Hydrospray Rain Maker upgrades

[GoBuckeyes]

Virtual treadle would mount to your bays walls. One side would be mounted about 6” off of the floor and the other side would be around 30” off the floor. The back up eye would be wherever you felt comfortable with the vehicles bumper to be stopped at and not get hit by your machine. Two feet prior to that would be your stop eye. Since your machine is on a fixed track and can’t stop or back up and adjust like newer machines you would want the back up eye to be active during the wash in case they crept forward in the way of the machine. I add a 3 sec read delay so when the machine passes through the beam it doesn’t register and stop the wash.

I made the treadle using 2” square aluminum tubing and added a heater to keep them ice free.

In the pics of my Razor you can see how they’re mounted hi/low.

Do you ever have issues with vehicles being too long? That’s always an issue with a fixed rail machine. I added another eye at the rear of the car where the machine would hit it. If that eye is blocked at the same time as the stop eye then I abort the wash and tell them to drive out.

 

[DaddyD]

The photo eyes can be mounted to the wall and angled down to read the front of the vehicle. This is how PDQ and Wash World both accomplish this. You will have to figure the wall placement on where you want the front bumper rather than the tire. The eyes typically are 18-24 inches apart. The upper eyes need to be at least 36 inches off the floor and the lower needs to be about 6 inches off the floor. This will allow it to find the front bumper on a variety of different height vehicles.

Oh ok. See this why I made this post. That is a huge help thanks!

I did tie those doors in with a banner radar senor so when a car pulls up the pay station it will automatically open the front door or if the radar fails they open when a wash is purchased.
Im not sure how everyone else does it. Wish i would have found thos forum sooner.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

Would love to see a picture of the spray bars you fashioned.

Another change we made is where the trolley is parked. Rather than have it parked on the driver's side front like yours, we moved it to the passenger's side rear. Having the home position there makes the bay a little less confining for the driver. It also allows you to start your presoak purge as they are driving in without compromising the driver's view of the directional signs.

 

[DaddyD]

Virtual treadle would mount to your bays walls. One side would be mounted about 6” off of the floor and the other side would be around 30” off the floor. The back up eye would be wherever you felt comfortable with the vehicles bumper to be stopped at and not get hit by your machine. Two feet prior to that would be your stop eye. Since your machine is on a fixed track and can’t stop or back up and adjust like newer machines you would want the back up eye to be active during the wash in case they crept forward in the way of the machine. I add a 3 sec read delay so when the machine passes through the beam it doesn’t register and stop the wash.

I made the treadle using 2” square aluminum tubing and added a heater to keep them ice free.

In the pics of my Razor you can see how they’re mounted hi/low.

Do you ever have issues with vehicles being too long? That’s always an issue with a fixed rail machine. I added another eye at the rear of the car where the machine would hit it. If that eye is blocked at the same time as the stop eye then I abort the wash and tell them to drive out.

Thank you for the pictures. That totally clears things up. Im going to do this on the machine im working on installing now.

So yes 3 months after I purchased the wash, A guy totally destroyed one of my rainmakers. The guy ignored the signs telling his truck was too long and left his hitch in

The machine hit his hitch and got caught on it. Soon as he heard it hit he put the truck in drive and took the arch with him and broke the track.

The machine was only valued around 50k so i didnt get alot for a upgrade and didnt want another fixed track machine being there are lots of pickup trucks in my market. So i lenghted the building poored a new pad and bought a nice used kondor and doors. Now im pretty closed to being finished.

That was the big driving factor to removing those spinning arms on the other machine. I also had them strick mirrors alot.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

Nobody has any idea how long their truck is and they all seem to forget about their trailer hitches. The sign is just to cover your ass. Even with a rear eye, the trailer hitch will usually slip through. If they're just straight and long they usually won't hook the spray bar. If they have the extra balls that stick out to the right and left they're trouble. I've had at least 4 spray bars ruined, drive shafts bent and one track weld broken. I have added a camera to catch license plates for when this happens....my problem is that most people around here don't have insurance.

 

[OurTown]

Allen bradley is extremely common in industrial applications. They last forever and allen bradley has a great support system. Are you thinking about upgrading your plc?

They seemed kinda expensive compared to the basic cheaper ones I was looking at but maybe I didn't look at all their offerings. I was looking at building a blow down/antifreeze system for a self serve foam gun so I don't need anything crazy.

 

[DaddyD]

Nobody has any idea how long their truck is and they all seem to forget about their trailer hitches. The sign is just to cover your ass. Even with a rear eye, the trailer hitch will usually slip through. If they're just straight and long they usually won't hook the spray bar. If they have the extra balls that stick out to the right and left they're trouble. I've had at least 4 spray bars ruined, drive shafts bent and one track weld broken. I have added a camera to catch license plates for when this happens....my problem is that most people around here don't have insurance.

Thankfully i added the cameras the week i bought the wash. When i go there tomorrow after work ill send a pic of the tower. I put the spray bar inside of it and drilled holes threw the cover. I also added some turbo nozels to it. They actually get the rockers clean

 

[DaddyD]

They seemed kinda expensive compared to the basic cheaper ones I was looking at but maybe I didn't look at all their offerings. I was looking at building a blow down/antifreeze system for a self serve foam gun so I don't need anything crazy.

So i did this to my SS too i bought one from ebay 300 bucks i beleive. Plus the rtd card. I weep the gun longer the colder it gets outside. I dont blow the lines out because the water will freeze in the low point on the hose. But i do blow out my IBA instead of weeping it. Hasnt frozen yet!

