FWIW, I just now used the CAT WR6000 pallet jack (i.e. the 2007 vintage Jungheinrich) for the longest period I've used it in quite a while. I had forgot just how smooth it accelerates.... It's amazing really...makes the new one seem quite crude in comparison. Reminds me of what I was thinking when I decided to buy the new one....if the old one was such a joy to operate, think how nice a brand new one must be.........D'oh !

The controller does appear different on the older model....the word Jungheinrich cast into the aluminum cover.

My impression is that the new ECR327, even if fixed so that it doesn't suddenly jump 5 times the speed, will still not be so seamless in acceleration as the older model. Even in reverse, where it does not have the sudden jump in speed, it accelerates in small increments rather than one continuous flow.

Anyone know if this "small increment" acceleration is a new phenomenon common to other modern AC drive pallet jacks, or is unique to the Jungheinrich ?

Well I suppose they could have changed it to a Curtis

"Get in touch with Jungheinrich HQ in Germany, im sure they will be very unhappy to hear about the level of poor service support there US service arm is giving its customers"

Besides the potential language barrier, I'm not sure who to contact over there... anyone know ? Obviously the CEO would be ideal but probably impossible to get thru to him (or her !)

Re Curtis, I was told by the head service manager of the dealer corporate headquarters it was a Curtis controller. That inspired me to take a look at it. The data plate is Jungheinrich but it does look absolutely identical to the Curtis 1234E, which has a unique design on the case.

This reminds me of something I haven't mentioned in this thread...and that is, I also own an older version of this same pallet jack...the CAT WR6000 (which as most of you know, is really a Jungheinrich with a CAT sticker) Bought it used about a year ago, and unlike this new one accelerates smooth as silk.

So now you are wondering why did I buy the new one in the first place... LOL....well, the CAT has 8 foot forks and is therefore relegated to a few specific uses in my business...like moving automatic bandsaws in 7 x 7 foot crates. But the forks are just too long to manuver in most of the shop for the other machine moves.

Also due to the 8 foot fork model being a "not needed much, but when needed, needed really bad" situation, I never bought a proper battery for it and get by with a couple of deep cycle marine batteries, so it's not much use for my upcoming major use situation for that reason as well as the "too long" forks.

The irony is I bought the new Jungheinrich because I like the old one so much ! Never in my wildest imagination did I think a new one would be *worse*.

When I've complained about the performance of the new one and mentioned how smooth the old one is the standard response is "well yes, the old one has a different controller !" As if that is supposed to help me accept the new one runs so bad ?? Almost like saying "well yes, the old models had a good controller and the new models have a crappy controller !"

Anyhoo, enough for now....gotta get to work...thanks for the responses folks.

good thought rafarmer but that 1234E isn't designed for pallet jacks, it is more for the bigger sitdown riders that have drive and hydraulic electric controls, hence the dual pot inputs, one for drive and the other for hyd input. Most pallet jacks don't have variable hydraulic controls, they are self contained hydraulic units with pump, motor, resivoir all contained in one unit , it's either 'on' or 'off'.

As for the drive controller in the jungheinrich units i can say with some certainty they are not made by Curtis, most of the ones I've seen look more like something danaher or sevcon but from what i understand is they design their own. I'm sure some other company manufacture's them for jungheinrich but they do have jungheinrich labels all over them. So whomever actually mfg's them is a mystery. Maybe if the cover could be removed that might reveal something internally, and to be honest I've had the cover off one of these controllers but unfortunately i wasn't looking for secret mfg labels, was looking for loose ribbon cables on the circuit boards ;o) (a problem they had early on)

As for hooking a handset to it to adjust settings? i wasn't aware that could be done, the db9 serial connector on this unit was designed for laptop connection using their AC controls software, i am not aware of any jungheinrich handset. (not saying there isn't one, I've just never seen one)

I'm still leaning towards some kind of programming adjustment or possibly even a defective tiller control.

"and therefore costs less for them to repair on site. "

What is more expensive: a mechanic driving mutiple times up and down, or pick up once and having it fixed in the workshop.

Get in touch with Jungheinrich HQ in Germany, im sure they will be very unhappy to hear about the level of poor service support there US service arm is giving its customers.

