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Admin
its all smoke & mirrors :(
Admin
Could it have been fixed over a web interface?
Admin
TRWTF is the laser sensor. Surely the weighbridge can detect the presence of a large truck...by its weight?
Admin
Since those scales are usually for fairly large trucks, instead of using a laser beam, why just let the thing be activated only if a certain minimum amount of weight is on the scale? It's unlikely that creepy crawlies, or even a couple of grizzly bears joy riding in a pickup would fool that.
Admin
Shouldn't the company developing the mirror have tested it in different environmental conditions before installing a production version. With trucks going by this sensor it will probably undergo some severe conditions.
Admin
Grizzly bears in a pick up truck would fool me.
Admin
I want to believe that picture has been faked somehow. Otherwise, I can only conclude that the child is some sort of Spider Shaman who will one day conjure an army of the beasts and destroy us all.
Also, why wasn't the operator trained to perform these basic maintenance tasks? It really shouldn't be necessary to call the support guy for things like dirt and spiders. The one with the sunlight I can understand though; that's kind of cool as oddball errors go.
Admin
The Huntsman spider is one of the reasons my wife won't let us move to NZ or Australia. She said that if we find a spider like that in our house, we have to just leave and burn the house as it is a total loss.
Admin
Nice
Admin
Nice!
Admin
I work for an automation company. We build stuff like this.
The first time this happened (ok, maybe second), I'd have the damned laser replaced with a competitor's product or a housing redesigned so friggin' bugs can't infest it.
As for condensation, that too should've been solved by the laser manufacturer or whoever selected the laser part in the first place. They have environmental specs for this kind of thing for a reason. I know of a large number of optical through-beam devices (laser, LED, etc) that have integrated lens warmers to prevent condensation.
Admin
You earned one of these: http://www.instantrimshot.com/
I don't often do CAPTCHAs but "appellatio"?
Admin
I lived in Australia as a kid, and we had a Huntsman spider that lived in the house with us the entire year. We made a game of trying to find it every morning. We never, ever, had any flies in our house!
Admin
Jesus tapdancing christ. Was it really necessary to show me a giant spider at 8 in the morning? Turns out some people are really creeped out by those!
Admin
-Harrow.
Admin
You can't fight nature :)
Admin
Admin
Admin
It's always fun when the picture for an article spoils the punchline.
Admin
Admin
Strain Gauges?
Admin
You'd be better looking out for a giant weta (again, mostly harmless)...
Admin
If you put 4 cars on that bridge, they will say it is a truck
Admin
I want me some of that 'battled water'. Sounds tough. Has it been on a tour of duty, or something?
Admin
Wel, it is obvious that you don't know how the flightstick in an F-16 works. The F-16 integrated flightstick is mounted without movable parts inside the cockpit, and does not register movement displacement, but rather the force applied to the central axis of the stick. I guess this "low-tech" weightbridge works from the same principal.
Admin
I love the way this site's users continually embiggen my vocabulary.
Admin
Move to a different timezone, that should fix the problem.
Admin
Ok, so if I read this correctly, there's an operator on site, but they cannot be bothered to physically inspect two sensors?
Admin
Apparently, they are the same thing: Avondale Spider
As a side note, the REAL wtf is this comment system. I've never commented before and using all that BBCode was cumbersome. Can't the commands just be a side panel of the add comment page? Does it really have to be a link to a lookup table? I had to open in a new tab and switch between tabs multiple times to make sure I had the correct syntax.
Oh secondary to that, click the preview button presented no notification when I didn't input a value for "Your Name". I clicked the preview button a few times before I realized where I screwed up.
Just two cents from a first time user - usability testing anyone? :)
Admin
When the boss is paying for 24x7 support, the operator is going to be trained to call the support number for ANYTHING. After all, we'd better get our money's worth, right?
Admin
I would assume the scale itself isn't actually active until the operator presses a button. Once that button was pressed, it would likely kick off a process that weighs the truck for a short period of time (to average fluctuations in weight), then automatically print whatever slip needed printing.
If the scale is constantly running, even in wait state, you end up wasting a good deal of power. Also, you could run into a situation where that process is getting inadvertantly kicked off everytime something of significant weight (deer, bear, whatever) happens upon the platform.
Admin
Admin
Oh yeah a real WTF at at last.
Didn't scott know about microsofts staic anal-ysis tool for SQL injections. When you use this, microsoft garantees that you will not get attacked from intruders.. including spiders.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=58a7c46e-a599-4fcb-9ab4-a4334146b6ba&DisplayLang=en
Admin
That's exactly how they work. You have a load bar, or a series of them, that can electronically measure the stress placed on them. That's actually the high-tech version. The low-tech version has a series of weights and balances of unequal length (a much larger version of the old doctor's scale with the weights you slide).
Admin
That scale can run for days of a 12v car battery. The power costs are insignicant compared to the cost of the scale & the operator to run it.
Admin
Admin
which weightscale operator would even think of asking for 24/7 on-site support.
I mean I wouldn't even bother asking a bout tech support becuase it is such a simple device, microcontroller, 4 strain guages embedded into the load holding rails and a screen/standard output.
Admin
I think you have to be in Appalachia to get appellatio.
Admin
Ack, supposed to have quoted someones captcha above.
My spider in equipment story was finding a black widow in a hoffman box that housed some of our equipment. Startling to open it up preparing to stick my hand in to tune a frequency card.
Admin
OMFG, I wet my pants!
Admin
Admin
http://www.radioparadise.com/graphics/covers/l/B000002ITU.jpg
Admin
Darn. I had to adblock that image and un-whitelist TDWTF. See what you've done?
Admin
It must be one really big piezoeletric sheet!
Admin
Sensors can be used to make sure that the driver (and/or operator) isn't trying to cheat - keeps the truck fully on the scale. Leaving an axle off the scale will result in a low weight reading.
Admin
Easy cure for arachnophobia: every time you see a spider, think to yourself how cute and cuddly it is, and that it will be your friend if you are nice to it. Repeat until you no longer see spiders as a threat.
YMMV, of course...
Admin
Admin
Me. My vendors. These scales are the chokepoint of operations for a company that operates based on weight. They fail, you make no money until it's fixed. If this were one of the ones at the side-of-highway weigh stations, sure, you can get away without having support on those because you can just close them (and they're closed half the damn time anyway), but when the billable or payable amount is ({Truck full weight - truck empty weight} * some rate) you absolutely positively can not afford to have downtime. Yes, it's a simple system, but yes, they do break.
Admin
The laser could have been at the very front of the scale to verify that the truck is completely on the measurement pad. They want to catch overloaded trucks so if the trailer wheels aren't on the pad, the reading would be less.
Admin
Later that week, they rented a big air compressor and a small, hand-held jackhammer and had me get down inside the drum to break it loose. It was hot, nasty work... no air movement and lots of dust (loud as hell, too). I was wearing a mask, but it didn't stop all of the dust. After a while I got a nosebleed. I was going to get out right away, but then inspiration struck. I stayed in the truck for a few more minutes and let the white mask get thoroughly soaked with blood. Then I went in to the dispatcher.
He took one look and ordered me to clean up and call my wife to come get me. One of the other guys had to get in my drum and finish up, and I got to go home. Hehehe!