Cummins QSC540

[mainshiptom]

Anyone knows much about those?

How often should I service? can you recommend anyone or should i use Cummins them selfes?

Thanks

Tom

ps I am sure divemaster would know all the answers and more?

 

[Divemaster1]

Same engines as in Earthrace, so you should be OK for reliability ... (when do you plan to beat their circumnavigation record?).

Not much that should go wrong there, and all depends on your warranty situation...

If no warranty, Id' change oil, filters etc., myself and find out how frequent the injectors & valves should be done and followed that with a good diesel mechanic ... perhaps by CMD..... or if you're good, do it your self...

 

[mainshiptom]

Thanks Alf

How often should I do it? every year? or so many hours?

They are so nice and clean did not want to spoil anything?

Do i need to tell the computer anything? it has its own little flat screen which tells me stuff all the time?

Thanks

tom

 

[Divemaster1]

My personal preference is to change oil at the end of the season ... autumn.

I am sure that you have an instruction book somewhere that will give you an indication of what to do ... if not, call CMD to get one.

Computer ??? so you have one of these fancy ones now ... no need to show off ... don't tell it to go to the internet and surf for "entertainment" ... you'll never get anything sensible from it again /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

What kind of things is it telling you ?? CMD have a diagnostic programme so you can hook your shiny iron lumps to a laptop and get a report of the current status and what needs to be done. Think you need to speak with CMD on that one.

 

[mainshiptom]

Ok will talk to cmd !

It tell me stuff like fuel consumption, water in fuel(done that once), lots of warning and temptures of all sorts of things,

Tom

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I don't have experience of Cummins in boats but they're pretty big in construction equipment. The engines are well regarded but the service isn't. Put it it like this. In my company, we got so pissed off with Cummins UK's service and complained so much that they eventually supplied us with their own internal diagnostic software such that my service engineers could attend to our Cummins related problems rather than wait days for their engineers to appear

 

[mainshiptom]

Wow Mike

could I have a copy?

Tom

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Sorry, Tom, no, because it's coded only for use on our laptops and is specific to the engines that are fitted to the equipment we sell. Cummins may sell the software to you for your engine but it took a lot of persuasion on our part to get it. Also I believe it comes in layers, the detailed ones of which they very reluctant to supply

 

[mainshiptom]

Thanks Mike,

I know a pub in Greenwich that supplies most things?

Tom

 

[Latestarter1]

I will just try and get a few things straight.

Cummins QSC/QSL is a brilliant motor. Slaughtered CAT 3126/C7 in terms of reliability and durability and runs ring around CAT C9 in terms of fuel economy in U.S. Marine market where they are #1.

QSC/QSL is so clean that it attracts 100% grant in California to replace Detroit strokers. This is a true heavy duty wet liner engine.

Cummins Diesel the distributor can be a nausea, however since CMD they have appointed some darn good marine dealers who are very well tooled up and trained.

Unlike Volvo you can do your own maintainence provided you use approved oil and filters and NOT compromise your warranty which is 24 Months and 72 Months on major components. Beat that.

The software that is referred to is INSITE. Anybody can purchase INSITE Lite however full INSITE has the ability to alter vehicle speed limiters which is why mere mortals can't have it.

A far cheaper option is the Cummins QuickCheck diagnostic tool which comes with all the leads to plug into your engine for less than £500.

Dammed with faint praise I wold say.

 

[Latestarter1]

Tom,

I was going to send you a message to ask you if you require any more information on the Cummins QSC 540, however you have exceeded your mailbox quota. You can contact me on latestarter1@btinternet.com.

Look up the Quickcheck at; http://quickcheck.cummins.com/

You will see that as well as capturing live data as well as fault codes it can download a cable and software to dump all data onto a PC. We have used this to obtain very accurate propeller matching as the engine 'knows' exactly what the % engine loading is for a given throttle setting.

I am currently looking at the protocols for interfacing the unit with Volvo. QC 5100 works seamlessly with CAT & Detroit MTU, in the U.S the attitude is that the information broadcast over the datalink is for the benefit of the owner.

Before I retired I was working on a simple set up where for a small annual fee your engine was monitored over a cellular network. If it threw up a fault code your nominated dealer was automatically notified and be on stand by to fix the problem with parts ordered.

When we ran the numbers electronic engines proved too reliable to make the numbers stack up.