This sounds like a really bad dealer, to bad they can't man-up and stand behind their product, and by product I don't mean just the Jungheinrich but their service. On the point of your problem, I was checking out the Curtis web site on their model 1234E controller and noticed that it has inputs for two accel. pots. If this is a 1234E controller and the truck has two pots, the second one might be bad thus explaining the abrupt curve in acceleration (first one working ok and second one WFO) that said I do not have any experience with this controller or truck, just a thought.

I've called Jungheinrich in Houston three times over the past couple of weeks. No matter what I say I get routed to an entity called "Lift Central" who apparently is contracted by Junheinrich to deal with the dealers and only the dealers can deal with problems !

Almost begged Lift Central to at least allow me to talk to a Jungheinrich engineer to get his take on what the problem might be. No can do...apparently part of the contract with Lift Central is no end user can talk to anyone at Jungheinrich about anything.

So it's an endless loop of always going back to the same dealer. Except last time they did at least route me to the dealers corporate headquarters in NC where I told the tale of woe to the head service person for the regional dealer network.

At that time I had not done the testing and videos so I can imagine a senario where he thought I might be over reacting to the problems, but since then I emailed him the videos and other testing info posted here. Day or two goes by, no response. So I email I really need this thing fixed as I just sold one of my warehouses and have to move 15,000 sq feet of machinery out this month... no response.

So I call service manager at the local dealership on Friday, he says he is aware of the new info (i.e. main service guy is ignoring me but apparently is forwarding my new info to local guy) and they are running tests on a unit they have there* and will call to set up time to come. No call yet.

I could call and pester further but I'm so tired of calling them, plus I'm pretty busy during the day and at this point almost curious to see if they never call back. If they don't call back by the end of the week one can be pretty sure they are hoping I will just give up and go away. At that point I'll start naming names. Which probably won't help my situation but at least might help some others be a bit wary of these guys.

But back to Jungheinrich in Houston, TX...that's where they manufacture these jacks. But they have managed to insulate themselves behind an iron wall... no way that I know of to get thru it. Suspect if they have that attitude it probably wouldn't do any good to get thru if I could.

I do wonder what the corporate brass in Germany would think about all this.

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*Last time I asked, they said they no longer stock the ECR327, so the fact that they now magically have one to test is interesting to say the least.

How about contacting Jungheinrich corporate headquarters? This is just crazy what you are going through. Unacceptable.

Frits wrote- I'd give you the advice to have the dealer pick up the truck and say you don't want it back when it drives OK.

If I would have such a problem with a costumer I would also pick up the truck. In the workshop, without costumers around, and with help of collegues, and when lucky an other truck of which you can borrow/exchange some parts these kind of errors are better to deal with.
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Good advice. I tried to get them to do that but they say it won't fit in their service trucks and requires a large truck to pick up and deliver and therefore costs less for them to repair on site.

Which would be fine except they tried and failed at that.

To my amazement, even with definite proof the truck has a serious problem, they are back to ignoring me.

after watching the video's
my thoughts on this are that the acceration curve is too small
you can adjust this by widening that
also the threshhold can change this if it is widened
ramp rates can also change the speeds
throttle pot type if set wrong can cause this too
setting the max speeds M1, M2, M3 (if this is in fact a curtis controller) incorrectly can definatly cause the unit to jump to full speed if not set correctly.

One thing that most tech's don't realize is that every change you make on any one setting affects every setting in some way after that.
Best bet is to reset it back to factory defaults and start with changing the threshhold ranges and go from there.

i have dealt with a few of these curtis units (if that is what this is)
never seen a jungheinrich with a curtis controller in it before though, but that doesn't mean that the controller isn't made by them or after their design. And with all that being said it still does not mean there is not a problem with the tiller control, even though it may check good when you watch the throttle sweep on the handset, there still could be some other problem causing it to react this way.

I'd give you the advice to have the dealer pick up the truck and say you don't want it back when it drives OK.

If I would have such a problem with a costumer I would also pick up the truck. In the workshop, without costumers around, and with help of collegues, and when lucky an other truck of which you can borrow/exchange some parts these kind of errors are better to deal with.

