DEF Delight or not??

[John C.]

PM or particulate matter is carbon.

I can see a niche machine being a possibility of something it may be worth rebuilding and there being a market for that. We see it here with log yarders. I'll do a search and try to find some more information. I'm thinking the issue isn't the engines, it's that fact that it is a small industry, the units are rare and extremely expensive to purchase a new machine.

 

[BigWrench55]

It's a double edged sword when the customer starts doing electrical diagnostics it will make my job harder when they bring in there machine with harnesses pulled apart and wiring bypassed in an effort to bypass sensors with resistors that dont work on smart sensors

Depending on the shop or tech that looks at it wouldn't be any better off. I am blessed to have a mind that understands this stuff and in my eyes it isn't that difficult to learn. I think most people eyes glaze over and brains go to sleep when looking at all those wires. And I believe some think it's magic and some kind of voodoo that makes it work. I like to keep it simple and use logic. Rarely have I seen a wire just brake in the middle of a harness with nothing acting upon it. I focus at the circuit at hand and focus on connections and where the harness will likely rub through. Most can be determined with your meter. If you know what those numbers on your meter are telling you.

 

[HardRockNM]

I try to stay out of the p word it's all corrupt and for the good of someone bottom line. I was just regurgitating what I read. What's interesting is carbon footprint has nothing to do with tier 4 emissions standards. I think we are off topic. Maybe start a new forum category on tier 4 specific engines. On one side I enjoy being able to use a computer to monitor the engine. If you look at the right parameters you can see a bad injector before it causes problems. I grew up with computers as computers grew. From dos to now. I like the ability to use computers for diagnostics but its completely taken and diagnostic ability away from the owner which is bad. New laws are opening up the ability for the owner to purchase diagnostic equipment but its limited and expensive. Who will pay thousands of dollars and annual fees for a few pieces of equipment. The playing field should be level to some extent and it will like cars with obd2. It's a double edged sword when the customer starts doing electrical diagnostics it will make my job harder when they bring in there machine with harnesses pulled apart and wiring bypassed in an effort to bypass sensors with resistors that dont work on smart sensors

All the Tier 4 stuff does is reduce DPM and gas emissions, often at the cost of fuel economy and MTBF. I'd argue that those systems actually increase carbon footprint! We actually do have to worry about DPM and gas emissions of engines underground, and MSHA publishes minimum ventilation rate requirements for engines (which don't really line up with reality for 100% duty cycle in the face of the new DPM standards). You can run expensive, clean equipment and save on ventilation, or run cheap, dirty equipment and pay for it in ventilation requirements- either way, you pay! Personally I prefer a middle-of-the-road approach - cheap indirect-injection Deutz engines with exhaust aftertreatment, and modest ventilation requirements.

I'd love to see an open OBD2-type standard implemented. At this time, my off-road equipment is all analog but this won't always be the case as used modern equipment comes down in price.

 

[Birken Vogt]

PM or particulate matter is carbon.

I can see a niche machine being a possibility of something it may be worth rebuilding and there being a market for that. We see it here with log yarders. I'll do a search and try to find some more information. I'm thinking the issue isn't the engines, it's that fact that it is a small industry, the units are rare and extremely expensive to purchase a new machine.

I remember it being said, when T4 was barely thought of, that yarders were going to be the worst application because all they do is sit and idle, until they go full throttle for a minute or less, and then idle again for a long time.

I'm curious to know how that has worked out, if there are enough T4 yarders to make a sample size.

 

[John C.]

I think I've only heard of one new yarder in the last five years. Haulback would be the guy most likely to know that. They do go full throttle for a lot more than a minute at a time though, but they also do a lot of idle. They are more like heavy lift cranes than anything else.

 

[terex herder]

There is nothing in the clean air act about carbon footprint, thats a modern construct. But its coming.

