Has anyone had experience with advancing hours on lcd hour meters specifically Hobbs units used in doosan/ daewoo diggers. Ive had several meters fail at differing hours and installing new meters which are usually at a zero point causes issues with service scheduling and tracking of daily machine hours. Im aware that the info can be pulled from areas like machine fault/ maintenance logs etc but this is usually not an operation that operators have to deal with as it can be tedious to get into without laptop support. Any solutions would be appreciated. Note i have contacted the dealers with this inquiry and the common answer is let us know if you find a way !!
Is the one you have a mechanical click style? If it is I have changed them many to meet the new hours .Send me email to [email protected] with pictures of it so I see what you have .thanks Ed
Not sure if this would work for you but where I worked I had set up a spreadsheet to track when some service was needed and simply put in the box where meter readings were input a formula to add the hours on current meter to the hours from failed meter. That way I could view the readings on current meter and also see the total hours on the machine. This was easy for me to do as I was the guy who set up the spreadsheet and not a pre-made service tracking software package.
@tool_king no mate the hobbs ones in use are an lcd 5 digit type with a very small screen area. Some of the failures are just the cover lens or piece of plastic perishes and cracks or crazes making it unreadable. Im led to believe they read independent from the engine ecu as a stand alone record of hours. @kshansen i have in the past used a small engraved piece of alloy plate near the new meter with the old meter value on it but this causes confusion at prestart times and when office staff are having to send service reminders. All input data on fluids ie fuel eng oil / hyd oil are logged by hand so its vital the hour meter reads accurately to keep records honest. I will try to contact the actual meter manufacturer and see if i can do any good there must be a way to do it. I can understand meters not rewinding but advancing should be an option. Cheers for the replies
I seem to remember I came across one place that would sell you meters preset to your spec. It might not be the same meter it came with but there are only a few hole sizes/shapes really. How many hours are you talking about? If you hook a new one up to a 12 volt battery on the bench 24 hours a day, in less than a year you will have 5000 hours. So you could have to write something on the dashboard to remind you of service intervals through two or three services, then you would have a meter with the correct reading to install on the machine.
Well, basically it is the same. If it was that easy to set a new meter, I could imagine jockeys the world over would have a field day replacing perfectly good meters with new ones that had 2000 less hours on them. Just a thought.
I agree but seeing as most of the units i have now run some form of micro controller unit that monitors and controls the systems retrieving actual hours is as easy as running a diagnostic tool to get it straight from the horses mouth if its readily available. In the past ive been suspect of machine hours on gear for sale and actually had dealers dump the memory for me to confirm. The trouble is running machines remotely and keeping track of the hours through operators who arent fluent in how all that works makes it difficult. My oldest operator is 76 and he is from the cable/ open cab era even getting him to understand it in its basic form isnt expected and out of respect i wouldnt fill his head with it all. Im in the process of contacting the manufacturer of the meters to see if theres a work around , im sure if some one can hack a computer and hour meter shouldnt be that difficult . cheers for the replies.