The moment my boom angle indicator gave out on a Friday afternoon

I was on a job site in Phoenix back in April, setting HVAC units on a three-story roof. Everything was going smooth until my boom angle indicator started jumping around and then just went dead. I had 1,800 pounds hanging in the air and no way to trust the readout. Stopped the lift right there and called the shop. Took the foreman 45 minutes to bring a backup unit from the yard, and the whole crew had to stand around waiting. Has anyone else had a sensor fail like that mid-lift, and did you finish the job or shut down completely?

3 comments

3 Comments

susansingh1mo agoTop Commenter

Oh man, that's the worst feeling when you're up there with a load and suddenly your equipment goes dumb on you. I had almost the exact same thing happen two years ago in August, not with a boom but with a crane I was running for a quick job moving trusses on a house. The angle sensor started flickering like a bad lightbulb and then just went black, and I had about 12 feet of reach already out there with a bundle of lumber hanging. I stopped everything too, no way I'm guessing at angles when physics is the teacher. Ended up shutting down for the rest of the day because the backup they brought was some ancient unit that barely worked, so the whole crew went home early and the boss was yelling for a week.

kaigibson1mo ago

Did the boss actually get that ancient backup inspected after that day or did he just blow off steam and move on? Because I've seen foremen scream for a week then never fix the real problem, and then three months later you're stuck with the Same piece of junk and another half day lost. The angle sensor going black on you with lumber swinging is a hard NO, you did the only smart thing. But that backup crane story makes me wonder if the boss was more mad about the crew going home than about the safety hazard. Did anyone at the company ever figure out why the sensor failed in the first place, or was it just "one of those things" that got ignored?

grant4781mo ago

Happened to me on a 50 ton Link-Belt back in '19, same black screen deal with a load of steel studs hanging. @kaigibson the boss never does anything about the root cause, they just blame the guy who called it and move on to the next shitbox. If a sensor goes dark once and nobody tags it for a real teardown, you'll be dodging that same problem six months later when it really matters.