I'd like to tell a quick story about successful troubleshooting.
A few months ago I rented a scissor lift to install lighting at my new office. When it arrived, the delivery person gave me a quick demo and off he went.
Well, when I went to actually use it - the lift went up by about a foot then stopped and screamed beeps of terror. It was broken!
But the display on the control read "18"
Rather than call the rental company, I searched "sinoboom fault code 18" to see what that meant.
I found a document that explained this meant there was a fault in the pothole protection board.
Not knowing what that was, I then searched for "pothole board sinoboom" and found that there are limit switches which detect that these little side-plates which swing out as the lift goes up have actually deployed. The board wasn't seeing that switch input.
So, I figured out where that switch was and discovered it was sticking. I exercised it a bit and the lift was fixed.
Troubleshooting is a skill. I don't know how exactly it can be taught, but we should absolutely be teaching it.
I have never used a scissor lift in my life prior to this point but I know enough about machines now to realize something is wrong. And with an error code, the machine will tell you what's wrong.
It's up to you to connect these things together - and that's honestly a guiding light in my work.
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