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Had a 30-ton jib let go during a pick near Atlanta last Tuesday - hydraulic failure or operator error?
We were setting steel on a three-story frame and the load line dropped about four feet before the brake caught, luckily nobody was under it. My gut says the control valve was sticking, but the site foreman is blaming me for not checking the morning pre-op log where a pressure drop was noted. Do you guys run with a faulty valve until the scheduled maintenance, or shut down and call in a rebuild crew mid-job?
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lilyg8311d ago
Yeah, that bit about "my gut says the control valve was sticking" is exactly the kind of thing that gets you in trouble. I've seen it a hundred times where guys try to nurse a known issue through a job and it just ends up costing more in downtime and paperwork. Shut it down and call for the rebuild crew, even if the foreman bitches about the schedule. Better to eat a day of delay than explain to OSHA why a 30-ton load dropped on someone.
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keithbennett17h ago
Honestly, sometimes a quick field fix can save a job from turning into a two-week shutdown for something that might not even be the real problem. Plenty of times I've seen a control valve just need a quick adjustment or a clean and it runs fine for months after, with zero safety risk. If you've got a good operator who knows the equipment's quirks, trusting their gut on a minor pressure drop can keep everything moving without blowing up the schedule.
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