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Re: Electrical Troubleshooting


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Posted by NCWayne on August 14, 2012 at 08:00:24 from (69.40.232.132):

In Reply to: Re: Electrical Troubleshooting posted by John T on August 14, 2012 at 04:45:50:

Your right. The problem is things that could possibly be tested in a lab type situation aren't always possible to test in the field where all you've got is a meter or test light. Too when you don't have any idea what the current draw on solenoid A should be, what resistance is supposed to be on resistor B, and there is nothing you can do to find out because the factory doesn't release that information, even in the service manual (if your lucky enough to have on). At that point I don't care wether your Billy Bob or his beer gussling cousin, the multimeter is all there is and all you can do is rely on what it tells you.

Cases in point. About ten years ago I had an engine that wouldn't start because the solenoid in the fuel pump wouldn't pull in. Based on both my multimeter and a test light I had 24 volts to it, but it still wasn't working. This left me no choice but to pull the pump and take it to a repair shop. Put it back in and it still didn't work even though voltage was still resent. Tracing the wore back I finally found a connection where all but one strand of a 14 ga wire had broken off from a terminal end. Like you said, the one strand was carrying enough current through it to light a light, and read on the meter, but not enough to pull in the solenoid. In that case testing with a multimeter was pretty much all you could do. There were no specs on the current the solenoid should draw to know wether it was good or not so pulling the pump to have it bench tested and repaired was the only option.

Taking things a step further. Several years back I was talking to a dealership mechanic about some problems with a newer machine. He had just came back from a week plus working on a brand new machine that the customer had only had for a few days before it starting having trouble. Given the newness, and large size of the machine, it wasn't something that the factory could just swap out as a lemon. As a result when the mechanic wouldn't get it fixed on his own after several days, they had sent a team of their engineers down to help out with the repair. After nearly a full week of testing, tracing, etc, etc, etc they had finally come to the conclusion that there was no fixing it and had resigned themselves to having to give the customer a new machine. That was about the time one of the engineers disconnected a connector and noticed that when he hooked it back up it didn't feel quite right. Turns out one of the pins in the connector wasn't engaging with it's mating half in the other side of the connector. Instead was riding down beside it making partial/intermittent contact. A new connector body was installed which fixed the problem with the pin not lining up, and the machine was repaired. Thing is this pin was for a ground leg, which made it impossible to find given the testing proceedures the factory provided for the machine. That being the case they could have tested for a year using the factory guide, factory test tools, etc, etc and still not found the problem. So, here you have a problem that, even with a factory guide, factory engineers, factory tools, etc it still couldn't be 'tested out' and nothing but 'dumb luck' solved the problem.

In another instance I read about in a trade publication a crane stopped with it's load hanging over a traffic lane while working on a bridge. The interstate had been closed temporarily for the pick, but then had to remain closed until the factory tech was flown in to troubleshoot and repair it. As you can imagine this cost the contractor BIG BUCKS. In the end what had happened was the operation of the machine had caused coffee to slosh out of the operators cup and it found it's way into what was supposed to be a sealed housing and screwed up a circuit board. In this case the tech was able to troubleshoot the problem and solve it relatively easily according to the article. My point here though is here is a case of technology causing BIG problems, and a BIG expense for a company, all over an operator doing what millions of them do, drinking coffee at work.

In cases like these having a degree in electronics, having 30,000 worth of equipment, and even having the factory manuals, is all great. In the end, all of that matters only a little bit as troubleshooting problems on new machines like these is really nothing but a crap shoot where you hope to get lucky and figure out what's going on.....And hope that by replacing harness A, B, or C, the three options the manual gives to repair the suspected problem, will actually repair it. Thing is hanress A, B, and C are $2500 worth of nonrefundable, special order parts that comprises 90% of the machines complete wiring harness, and take a weeks worth of work to change out.....Just so the throttle works correctly.......


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