Those of us that have played the Tech Support Game for any length of time have at some point been in a situation where neither the caller seeking help nor the person trying to render assistance was understanding the other’s inability to comprehend what was being said or asked. Believe me when I say that that is a situation that can turn volatile in a nano-second. Especially in the level sensor business, there are some fairly creative ways for end users to improperly install point level sensors in a way that will severely impact the sensors ability to function as it was designed to do. Maybe we will work on a top ten list for later publication. Anyway, what I am doing on a more frequent basis is to ask the customer if they have a digital camera at their disposal. About now you are saying to yourself, “Self, almost everyone with a cell phone has a digital camera these days.” While this may be true, my experience with the quality of the pictures taken and sent by a cell phone is that the pictures received are very often all but useless due to low resolution of the image. Some of the newer cell phones have better resolution but there are going to be a large quantity of poor resolution camera phones out there for some time to come. Almost any off the shelf digital camera is capable of providing the resolution needed to see intricate construction detail of some sensor mounting that was previously verbally obscure in the description of someone speaking a different mechanical language than the other person. When trying to photograph a sensor or sensor mount inside a dark silo, the low lux (low light) capabilities of most digital cameras indeed becomes a huge asset.
Innocent misunderstandings can change the tone of a conversation from friendly to confrontational in a very short time. No one wants that to happen and it can cause bridges to burn so to speak. So, if you find yourself in a situation when either receiving technical help or giving it and someone is not getting (ready for this?) “The Big Picture” (sorry, I couldn't resist J ), consider asking for or volunteer to take a digital picture and email it to the other party. A digital camera is a valuable tool and it can potentially reduce the amount of time it takes for a tech support person to identify a problem and offer a solution. Best of all, a reasonably capable digital camera that is small enough to fit in a pocket can be quite inexpensive making it quite easy to justify obtaining one.
Take a look at the photo at the top of this blog post. This photo happened to be taken by one of our service techs but it shows a bad installation for this guided wave radar sensor and explains why it wasn't working properly. Never extend a nozzle into the silo when installing a guided wave radar level sensor. The customer could have been talking to us for a long time before he stumbled on this little known fact because the installer and the person we speak with to provide tech support many times aren't the same people. A picture is indeed priceless and worth more than a thousand words.
Greg DeRudder
Technorati Tags: level sensor level measurement bin level indicator level control solids level indicator guided wave radar
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