 

[DaddyD]

They seemed kinda expensive compared to the basic cheaper ones I was looking at but maybe I didn't look at all their offerings. I was looking at building a blow down/antifreeze system for a self serve foam gun so I don't need anything crazy.

Allen-Bradley 2080-LC20-20QWB Micro820 PLC Ethernet I/P Controller

Allen-Bradley 2080-RTD2 2-channel Resistance Thermometer Micro800 Plug-in Module

Get on ebay and check those items out.
The software is free. And there are lots of youtube videos on how to program with Connected components workbench. If you have questions message me

 

[OurTown]

So i did this to my SS too i bought one from ebay 300 bucks i beleive. Plus the rtd card. I weep the gun longer the colder it gets outside. I dont blow the lines out because the water will freeze in the low point on the hose. But i do blow out my IBA instead of weeping it. Hasnt frozen yet!

Are you talking about a weeping a wand or foam gun? Injecting RV antifreeze, methanol or windshield washer fluid should keep the little bit of water from freezing after blow down. The only reason I want to do this on a foam gun is so I can dispense a triple foam protectant (ceramic) and not just a conditioner. Conditioners can be purchased as winter formulas but not protectants.

 

[OurTown]

Allen-Bradley 2080-LC20-20QWB Micro820 PLC Ethernet I/P Controller

Allen-Bradley 2080-RTD2 2-channel Resistance Thermometer Micro800 Plug-in Module

Get on ebay and check those items out.
The software is free. And there are lots of youtube videos on how to program with Connected components workbench. If you have questions message me

I'll do that and after your post about Allen-Bradley I did see they have free software and support for the micro 800 series.

 

[Keno]

They seemed kinda expensive compared to the basic cheaper ones I was looking at but maybe I didn't look at all their offerings. I was looking at building a blow down/antifreeze system for a self serve foam gun so I don't need anything crazy.

Not to hi-jack this thread, but this could be done with an arduino much cheaper, won't be industrial grade hardware though

 

[OurTown]

Not to hi-jack this thread, but this could be done with an arduino much cheaper, won't be industrial grade hardware though

Yeah I know and have compared the two and decided to go with the PLC. I even bought a kit with an Uno, bread board and a bunch of components a while back and spent a lot of time learning the programming and making simple controls.

 

[DaddyD]

Would love to see a picture of the spray bars you fashioned.

Another change we made is where the trolley is parked. Rather than have it parked on the driver's side front like yours, we moved it to the passenger's side rear. Having the home position there makes the bay a little less confining for the driver. It also allows you to start your presoak purge as they are driving in without compromising the driver's view of the directional signs.

 

[DaddyD]

Yeah I know and have compared the two and decided to go with the PLC. I even bought a kit with an Uno, bread board and a bunch of components a while back and spent a lot of time learning the programming and making simple controls.

The arduino i feel is harder to program than a plc. Ladder logic is designed to make trouble shooting easy. And its really hard to say how long a arduino would last with all the vibration and such in your pump room

 

[Waxman]

If you're going to add a virtual treadle I think you should also add the waterproof speaker that yells at the customers. It's totally worth it although quite expensive. It tells them to enter please place car in park back up etc. for what it's worth I think by the time you get done with all these modifications you're going to be well on the way to the cost of a brand new machine but it sounds like you're having fun so I say go for it.

 

[DaddyD]

If you're going to add a virtual treadle I think you should also add the waterproof speaker that yells at the customers. It's totally worth it although quite expensive. It tells them to enter please place car in park back up etc. for what it's worth I think by the time you get done with all these modifications you're going to be well on the way to the cost of a brand new machine but it sounds like you're having fun so I say go for it.

I think the speaker is an excellent idea. Before your comment i was considering a horn that blows once the stop light is active. Does kleen rite sell such a speaker? I haven't come across it yet. And honestly i have only spent like 10k with all the mods i have made so far. Thats including the doors. When i priced a new machine it was 220k. That was for a petit.

And yes i have injoyed fixing up that old machine it was pretty cool bring it back to life and i know the town has been happy with the results.

 

[Scrubhub]

Well let me just say im not sure if anyone is even running these old machine except for me but i see the towers are still on klean rite for sale. So i figured i would share.

I purchased this wash (my first and only) about a year ago and it was in need of some love. Im in western Pa so the first thing i wanted was automatic doors, but i quickly discovered that my old southern pride turbo aka the hydro spray rain maker would not easly accept them. It had an old PLC from the 90s. So after pricing some new wash units and have not alot of money, I decided to just do some modification to my old IBA.

First i took off those stupid spinning arms and built a spary bar with 13 nozzels. (The bottome two nozzels are turbo tips). This made the unit wash 1000% times better.

Send i found some doors but i couldnt tie them in so i ripped out the plc and put in a new allen bradley micro 850.

Replacing the plc made a huge difference to the functionality of that wash. Now the options are limitless. Because i also added a new HMI that i can run off my phone.

I think next im going to attempt pressure control with the HP pump. The motor is to old to accept a VFD and i dont have room for it so i may try a recirculation valve. This should allow all my functions to come from one pump.

I would love to see some comments of diffrent ideas to try. Or suggestion. View attachment 10095 View attachment 10096
View attachment 10097

You can install solenoid valves that dump pressure from the outlet of the HP pump and back to the inlet. Each solenoid can have and in-line relief set to what you want and program the PLC accordingly. You could have 1, 2, 3, or as many as you want. You also can use a proportional relief valve but that would be more costly. Great job, looks so much better.

 

[washnshine]

View attachment 10128

I assumed you mounted the manifold on the outside of the machine. Recessing it inside the tower gives you more clearance. Nice work.

 

[Waxman]

You can get this from Autowash Online: