Set up instrumentation (such as a datalogger, chart recorder, or multimeter set on “record” mode) to monitor a signal over a period of time. This is especially helpful when tracking down intermittent problems, which have a way of showing up the moment you’ve turned your back and walked away.
This may be essential for proving what happens first in a fast-acting system. Many fast systems (especially shutdown “trip” systems) have a “first out” monitoring capability to provide this kind of data.
Example #1: A turbine control system shuts automatically in response to an abnormal condition. By the time a technician arrives at the scene to survey the turbine’s condition, however, everything is in a “down” state and its impossible to tell what signal or condition was responsible for the initial shutdown, as all operating parameters are now “abnormal.”
What to do: One technician I knew used a videocamera to record the turbine control panel, so he could see what happened (by indications on the gauges) first in an automatic-shutdown event. Simply by looking at the panel after the fact, there was no way to tell which signal shut the turbine down, but the videotape playback would show what happened in sequence, down to a frame-by-frame time resolution.
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