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That quiet little solenoid cost me a full shift on Wednesday
We pulled the 8-inch cutterhead out of the cut at Holbrook Point, everything looked fine from the outside. Hydraulics checked, pump pressure at 2,400 psi, all that. But the swing arm kept creeping starboard no matter what I did with the joystick. Finally got the electrician to trace the whole circuit and it was the swing solenoid, the one in the rear valve bank nobody ever looks at. It was reading open on the meter but only failing under load, so it looked good to a handheld tester. That little part is maybe 80 bucks and it ate 9 hours of production. Anyone else ever get burned by a solenoid that tests fine but dies when it's actually working?
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ivan16019d ago
Man, that hurts. Had almost the same thing happen on a skid steer attachment a couple years back, solenoid checked perfect with a multimeter but would just die once the oil got hot and pressure spiked. Spent a whole afternoon chasing my tail before I swapped it out on a hunch. Those intermittent failures are the worst because everything says it should work, but it just won't when it counts.
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