bay empty

[aca carwash 2]

I have a new ISTOBAL M1 and an older Hamilton Goldline changer. More often than not I will get
an error...…. when you insert cash or cc at the pay station, it will take your $ and say "please wait till the wash
bay is empty" and no car is in the bay, and it will never clear so you wait and wait. Tried everything, is this a
pay station issue or in the programming of the Istobal? Any thoughts?

 

[Randy]

Check the relays on the relay panel. Primarily the relay that is labeled "CI" or Cycle inhibit.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I think this issue is with your auto and not the ACW. I have a Mark VII that occasionally I will find in the same state as you find yours. Finally it happened once while I was there and I determined that a wash was purchased, but the auto didn't load a wash. Of course, the next customer bought a wash and immediately got the "Wash in use" message. We changed out relays and the controller in the ACW and it still does it occasionally. The problem seems to be that occasionally a first wash isn't recognized by the auto, so the ACW never releases the second wash because the auto hasn't told them that the first wash is finished. That's my 2¢. If it's not that, it's something else.

 

[aca carwash 2]

Thanks for your response guys.

The relay is new, so I assume it’s good.

We took out an AC relay and put in a Dc for the car in use relay. It’s never lit.
We also have played with the passive/active switch on the Hamilton.

Apparently on Active there are always 24 volts
To c 5 and 6, we just have no clue what’s causing it. Originally I that is was related to pulling out
Of bay before onboard dryers finished but that’s not it.

 

[aca carwash 2]

Randy I can send a picture in the am. Both Goldlines are 2003. Both controllers are the 4 button but both updated within the last 12 months.

 

[Roz]

We had an issue with our new WW Razor and an ICS Paystation with a wash busy message on the screen when it was not busy. The issue which was diagnosed by our excellent installer, WW techs, and ICS techs working together was timing between the paystation and the wash with the wash busy signal. Solution was to change the way the paystation polled the signal (basically a setting) but took us a few weeks of experimentation to figure that out.

You might ask Hamilton as I doubt you are the first to see the issue and ask your installer of the new M1 to take the lead since he wired the communications between the two devices. I see that you are in MD too, did Aquatech install the M1 as they represent Istobal in the area? Carlos is great, thinks on his feet, and is a good problem solver.

 

[soapy]

It has been a while since I had to program my goldlines but as I recall you can set the amount of time the signal is sent to your automatic. I had to set mine to the longest duration which is 4 seconds I think. When it was on a shorter signal often times the automatic would not recognize the signal being sent and cause the problem you described. Vend duration is what you want to change.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

I feel your pain. We have dealt with this issue for over a decade with our Hamilton's. We narrowed it down to the ACW by wiring in all kinds of resettable counters so we could tell whether it sent a wash purchase to the automatic that went unrecognized or if the automatic sent a signal to the inhibit relay that wasn't acknowledged. It was always the ACW not acknowledging the end of wash signal. We have this problem at multiple locations with various automatic brands. Our solution was to add a single shot timer to fire the inhibit relay after 'x' amount of minutes. So basically, if our longest wash is 5 minutes long, we set the single shot relay to fire after 9 minutes. So if the ACW misses the end of wash signal (inhibit signal) and is sitting there saying "please wait car wash is in use", about 4-5 minutes after the wash has ended the relay will fire and release that qued wash. If we are not busy and the person can easliy back up they will sometimes leave before the time expires but if they are blocked in line they'll usually get the wash. To start the single shot relay's timing, we monitor the power going to the 24volt transformer on the door. Power drops out to that transformer when the ACW has a paid wash qued up and is waiting for the current wash to finish. All 5 of our ACW's have this set up in them. I no longer have the counters wired up to monitor how often this happens but I can tell you its been years since I've gotten to a wash and found an automatic dead in the water because of a miscommunication. Hope this helps.

 

[aca carwash 2]

Yes, Carlos is very good, we are trying to figure it out, it’s been 3/4 weeks, happening very randomly. Running the goldline on Active right now. Carlos seems to think it’s related to someone powering off the machine.

 

[aca carwash 2]

Wow, thanks Soapy, first I heard of that. Hamilton hasn’t mentioned this either.

 

[aca carwash 2]

This is great information, so basically the car wash in use relay wasn’t getting the signal ?

 

[Randy]

“Vend duration” is normally set at 2.0 – 2.5 seconds. It can be set higher like Soapy has said by going into the controller settings and resetting the controller. But it sounds to me like the Goldline ACW isn’t getting the signal back from the wash equipment to tell the Goldline ACW that it’s ready for another wash. I think I’d look at the wiring from the wash equipment to the Goldline ACW. Whoever installed the equipment may have not connected the wiring correctly to the Goldline ACW. Whatever it is it'll be something really simple.

 

[aca carwash 2]

Guys I think we figured this out, not sure yet but think so. On the Hamilton we have 4 wash selection buttons. We have three washes programmed for the Istobal. Wash selection 4 we had set at $0 dollars not set on default. If someone hit wash selection 4 it would send the Hamilton into free wash “bay in use” mode and time out wash until reset. Thanks for everyone’s help, hope this helps someone in the future.

 

[mac]

There may be a very simple explanation for this. In the parameters section in the command post, there is one that tells the machine to reset the machine after two minutes if the customer has not entered the wash. It would be easier to talk you through it rather than me typing it out. We also have an Istobal connected to a Hamilton and there we had to install a relay to activate the wash busy relay. Either way twenty bucks in parts, maybe, and a few minutes will eliminate this. Also, how do you like your M1? Send me an email with your phone number.

 

[aca carwash 2]

Thanks Mac,

Mwyatt1129@aol.com

Shoot me an email and I will send my cell #.

Thanks again

 

[I.B. Washincars]

My suggestion costs nothing, so it may be worth what you pay for it. I recently changed my menu from 4 selections to 3. Since I had 4 for decades I figured some creatures of habit would still push that bottom button (labeled "Thank You"). I just programmed wash 4 the same as wash 3, in both the auto and the ACW. So, regardless of whether they push the bottom or next to bottom button they get the same thing.

 

[chaz]

My suggestion costs nothing, so it may be worth what you pay for it. I recently changed my menu from 4 selections to 3. Since I had 4 for decades I figured some creatures of habit would still push that bottom button (labeled "Thank You"). I just programmed wash 4 the same as wash 3, in both the auto and the ACW. So, regardless of whether they push the bottom or next to bottom button they get the same thing.

Free is good.... mostly curious why u went to three options? Also I guess you could remove th extra button and cover the hole...just my free advice....

 

[OurTown]

Could you just leave the button and disconnect it?

 

[MEP001]

mostly curious why u went to three options?

A lot of people are doing it because it lets you space the pricing a bit, for example instead of $4, $5, $6, $7 you can have $4, $6, $8, then you have a bigger difference in wash packages instead of just one thing different between the two, and more reason for customers to upgrade to a better wash.

 

[Randy]

Guys I think we figured this out, not sure yet but think so. On the Hamilton we have 4 wash selection buttons. We have three washes programmed for the Istobal. Wash selection 4 we had set at $0 dollars not set on default. If someone hit wash selection 4 it would send the Hamilton into free wash “bay in use” mode and time out wash until reset. Thanks for everyone’s help, hope this helps someone in the future.

That explains a lot. You always want to have a dollar amount on each settings. If you don’t want to use a particular button you have to disable the button on the controller.
We use the #4 button on the Goldline ACW for our “Tuesday Day Special” It’s our $13 top wash package for $10, it’s a pretty popular Tuesday item. We turn off or disable the #4 button on Wednesday morning and enable it again on Monday night.