D E T A I L S

"The Devil Lies Therein..."


Needless to say, as on any pioneering adventure, I'm about to run myself to death finding last minutes scraps and parts to finish putting this PLC Control Panel together.

Apparently the people that sell this stuff never actually BUILD anything with any of it, at least anything that has to do tricky tasks like actually WORK when the dust and insulation scraps settle to the shop floor.

For instance, I have to cut four holes in the bottom of the panel to let wires run in/out in the plant: one for the 120 VAC power feed, two for the fancy non-contact infrared temperature probes on the bottle conveyor line, and one to power a pneumatic solenoid valve that is responsible for "kicking" any faulty bottles we find off the conveyor line.

The "strain relief" connectors that mount in these holes designed to keep you from ripping the cords out of the panel when some oaf trips over or pulls on the wiring are easy enough to buy at Home Depot, but NoooooooOOOOOO...I opted to use some shiny fancy knurled aluminum connectors I had to order and wait three days to receive.

Funny thing, but they sell the lock nuts separate for the connectors, but I opted to order the 3/8" size rather than the standard 1/2" and now I have $35 worth of connectors and neither Home Depot or even the place I bought them from sells 3/8" lock nuts!

WTF?

So now I have to go back across West Knoxville and return my connectors and order five more 1/2" sized--and most importantly the lock nuts--and wait until Monday or Tuesday for them to come in and drive back over and pick them up.

Of course they can ship to my house but in that event it would cost me an extra $10 UPS charge and take five days for ground service.

And the list goes on and on with nagging things like that which I won't bore you with the details of this morning, but it's obvious that spending the last $100 of a nearly $3,000parts order is going to cause much of the remaining hair on my ever greying, ever balding head to fall to the floor (or take root on my back and behind...)

Bottom line is I've wasted all the time I have to waste and next week's Thanksgiving and everything will come to a standstill for two days and then comes the delivery deadline of November 30th and so now I have to get off my butt and produce...and I can't do it if I've screwed up the parts list.

Thus it's time for me to head over to the electronics supply store and get things moving.

OH...and y'all have a LOVELY day...if you will...