Partsguy5 wrote-Not sure how the dealer is getting 2 or 3 thousand dollars they are no where near that price. You can not use a generic 1234E. There are reman options available for these as well. What is the name of the dealer that is working on this truck for you?

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That figure was probably off the cuff so maybe the actual price is less. Possible that price might have included new throttle pot assembly/wiring harness as well.

Re reman unit, good to know for future reference that is an option but I would expect nothing less than a brand new unit in this case considering the truck is still under warranty with 3 hours use.

As to name of dealer might be best to not mention "on the air" just yet but if you email me at procyon at hargray.com I'll be glad to tell you.

FDASDF

Forgot to mention, although there is no Curtis data plate on the controller, it appears identical to the Curtis model 1234E (enclosure design and terminal layout identical), so that's probably what it is.

As an aside, someone at the dealership mentioned a new controller would cost 2 or 3 thousand dollars. But now that I know what it almost certainly is I see the price for the 1234E- 24 volt is actually only $587.50 from Curtis distributors. Obviously, wholesale price to Jungheinrich would be even less.

After further thought it occurred to me a method to get some hard numbers on this issue.

I secured a small tape measure around the circumference of the handle and made a more sharp witness mark on the throttle. I could then see the below (with apologies to metric members as I know these fractions must look ridiculous...but that's how the tape measures here are printed. In the end what matters are not the numbers in absolute terms but in relative differences)

Total movement of throttle 33/64"

Point at which traction starts 1/8"

Speed virtually the same from 1/8" to 1/4"

From 1/4" to 21/64" speed increases just a bit

Somewhere in between 21/64 and 11/32" abrupt speed increase.

In other words if there is any ramp from slow to mid range speed it occurs within a 1/64" (.016") range of throttle motion...an impossibly small amount of movement to control.

Then did some speed tests with 30' tape on floor and stopwatch. It takes 58 seconds to run 30 feet at the highest range of the slow speed ( in other words with throttle just below the critical abrupt speed change). It takes 12 seconds to run 30 feet at the lowest range of the mid speed ( i.e. just above the abrupt speed change )

So, at the abrupt speed change, speed is increasing by a factor of 4.8 !

In other words,.016" turn of the throttle results in a speed change from approximately 30 feet per minute to 150 feet per minute.

And that's with a controlled test. In normal operations one isn't going to be so careful with the throttle such that the speed changes will be even more abrupt.....20 feet per minute to 200 feet per minute could easily happen..a 10 fold speed increase with in less than 1/8" of throttle movement range is likely.

No, all they have done is checking the pot curve on the laptop and parameter tweaks. No hardware has been replaced. I think they are afraid to buy the hardware since if that doesn't fix the problem they are stuck with it and not reimbursed by Jungheinrich. Which is no excuse of course but that's probably why so much push back from them.

work on jungheinrich lots normally a good truck did the tech try a new throttle pot and controller???? sounds like a controller fault to me

Tech has tweaked parameters and altered acceleration curves twice with no good results. It is possible to alter acceleration to make unit safer by limiting the top speed. But then maxed out it's too slow sometimes so one is tempted to hit the rabbit button....but that is worse and the sudden acceleration in rabbit mode will throw one off the truck if not holding on tight. So I had them set it back to the factory settings and thought I'd just live with it...but it's actually gotten worse since then and it completely unacceptable now... as you can see in the videos.

Speaking of which, only the video of the truck traveling by the tape measure should have been necessary but it occured to me they might wonder if I was "gunning" the throttle*.

Thus the second video with black witness mark on throttle showing that the jack doubles in speed (or more) at one critical point in the throttle movement....just the tiniest change of throttle position and it goes from slow to medium speed with nothing in between.

Also note that is with me being very careful to turn the throttle slow and smooth..... which is not going to be the case in normal use where one is not so attentive to such a sensitive pot, nor should one have to be. Thus in normal use the truck is even worse and even more dangerous than one might surmise just from the videos.

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*Of course in reality, on a proper pallet jack, this would be impossible anyway....even sudden moves of the throttle do not result such abrupt speed changes...there is still "ramp up" acceleration even if a throttle is moved suddenly.

Not so here however, move throttle as slow as possible and there is no smooth transition of speeds. Move throttle fast and it's worse still.