The biggest problem with the clean air act is economic analysis of pollution controls is specifically prohibited. To follow the letter of the law, at some point it will cost the entire GDP of the United States to remove the next increment of pollution.

 

[John C.]

I don't know about the total cost of the act becoming more than the US GDP, but I do know that it is inflationary on the face of it. The engineering adds cost, extra components add cost and the lesser reliability adds cost. Therefore, each added Tier rating adds cost. The only way to recoup those costs are to reduce maintenance and repairs or increase productivity. Both the reliability for the most part, and longevity have increased. The question to be answered is, was it enough.

I'm sure the manufacturers have noted all the problems and are working to make things better. That takes time which was reduced because the changes were legislated instead of going through the natural progression of innovation. Don't forget though that the manufacturers were part of the process of passing and implementing these laws and regulations.

The free market will choose the manufacturers who succeed with a better product. That doesn't help the little guy with the skid trying to make a living who has to fight a system he doesn't understand how it works and the manufacturers are not providing any solution other than call my service personnel to come a take care of it.

 

[Midnightmoon]

what I didnt know until recently is there are two different ways to reduce emissions

1 run the engine cool low nox high pm and catch pm in a dpf system. This is hard on the engine look at kubota's engine failures do to turbos failing. My experience is 500hr oil change isnt good and causing the turbo bushing to fail. alot of kubota engines Ive seen fail are at the 500hr mark. thats my guess
2 run the engine hot low pm high nox and axe the dpf and catch the nox case uses this system less engine failures

I know this is over simplified and manufactures dont fall neatly into each system. Whats everyones experience in these two major differences in engine types

Ive been looking into can-bus sniffers and came across one that has a database of j1939 spn's I wonder how effective this technolgy is over multiple manufactureres? Im thinking of pulling the trigger on this one.
https://www.csselectronics.com/scre...,CAN hardware to try and control your vehicle.

 

[BigWrench55]

I guy that I work with has something similar to that one. The problem with off road versus obd2 is obd2 has the same protocol across the board. The make and model doesn't matter. With off road diagnostic its the wild west and it can change from model to model and brand. For example, with a j1939 protocol in car manufacturers. Let's say that pin 39 is the coolant temp sensor. That will be true for all makes and models. That's how the can sniffer with the software to identify components works. It doesn't work with off road so well. That same pin 39 could be anything on any make and model. There isn't any regulation of how these manufacturers do things and there isn't any global agreement to make it so as of yet. I hope that I am making sense. It's kinda hard to explain. The sniffer will work, but you may have to do the leg work. I have done some research in this with the hopes of building a device that can keep these machines viable after there isn't any dealer support anymore. There will come a day when that D8T sitting in a field can't be used because you can no longer buy a nox sensor for it. Nothing wrong with the machine but the computer won't let it run.

 

[Birken Vogt]

The sniffer will work, but you may have to do the leg work. I have done some research in this with the hopes of building a device that can keep these machines viable after there isn't any dealer support anymore. There will come a day when that D8T sitting in a field can't be used because you can no longer buy a nox sensor for it. Nothing wrong with the machine but the computer won't let it run.

That's kind of what I was saying in post #44 above. I've already seen it in the equipment I work on from the 80s. The manufacturer no longer has the part available but the aftermarket makes it better, cheaper, simpler and eliminates extraneous junk. The opportunities will be endless for a good electronics shop but the government and/or OEMs will want to step in and squash things if they see too much junk being fixed.

 

[Midnightmoon]

I guess I need to start working on emulators to fool ECU's into thinking that nox sensor is still working so when parts are no longe available we can keep the old iron working.

 

[BigWrench55]

I think that by the time I learn to do all this. Someone smarter than me and has better resources. Would come up with the solution years ahead of me. I don't know what kind of mind it takes to dream this software crap up. It certainly makes my brain smoke. Programming isn't my gig. To many variables to deal with and to much math involved. I would have to go back to school to learn how to do something like that. I could probably enlist my kids and they could do it for me.

