I just spent an hour wrestling the next door neighbors packager. Kate had already been at it for most of the day. We're trying to get it to create a program to make 1 ounce bags. This should be simple. HAHAHAHA. no.

This is an adventure in math NOT WORKING.

all the tech support guys were away at a conference apparently and this order was to out tomorrow morning, thus the push to figure this out.

The protocal, use an existing program and either add or subtract the amount from that, save as new program. There's an example in the manual that shows how to set up the number correctly on screen. (make sure to enter all the digits) in example, ounce is show as 0100. no decimal points used here. shows another example to remove a quarter ounce is 0025.

So we were starting with the 2 ounce program (program 20). subtract 1 ounce. Save as 22. run new program... get .70 ounces. Rerun program 20. weight, it IS two ounces. Run program 22, get .70 ounces. Try again, save on 23. again, .70 ounces.

DAFUQ.

Take program 22, add .30 ounces. Save new program. get... .70 ounces. ooookay.


Lets try compensating off program 20. It's shorting me .30 ounces subtracting from 2. Program 20 (again checked for producing 2 ounces), subtract .70 ounces. save as new program. Run... gives me .25 ounces.


WHAT KIND OF MATH IS THIS?

I took away less, so it should have been a larger final value, even if it wasn't right... not a lower one!

run program 20 again. yes, still 2 ounces.
(we're using a separate scale to check, since we aren't convinced its measuring correctly)

Repeat earlier, save as new program, lets make sure I didn't mis-key it.

Run the new program again. get .25 ounces. Try adding .75 ounces, save as new program. Still getting only .25 ounces.

well at least we've now figured out it won't accept ADDING weight. it'll show it on screen, it just won't actually DO it. (so yeah, tech guys are getting called for service call, whenever they return from conference)

Okay fine, maybe it hates program 20 specifically. Select program 40, which is 4 ounces. Subtract 3 ounces. Get... .5 ounces.

WHAT IN THE FLYING FUCK.

but close enough, its not connected to a sealer or a line, you can just have it measure .50 twice and dump it in same bag. good enough to get order done.



If it had just been an error with it moving a decimal place or its reading it in kilos it should have been able to get a higher end result by subtracting less and slowly brought up amount by guess and check. But when I subtracted less I ended up with less at the end. SORCERY.

I have no idea what the actual error is to compensate for it.

also I feel like I no longer understand basic math. 2-1= .70 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH


EDIT: and Kate just came up and told me after running fine for a little bit using the .5 program, it randomly reset to .25.

THE PACKAGER IS ALSO CURSED.