rbargeron
Elite Member
Hi Mark, great to hear your voice!
No, the meter is strictly gear-driven from the engine and doesn't use time at all. The needle is magnetic so it's not perfectly accurate - but the counter is gear driven and there's no slip. It is geared so that it shows an "hour" for a fixed number of engine revolutions, usually around 150,000 for a tractor diesel. At full rated engine rpm, it logs an "hour" per actual hour. (2500 rpm for 60 minutes = 150,000 turns) But idling at 625 rpm it would take 4 hours to log an "hour" on the meter.
Many machines have gear-driven meters that count engine turns - it's a reasonable surrogate for actual engine usage and oil wear, although it ignores other factors like number of warm-up cycles, average power delivered, length of runs, average oil temp, dp across the filters, etc. Adding enough sensors for all that would push up the price. The counter is close enough.
Since I added 2-speed pto's to both my L5450's I rarely rev the engine above 1800-1900. So their "hour" count is about 25% lower than my actual seat time. Oh No, my secret's out ! I better call the guy who bought the canopy rig and confess !
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