 

[Midnightmoon]

Training the kids now with basic programming for building robots.
An emulator is just a micro computer set to send info to the ecm. I'm trying to make one to help with getting a machine in limp mode out of the swamp its stuck in so I dont have to work on it mud up to my knees. Not sure I'll ever figure it out but my kids might

 

[Birken Vogt]

To make a successful product it is going to take more than one genius. A software/computer hardware hacker to make the actual product. A mechanic/operator to keep things practical. And a lawyer to beat back the government and OEM goons. Plus office staff and somebody with deep pockets to supply all the money. But the opportunity is ripe.

 

[John C.]

You are partially right on the PM and NOX. It's high firing temperatures that create NOX. NOX isn't caught, its chemically converted into other compounds that are essentially harmless. The Tier 4 Interim machines were required to have low firing temperatures to limit NOX as there was no stream of reactant chemical to change it in the outlet of the engine. This made for lots of PM which they had to catch in the furnace filters and end up burning it to ash. The addition of DEF provided the needed chemicals that would react with the NOX and then allowed the firing temperatures to rise to more efficient rates. That provided for a more efficient engine. The penalty of the system is the added expense of the fluid and the maintenance item that has to be carefully monitored by the operators. The benefits are less regen cycles, a more efficient and longer lasting engine.

 

[AzIron]

You are partially right on the PM and NOX. It's high firing temperatures that create NOX. NOX isn't caught, its chemically converted into other compounds that are essentially harmless. The Tier 4 Interim machines were required to have low firing temperatures to limit NOX as there was no stream of reactant chemical to change it in the outlet of the engine. This made for lots of PM which they had to catch in the furnace filters and end up burning it to ash. The addition of DEF provided the needed chemicals that would react with the NOX and then allowed the firing temperatures to rise to more efficient rates. That provided for a more efficient engine. The penalty of the system is the added expense of the fluid and the maintenance item that has to be carefully monitored by the operators. The benefits are less regen cycles, a more efficient and longer lasting engine.

Is the rise in efficiency the reason some OEM's are doing away with egr

I am not engine by trade but it's my understanding that egr creates the majority of soot problems in engines equipped with it and the cause of premature ring failure that pretty much makes the emissions system nonfunctional because of lower compression and oil finding it's way into the combustion chamber?

 

[Midnightmoon]

I quess I missed something. I understand nox is caught by a chemical reaction that was just simplified.
I under stood it that manufactures went two different routes with reducing emmisions. Run engine hot to reduce pm or run it cold to reduce nox
Then it comes down to egr vs scr
It gets complicated with different horse power engines. One manufacture 72hp will run a dpf that needs to regen then another runs a pm catalist with no regen.
I think I need to reread some stuff

 

[John C.]

Soot is carbon and is the particulate matter that was getting caught and burned up in the DPF. The EGR is just taking some of the exhaust gas up stream of the DPF and injecting it into the induction air to cool down the firing temperatures in the cylinders. With DEF, you don't have to cool down those temps anymore so the EGR is needed less or not at all.

 

[John C.]

It is all complicated as hell and I always have the feeling we aren't being told the whole story. I am lucky to the point that when I worked for the Cat dealer I had full access to the technical literature.
The manufacturers didn't take two routes to get there either. They all took the same route with some variance in how to meet the specs. What I note is that all the manufacturers have very similar components which has made me wonder if some third party put the systems together and then sold the process and/or the components to each brand.

 

[Midnightmoon]

Svl 75-2 74hp has dpf
Case 310 78hp no dpf
No def on either of these engines
These two engines do not use the same technology the case pm cat is very small with no sensors on or after only before. Kubota dpf has all kinds of fun sensors. Case explained 2 ways to meet emmisions by running engine cool low nox or hot high nox. One engine puts out high pm and low nox and the other the oppisite. I thought I was starting to get a understanding. I'll have to watch that training module again.