Anyone have repair experience on an Allen SEA?

[ijames]

In my quest to further improve my emissions chips I picked up an Allen Smart Engine Analyzer with 4 gas exhaust gas analyzer and need a little help with it. The pc boots up okay in the engine analyzer portion (the top box) and has been updated to the version 12.something database of cars. Haven't hooked up to an ignition system yet but I assuming (yeah, yeah :-)) that this part is okay. The serial cable is in place to the exhaust gas analyzer (the real reason I bought it) in the middle box, and it turns on and blinks the front panel lights through some sequence for a few seconds and then settles into two lights lit, the local light (top left) and the warming up light (bottom right) and then sits there forever. My understanding is that until it finishes warming up it won't go into network mode, and the SEA can never find it and just waits forever. Some net digging informed me that both Bear and Allen (and I think OTC) have been bought by SPX, and SPX no longer supports these units (it dates from the mid 90's). Their web site points to Superior for support on these, and somewhere in there I found a FAQ that said that the most common cause of this is a dead oxygen sensor. Apparently they have a finite life (guarranteed for 36 months by Teledyne, the manufactuer), and when they go dead the exhaust gas analzyer refuses to finish warming up. I invested $75 in a new sensor and installed it last night, and after 15 minutes it was still not warmed up, sigh.

There seems to be good flow through the sample hose, and I put in a new filter anyway just for luck. Right now I do not have a cylinder of cal gas connected, but I believe I only need that when I am actually calibrating the unit. Does anyone have any suggestions (besides either give up or call SPX for a service call :-))?

[gofstbuick]

A buddy of mine has a SEA. I'll drop by in the next few days and get a refresher on operations and let you know. My buddy did say that on warm days his warms up fast, but on cooler days it take a while longer. I'll be able to observe the unit warming up this saturday and I can let you know.

[ijames]

Thanks, Joe.

[gofstbuick]

Carl,
I didn't get up to the analyzer until this evening. As soon as I powered the unit up, it gave me a choice of pressing F1 or F2. I pressed F1 and the analyzer went into warm up. Then it indicated that it could not detect a phone modem and I pressed enter to escape. The analyzer went into warm up and took approximately 5 minutes to complete the warm up process. Ambient temp from my Buick ATS was approximately 81 degrees, I think outside temps were around 75 degrees. I was told that the colder it is outside, the longer it takes to warm up. Once warm up completed, a menu appeared and allowed the tech to choose from the menu. His SEA was separate from the BAR90 smog machine. We also fired the SEA up and it went right to diagnostic mode. That's all I can tell you about the machine. It's been over 20 years since i used an SEA up until today.

[ijames]

Thanks, Joe. Mine does't have any kind of keyboard, only the lightpen. There are separate power buttons on the engine analyzer and the exhaust gas analyzer. The engine analyzer boots right up and goes to the main menu, but after 20 minutes at about 70 deg the gas analyzer was still in warm up mode and the engine analzyer couldn't find it when I tried to use it. Next time I'm out in the garage I'll give it an hour just to see, but I think something must be wrong, it can't be that slow.

[gofstbuick]

I don't think you can select certification mode on the gas analyzer, but 4 down on the selection menu, is manual mode (I think). If you place your lightpen there, will it allow the selection?

[ijames]

From memory, I'm pretty sure I can select manual mode, and that is when it tells me it can't communicate with the gas analyzer and to wait for it to warm up. I also tried one of the calibrate or self tests in the special menu (I think), and same thing. I've never seen an SEA before buying this one, and have only a few hours with a DEA that someone else turned on and set up so I could use the gas analyzer, so I'm a real neophyte at this :-).

Is there a web site that lists the actual specs (range, accuracy, whatever) for a BAR 80, 84, etc. tester? I've done lots of googling but no success yet.

[gofstbuick]

Other than attempting to calibrate, does it allow you to zero the bench?

[ijames]

No, it never talks to it at all as far as I can tell. Any attempt to access it give the "waiting' message.