On the subject of Cat engine codes...

[TugboatEng]

I have a D3512 that periodically spits out an Accelerator Pedal Position 1, Calibration Required. SPN 91 FMI 13. We don't even have accelerator pedals as this is a marine installation. It goes away after resetting power and doesn't come on regularly. It's more of a nuisance. This engine has the second generation wiring harness with the Marine Power Display unlike the relay panel in the previous question.

 

[catserveng]

Since CAT engines started going electronic in truck engines, the foot pedal was the default for the desired speed input in the core softwares. If the engineer doing up the settings flash file wasn't diligent, those kinds of errors occured.

That particular code is associated with the desired speed input, on some marine engines there were two possible inputs, depending on how the ECM was configured. Most earlier engine ECM's used a desired speed input with a 500Hz PWM signal, if the signal went below 10% or above 90% it would throw that code. You may have an intermittent wiring connection, or whatever is generating the speed reference signal may have an issue.

Is this a propulsion engine or marine genset?

If you go here,

https://forums.cat.com/

and start a topic in the Marine Power Systems section, make sure you provide as much detail as you can and your serial number, that way someone with current CAT access can see if there is any particular info out on your engine. In a lot of cases a flash file update fixes a lot of these problems. Do you have CAT ET? It would be helpful to know the flash file part number and version, but you have to have the computer based service tool to find that out.

Hope that helps, MikeL.

 

[TugboatEng]

It is a propulsion engine, it's one of those Tier 0 to Tier 2 upgrade engines. I do have Cat ET.

 

[catserveng]

So the SPN 91 (Suspect Parameter Number) is listed in the SAE J1939 SPN list as Accelerator Pedal Position #1, in most cases CAT calls it desired speed input. FMI 13 is Out of Calibration Range, again according to the J1939 FMI list, but CAT follows that pretty close.

What provides your speed reference signal? Depending on your vessel you may have multiple control stations feeding a single drive control, a single station or multiple daisy chained stations. Does your throttle control use a signal output, such as PWM or analog voltage or current, or does it use CANBus?

Usually this code comes up when using a hardwire signal when you have loose or corroded connections, also some throttle heads may not be properly setup for the correct range of adjustment, the 10-90% input range is pretty common on most units, if the desired speed input consistantly goes above or below that range then the FMI 13 gets thrown.

On J1939 or CANBus controls it's usually either an initial setup problem with the scaling in the PGN, or a CANBus signal problem, again wiring or connections.

MikeL.

 

[catserveng]

How familiar are you with the Datalog function in ET? Sometimes to find these problems I will setup a datalog of the desired speed input and see what it looks like.

There is a function in ET called "Product Status Report", if you pull and print that send it to your supporting dealer, he should be able to tell you if there are any applicable flash file upgrades for your engine.

MikeL.

 

[TugboatEng]

The engine has two sources of throttle input, there is a local potentiometer on the engine as well as an input from the z-drive control. The z-drive control outputs a 0-10v signal. In the control cabinate there is a V to I converter. In the engine control panel is the Cat I to PWM converter. I understand there are a lot of places to have an issue here. The part that confuses me is that when we energized the engine control with the z-drive control de-energized or we have the manual potentiometer completely zeroed, we get a throttle calibration error (I will get the exact wordage when the vessel returns). The accelerator position warning is very intermittent as in once every couple of months.

There are two throttle inputs fed into a single z-drive control panel. Thinking a bit more into it, this problem is intermittent and the use of the aft control station is infrequent. I will have to ask the captain if he used the aft station around that time.

It sure would be nice if Cat ET would let you view the data plot in real time and then capture the data when you see the event vs. having to save all of the data and parse through it later while crossing your fingers that you captured it.

 

[catserveng]

There is the real time graphing feature but once the data is off the screen its gone.

Another thing you could do is a triggered datalog, you use desired speed as the trigger and if it goes high or low it will start the log, just set the pre-trigger to maximum(varies depending on which version of ET you have). That way you only have to dig thru a smaller amount of data, its a good tool and I used it a lot over the years.

Yes a lot of steps in your control system for desired speed, I used to find a lot of problems in those areas, there are some commercial analog to PWM converters that will accept an analog voltage, Axiomatic makes them and I use them quite a bit.

