I was talking with another excavation contractor today and he was telling me about issues with two of his newest pieces of equipment. One is a Case mini loader and the other is a Hitachi midi excavator. He has had recurring faults with the loader and I think he said the dealer replaced or reflashed the computer earlier this season and he's been having issues with it again recently. This time they haven't been able to duplicate the fault while it's been at the dealer but they have admitted that there are issues with the software but have no fix for it. The Hitachi hasn't had working AC since day 1 because somehow the computer isn't turning off the coolant flow to the heater when the AC is on. So their fix was to bypass the heater core for the summer so that the AC would be cold. Then they had to come back out recently and reconnect the heater lines so he could have heat, but still no proper fix for the issue. The hour meter also doesn't work properly; every time it gets to 100 hours, it resets and starts over at 0. Time for these companies to get some better software engineers or simplify the equipment to not have everything controlled by computers!
And somewhere here there's a story of a Case backhoe with a dead transmission control module that hasn't moved for several years for lack of same. $8,000+ and not available so his hoe is scrap. HeavyEquipmentForums Seems criminal. Joe H
Wonder if there was a way to go through all the thousands of threads and sort out how many are due to electronics vs actual mechanical failure? Joe H
Agree with the title. Electronics, does not like what equipment is known for. Heat, vibration, wet, dirt, oil. All it takes is a hungry mouse, a bad manufactured electric wire, new persons first day putting electric connectors together etc etc. Cold solder joints, an IC that passed but is faulty, and the list goes on. Gosh even solar activity can cause problems. And why I will never fly on a fly by wire aircraft. How many times does a pc need rebooting? Cell phones now with glued in batterys can't be rebooted just replaced with a brand new one. Even modern car ECU's need the occasional reset. Years of strange things with CNC machines can teach you electronics is not to be trusted. To OP problem, don't the dealer scan tools have bidirectional ability's? They should be able to activate or deactivate that coolant flow solenoid or motor with said tool. Maybe no one knows how to do it. That way they would know if its happening after the ecu command, then look for the devices that tell the ecu to command that function. And of course look for the ecu command signal.
Could it be that the factory doesn't provide adequate training and/or the dealer techs. aren't learning how to troubleshoot and diagnose computer issues? I recall where certain issues had to go a large dealer because the smaller dealers didn't have all the diagnostic tools or people trained in how to use them. I'm sure all the computer software in newer machines has a lot of techs. scratching their heads trying to understand it. I just read where JD is losing their battle to prevent farmers from getting all the required codes to repair their machines. There were certain codes that JD wanted to keep to themselves effectly blocking farmers from doing their own repairs. JD was trying to make it look like they were giving farmers what they needed but holding back on the most important elements. Kind of a smoke and mirrors deal trying to out smart the courts. It didn't work.
Speaking for Deere software, no, we can't activate or turn on/off 90% of the actuators. I wish, and have complained endlessly to them, to add bidirectional control. It would help speed up diagnostics in many instances.
A simpler machine is only a dollar away
We’re a smaller biz with only about a dozen pieces of iron. And without a doubt, the electrical side of repair, can be the most frustrating. So many times the problems come and go with no rhyme or reason. One day it works great and the next it’s scrap. With have a push botton Allison automatic in a international 4300. Rarely, but occasionally, in the last couple of years she won’t go into gear. Dash says “range inhibit.” No other codes, just won’t go. If you let it sit for a while, running or off. Maybe 15 minutes, maybe 24 hours, it might work. It’s almost feels like playing the electrical lottery some days.
All this is true but you can also bet that if you found a machine that had no computers, totally mechanical, you would not find an operator willing to run it. Computerization is driven by operator preference and owners who look at machine efficiency. With the cost of fuel a company can't hardly justify running the old mechanical engines.
I think it depends on a bunch of factors. A lot of people loved the 1st and 2nd generation Cummins diesels in Dodge pick up's because they got incredible mileage. Once they went electronic and added a bunch of other stuff there was no longer any savings over gas engines. Yeah, they had more HP but they were more complicated too. Mileage went to ****. I remember people saying they much preferred the earlier models.
Most of the cat heavy equipment here have taps to shutoff heater coolant flow because the heater controls never seem to shutoff completely. We shut the taps off in the hottest months and turn them back on in the winter.
Chevy and GM trucks used to be you couldn't turn the fan off. It always ran on low speed not matter where the controls were set.
??? On excavators I ran the only electric or electronic was the thumb control, and if equipped the automatic throttle. The controls were mechanical pilot controlled, even if its a joy stick nowadays, the solenoids I would think still need the pilot system? No fancy electrics needed on any machine, I've worked many 12 hour plus shifts in the day on old 60's and 70's junkers. Now if it was a machine like used to build the ALCAN hiway, 2 hours would probably do me in.
Excavators using pilot controls still use computers to smooth things out. Nothing compared to today but back in the 1980's when Deere/Hitachi came out with the EX150/490D even then they had an electrical controller on their hydraulics. Years ago I had a customer who ran 8860 & 8870 John Deere tractors and Reynolds pan scrapers, every movement of the scraper required pulling/pushing on a lever. He then bought a couple of 9400's which used finger tip electric over hydraulic controls and no one wanted to run the older tractors. I do agree that it has gone way overboard but the operators sure love them until they break down. My comment was that today you would have a hard time finding anyone to run no computerized machines.
I'll be a bit of a contrarian to this thread because I believe in computerized controls and systems, at least for critical safety and other operational systems. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum as I prefer to fly in aircraft with fly-by-wire controls. Humans just don't naturally possess accurate enough motion sensors nor computational brain power to safely fly most aircraft. I'm not saying a person can't fly a large commercial Airbus without computerized systems but I will say a person cannot safely fly a large aircraft without computerized systems. The only difference between the computerized control systems in aircraft and other stuff like heavy equipment, vehicles, and even consumer goods is the difference in reliability specs and fail-safe designs. My opinion is that if heavy equipment had the same reliability and fail-safe engineering specs like aviation, there wouldn't be as many electrical issues experienced by operators. But of course the purchase price and maintenance costs of such machines will sky rocket so the heavy equipment guys don't embrace those specifications as they would have few buyers. So then why do heavy equipment manufactures continue to build failure-prone equipment? Not sure other than they are able to continually to sell failure prone equipment. In general, I do agree that most industries have gone overboard with computerized systems or other electrical gizmos where purely mechanical was fine. For instance, why do I need an electrically operated tailgate on my pickup truck? Seriously...why?
My track loader has exactly one computer on it. The one between my ears. Only needs electricity to open the fuel solenoid and spin the starter. I can do repairs with a screw driver, wrench and socket set. 6 wires and 3 hoses go to the engine and you can identify all the parts.
The computerization of aviation was as much about crew reduction as it was about safety. A non computerized aircraft can be safely flown without question but it’s going to need a the addition of a flight engineer for systems management and possibly a navigator, which is what the large ones back in the day had. The main issue I see with computerization of construction equipment is the poor quality of electrical components, wiring, and connectors. This stuff has to be engineered for reliability. Automotive grade does not cut it but automotive grade is what we are seeing. The other issue is training the mechanic to work on it. Most managers and shops do not care to instill the proper skills in it. The rapidly arriving future of Ethernet on equipment is dictating that the mechanic must be skilled in IT work as much as in hands on skills.