I bought a DR Power Wagon a few years ago -- an expensive piece of gas-powered yard equipment with a spring-loaded throttle grip. When I uncrated the wagon and started it up, the engine immediately raced. The centrifugal clutch engaged, and the thing took off. Fortunately, I was able to grab the brake and stop it safely.
It took all of 45 seconds to find the culprit. Where the throttle cable attaches to the carburetor, there is a return spring on a bracket. The bracket is held to the engine by one screw. If this screw comes loose, the spring tension rotates the bracket until the spring is loose. Voilà: no throttle return spring tension.
The fix was easy. It took longer to find the right wrench than it did to rotate the bracket into position and tighten the screw.
So, a simple quality issue, right? The screw was left loose, or it came loose in shipping. In my industry (automotive), we would never leave something as critical as a throttle spring with such an easy failure mode. The bracket needs two screws so it can’t rotate, or a notch or tab or something, even a self-locking fastener. Or the design engineers could have put the spring someplace where the support can’t come loose. There are a number of easy ways to solve the problem.
This entry was submitted by Erik Kauppi and edited by Rob Spiegel.
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I don't know, Warren. If China is building to spec, the design flaw and lack of development test could be originating here. It seems to me that quality in design and development is being sacrificed in favor of a cheaper product. It seems we have lost the culture that used to exist when people stayed in their jobs for years and quality was highly valued despite cost. With the current economy and trends in manufacturing it seems to be getting harder to find a really well designed AND well tested product.
If we keep buying from China, et al, and we depend upon their good graces to insure all the safety mechanisms are in place (remember dog food and sheet rock?), we will all have to become engineers just to solve these problems. My wife would have panicked and not known what to do- as would 3/4ths of the men I know.
A world of engineers. Now that's the Thanksgiving table I want to be sitting around!
I have a lawn mower and a lawn vacuum, each with interlocks / safeties. The lawn mower has a safety bar that must be held or the engine will not start, or stops when released. The lawn vacuum has a similar safety bar for the drive = the drive engages with the bar, disengages when the bar is released. Were there similar safeties or interlocks on the Power Wagon ?
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