Looking for insight on a side income - Known Good Engine Controllers for Troubleshooting

[ChuckRock]

Hey all - I am looking for your opinion on if this could be a relevant side income for a fairly niche market.

I have been an engine guy for the past 20 years. I enjoy everything about diesel. You can call me crazy, but I get great enjoyment from troubleshooting aftertreatment concerns.

I have the pleasure of being remote support for some great technicians about 175 all together. Every now and then we get to the question of condemning an engine controller. Now I imagine we can all agree that engine controllers can be incorrectly identified as an issue, and they are frequently, but they can be the point of failure.

Because of previous incorrect diagnoses, I have several known-good controllers I can program.

When a technician gets to the point of saying - "All my troubleshooting steps point me to this #,###$ controller - how can I be sure?" I can program and overnight ship a known good controller.

Have any of you ever been in this position where this would have saved you, and your customer, time and money and heartache?

I am all ears to your thoughts, positive and negative.

 

[8V71]

It is always comforting to verify a faulty controller. I have several I have saved over time and waved the core charge . I have them labeled with the issues they had. Not necessarily good ones but as long as I was troubleshooting a different issue they worked well. It would be helpful for many. Still a lot to be said about proper diagnostics,usually gets me to the answer but it is nice to have that option. What brands?

 

[ChuckRock]

Currently I would target Cummins CM850 - CM2350. Industrial and automotive.

Thanks for your reply!

 

[MarshallPowerGen]

Had a previously local to me Deere guy that kept a spare engine controller out of a Powertech (4045 or 6068) engine on his truck. Worked fine except for a coolant related alarm (IIRC), so could plug it in and quickly tell if a fault was actual, or just a funky ECU. Keep hoping to run into a similar one I can stash on the truck one of these days...

 

[cfherrman]

I've been wanting to install engine controllers on well service rigs and have one on my own. My brother has to program and he's busy plus lack of funds make it hard getting it off the ground. There is a extremely huge market for them. I've been dealing with Murphy ennovation digital ones and they have lots of power.

 

[chidog]

So then your an electronics tech then? Many times electronic control units fail from, electrolytic capacitors going bad then burned traces etc., green crusty's - corrosion, cold solder joints or just broke solder joints age and vibration.
So your planning on doing this sort of reburb on them?