I have read some pretty interesting comments in this thread. I have been doing electrical work for more years than some in here is old (over 35years) and have been a part-time instructor for over five years. I have worked in every aspect of the electrical field from mobile homes to high rise buildings. From strip malls to chemical plants and a church or two in between. I have installed electrical circuits in furniture stores, plants and showrooms. During my experiences I have dabbled a couple of times in the maintenance fields of furniture, chemical and tried a bakery a time or two.

When it comes to trouble shooting electrical circuits’ weather they are an electronic or a motor control circuit if the person doing the trouble shooting does not understand the circuit they will be lost.

I have a couple of students that came from the back of a rip saw in a furniture plant that in two years time have made it to the top of their maintenance departments. One of these students is the assistant plant electrician in his plant.

Trouble shooting is a matter of understanding what you are working on and the ability to reduce the circuit to a simple circuit. The complexity of this computer that I am typing on can be brought down to a simple circuit consisting of a power source, a load, and a path for current to flow. Knowing the amount of current, the size of the load, and the path the current is to take is the hard part of troubleshooting the circuits of this computer. The basic theory of electricity is no different in the circuits in this computer and in the circuits on a house, store or motor control circuit.

The bottom line of troubleshooting comes down to how well I understand the circuits of the piece of equipment I am working on. In a troubleshooting class the first problem one of my students will face is a four gain box with four three way switches and four minutes to make the lights burn. This box is in a finished wall. One switch is fed in this box, one switch is fed from the other end and two switches are fed from the light with one switch being the end of the circuit and the other switch if fed through to the other switch and back to the light. Remember only four minutes, as any good maintenance man knows time is money. Once this is mastered we move on to other things. No troubleshooter in the field today will make it if they can’t solve the four three way switches.
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Mike