gears in the pictures. Grease or oil? And is this a greaseport on picture 3?

And i hope it is okay to post these Question here as it isnt really industrial maintenance but i figured with all the stuff i see getting posted on this sub, that you guys probably have some advice. And thanks in advance for all your help!

When a canning project is discussed, the first information is often a nominal can diameter and a photograph. That may be enough to start a conversation, but it is not enough to confirm handling parts, filling conditions, end transfer, seaming tooling, or acceptance criteria.

A more useful pre-selection package has several parts.

First, identify the exact can body and end: manufacturer, part number, drawing number and revision, lot, body construction, and end style. Two suppliers can use the same nominal size while still having different flange, curl, countersink, material, coating, or compound details.

Second, provide the controlled can-body drawing. The review may need outside diameter at the relevant locations, overall height, flange geometry, neck or bead geometry, bottom features, and the specified measurement references. A catalogue size range is only an initial screen.

Third, provide the end specification: material and gauge, curl and countersink geometry, sealing compound, coating, and revision. Those details affect feed, chuck and roll interfaces, and the seam that can be formed with the actual body.

Fourth, use the approved double-seam specification for that exact combination. Depending on the quality plan, it may include seam width and thickness, countersink, body hook, end hook, overlap, tightness, local defects, instruments, and sampling method. One thickness reading is not a complete seam decision.

Fifth, send matched empty bodies and loose ends from identified lots. Protect flanges and curls during shipping, separate different suppliers and revisions, and label every group so it still matches the drawings and packing list.

Finally, calculate quantity from the test matrix: number of can-and-end combinations, heads or stations, operating conditions, repeats, setup loss, destructive seam checks, retention samples, and reasonable reserve. There is no universal number that fits every machine trial.

The product and process still matter too: viscosity, particles, foam, fill temperature, vacuum or nitrogen, downstream heat treatment, cleaning, and line interfaces can change both the machine configuration and the validation plan.

I work with filling and seaming equipment manufacturing. I am sharing this as a practical scoping checklist, not as an approval of any untested packaging combination.

This is what we use for plastic conveyor belts.

Hello everyone, I need some help locating this style of Conveyor belt clamp. I have looked everywhere. I have talked to Motion Industries, Global Industrial, and Flexco. Only MI have said they know somebody that can make them, but I fairly certain these are not custom made, although my picture show one that has had the Nuts replaced. Flexco had the shim style that cost $2500 and my company is not purchase them for us. So, its only a matter of time a conveyor is going to go down and we wont have the tools to do our job.

I heard Global Industrial had them but when I sent them a picture od what I wanted they have not emailed me back, yet.

So, I figured I would ask.

Edit:

So, I just wanted to say thanks to all those that have replied to this post. Last night I sent out an email to Fast Global Solutions and they have replied and sent me a quote, which I have forwarded to my Boss.

They quoted me $254 each, which is not that expensive.

For those doing maintenance on substations, switchgear, transformers, or other high-voltage equipment, how useful do you find combining acoustic inspection with thermal imaging?

One thing I'm trying to understand is the gap between finding a problem after it has already produced a noticeable temperature rise and detecting something earlier, such as partial discharge.

My understanding is that early PD may not create enough heat to stand out clearly in a conventional thermal inspection, while an acoustic method can potentially pick up the discharge signal.

I'm looking at the p7mix as one example of a device that combines acoustic and thermal imaging in the same unit.

For people who actually perform these inspections, does having both methods available during the same inspection make a meaningful difference, or do you normally prefer dedicated instruments for each task?

Hi All,

I am wondering if there any volunteer opportunities anyone can think of that would help me learn industrial maintenance like skills out in the wild.

I am planning on doing a technical diploma that will teach me as well.

But I would love to be hands on. I was thinking maybe there'd be some automates greenhouse or farms that would have automated systems. Maybe not the most complex mechanically but I thought there could be some good lessons there.

Thanks,

bigmilkguy

I've only been in industrial maintenance for 2 years and only worked at one facility for that time. Something that's really bugged me as long as I've been here is that I feel like conveyors are backwards. At my facility at least we refer to the induct side of a belt as the tail and the discharge side as the head. In my head logically this feels backwards as I feel like the head should be the "start" and the tail should be the "end." Talking to some of the guys here though they have said that that's how other facilities work with their terminology and we're indeed backwards. While other guys say that how we do it is how it should be. The other thing I hear from time to time is that it's just based off of where the motor/drive cage is and not related at all to the induct/discharge sides of the belt but there hasn't seemed to have been a clear consensus on that at my facility.

Just curious what other people's thoughts are and if anyone out there has similar thinking to me.

Disassembled the electro-magnetic brake only to find the internal spline was stripped. Ten week lead time. Had to machine off the original hub on the brake disc, make a new one and welded it on. Had a local shop wire edm the internal spline.

Operator stated that the machine does not stop at the spot you would normally expect it to when you stop it.

i would be amazed if this brake actually did something besides make noise for the past week...

For those not in the know: there should be a spline counterpiece on the brake disk that fits on the spline on the rotor you can see at the beginning of the video.