50 hour regen won't finish?

[jethroish]

Yesterday while using my 55, it hit the magical 50 hour mark. When I got it back to the barn, it had 50.3 hours and dash symbol showed in an automatic regen. I left it run for about 20 minutes. The regen icon never went away. Called the local RK tech, he said to bring RPM up to 1500 and it should finish up quickly. Automatic regen occurs on the 55s during use, unlike the 37s, or so I am told. After 45 minutes at 1500 rpm, was still indicating a regen. The DPF and exhaust pipe were not overly hot. Called the tech again. He was baffled. At his agreement, I put the engine back to idle for about 5 minutes then shut it down for the night. RK tech is getting me on the books to come hook up his laptop.

This morning, I turned the key on to see if a regen icon came up, but it did not. HOWEVER, on the display screen was "START CHECK." I have never seen that before either.
Don't know if anyone else has experienced any of the above. If so, what did you do next?

 

[markie61]

he said to bring RPM up to 1500 and it should finish up quickly. Automatic regen occurs on the 55s during use, unlike the 37s, or so I am told. After 45 minutes at 1500 rpm, was still indicating a regen. The DPF and exhaust pipe were not overly hot...
"START CHECK." I have never seen that before either.
Don't know if anyone else has experienced any of the above. If so, what did you do next?

I have had the auto-regen come on during low-speed use, but I bump the revs to 2000 (so it gets good and hot) and keep working; it always goes out after 20-30 minutes in the 4-5 times it's happened over 107hrs of use. Kinda smells different than normal operation too. I've not see "start check" yet and it's not in the manual that I see. Once the tech gives you insight, would you please share here?

 

[jethroish]

Talked to the tech again this morning. The START CHECK is supposed to come up if the the pre-start settings are not noticed per 4-2 of manual. Did nothing different today than any other.
Did start the tractor. There was NO regen symbol. Tech thinks the computer caught up and reset things but he is still going come hook up the computer.

 

[jeff9366]

Yesterday while using my 55, it hit the magical 50 hour mark. When I got it back to the barn, it had 50.3 hours and dash symbol showed in an automatic regen. I left it run for about 20 minutes. The regen icon never went away.

My 37-horsepower, three cylinder Kubota engine requires 2,200 rpm to reach DPF regeneration temperature when stationary/parked. Throttle advance to 2,200 rpm is "coached" by an upward arrow flashing on the tach. Once hot, stationary regeneration @ 2,200 rpm requires a consistent 16 minutes to complete.

Next stationary regeneration, experiment with higher engine rpms. Stationary regeneration fuel cost is only ~~$1.00

Does RK55 manual suggest engine rpms during stationary regeneration?

It seems to me a DPF temperature readout on electronic instrument panels would address many DPF complaints, as would more descriptive technical writing.

 

[Peter 315]

My 37-horsepower, three cylinder Kubota engine requires 2,200 rpm to reach DPF regeneration temperature when stationary/parked. Once hot, regeneration @ 2,200 rpm requires a consistent 16 minutes to complete.

Next stationary regeneration, experiment with higher engine rpms.

Same here and the brakes have to be on when doing a stationary regen..

 

[jethroish]

Peter 315,

This was not a "stationary" regen. The RK55 will do an automatic regen while in use. Just happened that it started the regen while I was using it but did not finish before I was ready to park the tractor. All the "wonderful" manual says is to not turn off tractor while in regen as indicated by the High Temp icon on the panel.

For a stationary regen, the tractor will self adjust the RPM. Appearrantly, it will not transition from Automatic (in use) regen to Stationary regen.

 

[jeff9366]

Peter 315,

This was not a "stationary" regen. The RK55 will do an automatic regen while in use. Just happened that it started the regen while I was using it but did not finish before I was ready to park the tractor. All the "wonderful" manual says is to not turn off tractor while in regen as indicated by the High Temp icon on the panel.

For a stationary regen, the tractor will self adjust the RPM. Apparrantly, it will not transition from Automatic (in use) regen to Stationary regen.

I speculate tractor DPF cooled down during final moments of regeneration period, while your tractor was parked.

 

[Gator6x4]

I have a neighbor who had the Service People out three time because of trying to do a re-gen at idle. The last time they told him the next time it would cost him $150.00. He suddenly remembered the magic number for re-gen is in the 2200 rpm range not idle.

 

[gunny0628]

I ran into similar issues about 50 hours, in now at 70. My first was a regen that was occurring while the tractor was running and I wasn’t sure because the symbols were confusing as per the manual versus what I was seeing on the dash. What it was telling me is that everything was hot enough while I was running the finish mower. I was told to park and run it at full rpms. When in fact all I needed to do was park and turn it off because it was actually hot enough to be complete the regen while I was operating it.

The second time the symbol actually indicated that I needed to complete a regen. I parked and hit the regen button and it completed about 20 minutes later.

Not sure if this will help but there is a post about this a few months back.

 

[jethroish]

Things finally dried up enough that I could give the tractor a proper workout. While working up the riding arena, as soon as I brought the RPM above 1800, the REGEN (hot exhaust) symbol came on. And yea, I could smell it. After about 25 minutes, the symbol disappeared from the dash display and all was good.
Looking back to the original REGEN that got me started on this post, it had not finished when I was done working. At the advisement of the RK tech, I tried to let it finish at 1500 RPM. I am guessing if I would have had it at 2000 RPM, all would have been good.
Lesson learned for all.