Service ..
Has your machine experienced an erratic spread rate at slow speeds and low rates?
This is virtually always diagnosed as a computer error. Experience has shown that the solution has in fact been the replacement of a worn conveyor motor.
The first symptoms to appear with an ailing conveyor motor is an increase in oil temperature. This is normally accompanied by a jerky operation of the chain at low revs. If left unattended the symptoms develop into the conveyor virtually stopping when the motor drive locks onto the lobe. The computer will open the valve to start the motor and then it will shoot off to a very high speed which the computer will then try to correct. This appears to happen at slow ground speed and low revs. Our most advanced computer the 20/20 has the ability to record what the conveyor is doing far quicker than the older computers and in cases of a severely worn conveyor motor the computer can be indicating a rate from 0 to 5000kg near instantaneously. The older computers would not pick this up. As you can see this is not a computer malfunction rather indicating what is occurring with the motor. At this point the conveyor motor has reached the point of failure.
The life expectancy of a pump/motor on a spreader is around 5000 hours. The design life stated from most manufacturers is 2500 hours. However that is at max pressure and speed. Those parameters are never achieved in the normal operating conditions of a spreader hence the 5000 hr expectation.
There are some units out in the market place that have logged in excess of 10,000 hours. Operators must expect to have some issues with them. That is 4 times longer than manufacturers expected life for those products.