Regeneration

If you own a diesel motorhome you probably have seen this light in your travels. 

This light means that your engine needs to regen or cycle through a regeneration process (same process different terminology. Regen or Regeneration is the process of removing the accumulated soot from the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) by increasing the temperature inside the DPF to the point where the particulates will burn up.

There are 2 ways for your RV that is NOT equipped with a REGEN SWITCH to remove the accumulated soot from the Diesel Particulate Filter.

1-Keep driving at speed and your RV will complete a Regeneration Cycle on its own. This is the most common process.

2-Perform a Parked Regen

Warning The External Gas Temperature could reach 1500-degrees Farenhite (Keep in mind  that you are burning soot). So take care and ensure that you are not parked near, on  or around anything that could melt or catch fire.

1-Start the engine, ensure that the transmission is in neutral and the parking brake is set.

2-Disconnect the shorting plug. Twist the shorting plug and slide the interlock RED switch and then pull out the plug with a single wire.

This is what it looks like  when disconnected

3-Wait 4 seconds. Actually I had mine disconnected for over a minute.

4-Reconnect the shorting plug

5-The engine RPM will rise (keep in mind if you are new to Diesel engines…it will be a LOT less noticeable than a gas engine)

The entire Parked Regen Process will take between 45 minutes to an hour. Actually mine took 53 minutes from start to finish.

If something happens and you need to stop the parked REGEN just turn the ignition off.

Why

This is more a concern for truck operators than it is for motorhomes - especially trucks that engage in a lot of "light duty cycles" (excess idling, or a lot of stopping and starting in city operations).  Motorhomes are normally run in highway situations where the engine load is high enough for the DPF to clean (regenerate) itself with, with no input from the driver, via both passive and active regenerations.