Where are you getting the diagnostic info? Is it a CAT Marine Power Display? Or one of the commercial or custom marine vessel display systems? I worked on a system last year where the custom display system only had three failure modes defined, so a SPN would come in but unless it was one of the three the programmer felt was important, you didn't know which one it was.

The issue with the local potentiometer was fairly common for a while, that is one I'm pretty sure got fixed with an updated flash file, but it also came up time to time if someone replaced the CATinstalled pot with another one of the wrong value, they were 10k ohm I think.

Have you discussed this with your servicing CAT dealer or do you guys handle most of your own issues?

Regards,

 

[TugboatEng]

Thank you for the idea about using triggers, I feel that will be very useful.

Our converter is a Mathers unit, I feel that is a very rare breed. I feel like I should ditch the analog to analog converters and install a digital panel meter with analog input and a scalable analog output to save the trouble of dialing in potentiometers.

This info is off the marine power display.

I would like to build a closer relationship with our dealer. We handle most operations on our own with the exception of overhauls. I usually work with the field technicians but their knowledge of the electrical and controls side of the engines seems limited.

 

[catserveng]

Is your Mathers control system before or after ZF bought them out? The Clear Command system seemed pretty good to me when I got around them, but its been a while. The Glendinning stuff always seemed to work, but I think they were much more expensive. Was this a retrofit? It may be you had an older pneumatic control then someone tried to adapt it to work with an electronic engine, I spent a bunch of time many years ago chasing a lot of problems with those setups.

When you get back to the vessel, connect ET and get a product status report, it should give you a history of the event and fault codes that ay be more helpful that what you get off the MPD, I was never really a fan of that particular product (just a personal view).

Would mind telling me which dealer you are working with? I got around most of the US and many of the Canada dealers in my previous life, still have a bunch of contacts so I may be able to point you to someone who may be more helpful. Most of the dealers seem to be struggling with having good people who are willing to do the heavy dirty work and also be willing to dive into the more complicated electronic controls, but they are more tied together everyday.

MikeL.

 

[TugboatEng]

The vessel was originally a D399 boat but was converted to Ulstein z-drives and 3512B series engines in 1998. The Ulstein control uses synchros to generate a throttle position and the output is 0-10v. This system is VERY robust compared to everybody else's potentiometer based systems. Within the Ulstein cabinet, the installer installed the Mathers converter to convert 0-10 to 4-20.

I feel your sentiments about the MPD. Even the cheapest, most basic control units from other brands have event logging and allow some level of programming through the keypad with regards to inputs, outputs, and alarms. We're buying new engines shortly with the newer displays. I refuse to install them in the wheelhouse because the sounder isn't readily disabled and having multiple sources of alarms in a wheelhouse just causes confusion. The MPD panels provide little useful information, either.

We purchase our engines through NC Power Systems and they also do our overhauls. Our local dealership is Peterson Power Systems in San Leandro. They provide us with parts support.

 

[catserveng]

The Ulstein hardware is pretty awesome stuff, you may want to consider getting rid of the intermediate analog converter and just go direct from 0-10VDC to PWM,

http://www.axiomatic.com/signal-converter/pwm-converter-0-10-vdc-to-pwm/

Gets rid of a device, multiple connections and some wiring, and depending on which 4-20mA to PWM converter you have installed, may also get rid of some latency.

Can't help you with Peterson, am kinda on their $hit list right now over some generator issues with a customer we both did some work for.

Most of the really sharp NC guys on controls and electronics have been sent other places from what I've heard, mostly oil field stuff. Hard to find guys who will do the heavy and dirty work and will still dive into the more controls and electronics stuff, and when the dealers find them its getting harder to keep them. Peterson had a really sharp tech, excellent on ECM's, datalink and communications stuff, worked mostly in power generation but did some marine work, I think his name was Aaron, heard he left and is supposed to working at a place called Bay Marine somewhere in that area. He worked on a few of the early D3600 to C280 conversions if you're familiar with those.

Wild guess but I'm thinking you may be with one of the Crowley outfits?

Good luck in your venture, MikeL

 

[TugboatEng]

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