06 903J John Deere Feller buncher tracking problems.

[Buncherman95]

 Hello I have a 2006 903J Feller buncher and I'm having problems with tracking ahead and sometimes backwards. The buncher will work good for 20-30 minutes until it warms up then all of a sudden when you are tracking ahead it will just kick out and sometimes say (Petals out of range) on the screen. Then you take your feet off the petals and then try them again they might work for 2 feet or 200 feet and kick out. Alot of the times the petals will not work for 1 to 2 minutes and then they will work again and you can track ahead a couple feet and sometimes more. Now alot of the times after it kicks out the first time when you get it working again it will track ahead faster at 3/4 petal then it will track backwards when you go backwards it will hardly move will the full petal. Another thing is when you are tracking ahead after this happens if you only push your petal 3/4 of the way down it will not kick out nearly as much but as soon and you push the petal more then 3/4 of the way it kicks out. I was just wondering if anyone could help me out. Thank you.

[mike_belben]

youre saying the track drive motors are not responding correctly to the input signals from your feet moving the control pedals, correct?

Taking a guess here, I assume this machine uses servo controls to move hydraulic spools in remote located valves.  If so theyd have wires from the control pedal to the[edit: to the driver, then the driver to the] servo and the servo would have some form of encoder feedback to the driver.  Maybe start by a good hard look at all the wires involved, for signs of pinch, fray, cut, corrosion, water damage or lose connections.  Hopefully one of the better mechanics pops in shortly.

[Buncherman95]

Yes you are correct and I've looked over all of the wires but I'm going to have to look again even harder. I was told it could be a solinoid on the pump for the tracks not working correctly. John Deere said the petals might need adjusted but I can't seem to find anywhere that you could adjust them from.

[mike_belben]

In general, troubleshooters are looking at these scenarious the same way a landowner looks for the beaver dam thats popped up over the weekend somewhere in the bush.  Keep looking at spots you can get access to and seeing if the problem is upstream or downstream of where you are.  This will guide you atleast closer toward the problem.  

I know nothing of this machine.  but as the circuit is concerned.. Can we manually stroke solenoids?  Can we check for signal into and out of harnesses or computers? Do the computers have any blinky lights that reference a fault code?  Can we measure resistance across coils and joysticks to compare to other coils and joysticks?  Can you unplug both ends of a harness and feed voltage down the line to see if it all comes out the other end?  Check each line for continuity to ground to ensure there isnt a sheetmetal screw from the door jam pushing through two wires?  Sometimes you stumble onto the culprit while in there trying to perform some other test.  Hopefully without frying anything else or driving the machine into a service truck.

[backwoodsdave]

I don't work on many Deere machines but I see a fair amount of barko and tiger cat machines and when I see an out of range error on a travel pedal or joystick especially on a machine with a few hrs on it I start looking at wires, corrosion in pin connectors etc, if the problem is showing on both travel pedals I would suspect signal voltage, not sure what kind of electrical control the deere has but moisture plays heck with connections, double check your wiring and connections starting at the pigtail coming off the travel pedal and work your way back, any corrosion in a plug can cause a headache, very low voltages and amperage and I doesn't take much to cause a problem.

[mike_belben]

Ooh good point.  

"Ground" is a reference voltage.  Make sure all your ground wires and chassis have continuity with your battery negative and all ground wires have zero volts on them.  

If you chaffe a wire and end up putting small amounts of voltage into a large amount of metal, you end up with an un-noticed resistive heating element that doesnt blow a fuse.  The problem is that your computer might be looking for a 12.7vdc DIFFERENCE OF POTENTIAL between your positive and negative wires.  If you have 12.7vdc on your hot leg and 2.9vdc on your ground leg, the difference of potential is gonna be a problem. 

[kiko]

I know nothing of the 903j either. But in general operation of electrical motion control. The pedal would be out of range when voltage has exceeded the normal range at full engagement .  nuetral would be 0 volts signal to module at full forward would be just shy of 5 volt reference, reverse will be in the same range negitive.  One pedal out of range will likely kick out all travel funtion  when code is active. I would raise each track and engage fully to determine which pedal is the culprit. If adustable likely the potentiometer will be where the adjustment is , also if the pedal is connected to potentiometer with linkage check it for slack.  A multimeter can be used to find the range adjustments.

[Southside]

I am sure glad my stuff is at most pilot hydraulic and not fly by wire.  Chasing these gremlins drives me nuts.  

[backwoodsdave]

I am sure glad my stuff is at most pilot hydraulic and not fly by wire.  Chasing these gremlins drives me nuts.  

Very true, back when I started working on equipment I had a full head of hair, had color to it back then too!

[Skeans1]

Does the computer have adjustment for the pedal travel? Only reason I ask is out 1210b has something like this for the joysticks same for the 1270.

[kiko]

I speculate any adjustment within the programming would be for ramp rates or delay times for load sense. All which operate with in the voltage range.  I could not say if John Deere would allow this access to the customer, probably not.  In the Tigercats you can make some adjustments with current outputs to the drive pump and motors.  The voltage inputs can be seen on the monitor screen but not adjusted as far as I am aware. Factory programming again may be different .  Also I have found when the electric joysticks are worn and won't find neutral own their own. It must be held in nuetral or the module will recognize that the voltage input is out of range for nuetral and not allow joystick function. Backwoodsdave, have you chased any of the drive speed issues with the Tigercat skidders?  

[Skeans1]

On the older TJ 1210 once in a blue we have to recalibrate the movement of the levers and pedal. The 1270 is new but basically the same kind of setup, they'll both show you the amount of voltage being sent to the valve on the screen which might be the issue.

[backwoodsdave]

 Backwoodsdave, have you chased any of the drive speed issues with the Tigercat skidders?  

I have a few customers who run some 620 tigercats and I haven't heard of any speed issues from them.

[kiko]

A calibration issue would make sense .  I have been through calbrations on jd dozers to establish begin and end of lever and pedals stroke. Maybe this would apply to the 903j?

[Buncherman95]

Thanks for all the help guys. I ended up finding the problem I hope because it has worked good so far. I went through all the wires starting under the petals outside the cab all the way to the module in the cab under the panel and then I went back to the engine and found the relays for the travel motors and I swapped them out.

[kiko]

Excellent!!

[barbender]

Hopefully that takes care of it👍 My mind also went to a possible calibration issue, on the Ponsse machines we have to periodically recalibrate the joysticks and throttle/travel petal. Simple to do on these, but I am not familiar with Deere machines at all.