Your last generator Maintenance Run

[3930dave]

My rough rule of thumb is.... As complexity scales Up, so does the importance of Battery Health.


Rgds, D.

 

[check]

I use an alarm system called FreezeAlarm, that calls up to three numbers if the power goes out, or the temperature gets too low, or the battery that is a back up gets too low. My generator has an automatic transfer switch, but the freeze alarm will call you if, for example, the power goes out and your generator does not start up automatically. And when the power goes out, the telephone hardwire system stays up for two or three days before the Bell batteries at the switching station finally run out.

 

[Industrial Toys]

They claim they have mobile generators that they rotate to sites, both CO and Cellular to recharge batteries. I think, in a large area outage that plan would go south quickly. My land lines are serviced by a remote (Multiplexer) that is battery backed up but doubt it would get any attention at all. I used to have a copper line coming all the way out from the CO as I had an OPX. I wish I still had that.

 

[ultrarunner]

I gave the telephone company permission to put in hardware in the Telcom room.

The reason they wanted to use the Hospital is because we have back-up power on site that is maintained year round...

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

Thanks

It's a 7.5 HDKAT-41934R (Spec R)

It has me flustered. And smelling like DIESEL!

It was showing low battery voltage, so I hooked it up to a charger. NOTHING! then started showing HIGH voltage! Of course, I had to go inside and get on my computer to find that out. I wish somone had a list that fit on one sheet of the codes so you don't have to find the 8 pages in the very large PDF manual.

So, took battery off charger and I am BACK to code 32. Low cranking speed fault. In the little bit that I played with it, the engine never tried to start. I only heard the fuel pump.

Quite a learning curve working on this thing.

Looking further for the remedial action on that fault, it says to use INPOWER. To issue a command to over-ride and engage the starter relay. I hope that's not some program you need on a lap top, or other special tool. YUP, That's EXACTLY what it is! So what now?

Bad news is InPower is the Cummins service software, it's expensive and not available to the public. 32 is a fault low cranking speed but there are still things to check... Don't be offended, I don't know your level of diesel engine knowledge.

I'm making an assumption the unit is in a cool or cold location. You said not starting but I don't think you said if there is any smoke... Kubotas are very keen on pre-heating, check that there is power to the glow plugs from the controller. If no power, Fuse F3 is the supply or the temperature sensor could be telling the controller they aren't needed - then you could isolate them and power them separately to see if it starts. If they are getting power, pull the wire and jumper bar off and check each of them with an ohm meter.

Have you confirmed there is fuel getting to the injectors? Crack a line and see if there is fuel leaking, it's possible that with a cold engine cranking slowly and all the lines full of air that it can't purge enough to inject. ANY leak at all in on the fuel inlet system will pull air in and make the unit nearly impossible to start. A quick way to help rule this out is raise the supply above the pump level. At low temperatures it doesn't take long to get a low crank speed fault - the voltage to the starter after all the cables and connections shouldn't drop below 9V.

Do you know the oil is the correct viscosity? Thick oil will cause slow cranking in the cold for sure.

There is also a slim possibility that the cam gear has failed, do you know how many hours are on the unit? There was an issue with a small number of units between SN I130567802 and 813 that Kubota identified a faulty cam gear.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Thanks.

Unit has 2300 hours.

Unit is cold, maybe -5c now

Oil should be to spec. Says 10-w-30 for our climate. I can ask.

Unit did not say boo, except for fuel pump ticking away.

I WAS TOLD that there was an inverter failure, but I am not sure of anything now.

It flashes indicating it's glowing the plugs and then goes into fault mode without any indiction of a starter or solenoid firing.

I will remove some panels and check for glow plug voltage and the starting circuit. All three DC fuses are good.

We have quite the nasty storm here, so it might be a few days before I play with it.

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

First things to check then are battery voltage into the unit - needs to be 11V or better. Put a meter on the crank input to the starter and see if controller is sending the crank command after the glow plug time has expired. I not certain how long the preheat is on this unit but at -5 it would be at least 15 seconds. Do you hear any relay click from controller indicating it may be trying to engage the starter after 15-20 seconds? It should also be sending power to the throttle actuator at the same time it engages the starter. This is a PWM signal so not specific voltage but you should see something between about 4 and 12V on a DC meter.

If you are getting the throttle output, you could remove the crank wire from the starter and manually activate the starter with a jumper wire to start it and see where that gets you. Like bypassing controls to start any diesel engine though, have the air intake accessible and some plywood handy to completely block the intake in case you need to shut it down quickly.

Had one other thought... If someone had installed the control switch backward it may explain what you see. Holding the switch in STOP for 2 seconds energizes the fuel pump for as long as the switch is held but would never pre-heat or crank. Have you tried holding the switch in the other position?

 

[dragoneggs]

I gave the telephone company permission to put in hardware in the Telcom room.

The reason they wanted to use the Hospital is because we have back-up power on site that is maintained year round...

Interesting... the telecom company is using hospital resources for non related requirements because of reliability? Please elaborate if you can.

 

[ultrarunner]

They installed it at no charge and market services to our campus tenants...

It was part of a Fiber Roll Out and we were the first to have it in house... or onsite for our area.

The Hospital proper is NOT a customer...

What is a little ironic is the CT and MRI imaging center onsite has about a dozen Northern California locations and is contracted with Comcast Business...

When the imaging center was under construction ATT was ready to provide service but it was declined...

Comcast was no where near... closest was about 7 blocks away and that included a major intersection and State Highway...

The Image Center told Comcast they need to bring it in or they would be taking all their business to ATT...

Comcast had an underground construction crew for more than a week to bring Comcast Fiber to our property... more like 10 days of serious construction with traffic control etc...

With what happened in SF yesterday and the fire ball from the Fiber crew installing underground I wonder why there are not more problems...

So now we are in a good position as both Business ATT and Comcast are in the MPO... and neither wants to loose out on business.

 

[daugen]

Hey Chilli, sure you know what you're talking about? Just kidding.
Seriously nice to have a handful of genuine pros on this thread.
I learn a lot and thanks to all for educating us.