A LW 4000 Mystery....

[MDrost1]

So,

I grease and check the air in my LW 4000 every 10 days or so. On a few occassions, after said greasing, I run my truck through. Wash seems fine. Tonight it happened during the HP wax cycle(6 I believe). The arch comes up the passenger side, stops half way, rotates, and runs into my vehicle. Lasermind kicks in. It tries the laser mind fix, and just stops the wash. The bridge in the middle of the bay. I receive impact error on from the lasernet.

The kicker, I watch the vehicles after my test wash, and no issues. Tonight I watch 6-7 washes and all seemed fine.

Is there a correlation between greasing and putting air in my tires to the arch wanting to hit my truck on the passenger side?

Thank you!

 

[washnvac]

Probably. Are the rollers worn; causing a little play? Sounds like it is reading the front/home flag when at the middle. I had this once, similar to you, when tires were fresh on air. It was reading the 1/8 inch of thread on one of the large threaded bolt/nut things. The pumped up tire was making it just a bit closer; enough to trigger it. So I took the grinder and shaved all the threads even with all the nuts. No issues since.

 

[madscientist]

If you ignore the grease coincidence, it sounds like your front limit switch/cord is bad, like washnvac said. Is the bridge stopping when it passes the mid-limit flag?

 

[Waxman]

sounds like your lw is seeing the home target early; if the tire / grease makes the machine run closer to a nut/bolt that could be sensed by the home prox i think that is the problem.

 

[MDrost1]

It only happened once. No issues today. Yup sounds like the front is seeing the front limit early. I haven't had it happen again, so I can't say whether or not it happened before or after the mid limit. That would help! Thanks to all! I'll keep you in the loop.

 

[MDrost1]

So it stopped after the mid limit. I just had another fail. Any thoughts?

 

[madscientist]

The mid limit flag is the point at which the Lasermind switches its attention from the rear limit switch to the front limit switch, when the bridge is moving forward up the passenger side. If the front limit switch is giving a false positive before the bridge is at the front limit flag, then the Lasermind will notice it as the mid limit flag triggers the mid limit switch and it will stop moving forward. At this point it believes it is at the front of the bay, so it rotates and continues to the left as if it were at the front of the vehicle. Then you get your impact.


Can you be more specific about where it stopped? After the mid limit can mean a lot of things. Did it stop immediately after the mid limit flag, or at some point between the mid limit and front limit flags?

Either way, it sounds like a front limit switch problem. This could be the prox switch, the cord, or any part of the wiring/connections.

 

[MDrost1]

MS,

Here are the pics. My tech suggested plugging in a spare amp in to the Y40 input. This is all I have done thus far. Thanks for your advice and time. Let me know what you think.

View attachment 758 View attachment 759 View attachment 760

 

[MDrost1]

Put an old style amp in the front eye slot...no issues.

 

[BBE]

the amp and the eyes should be the same brand. Mixing and matching, ie, a different kind of eyes from the amp, will almost always lead to premature failure.

 

[MDrost1]

The eyes are Carlos Gavazzi and my amp/relays are Carlo Gavazzi. There is a new style, which I had installed, and an old style which I had on hand as a spare. To my understanding, they can be swapped without issue. Have you heard differently?

 

[BBE]

From what I have been told by both pdq and washworld, and have experienced first hand, if the eyes are not the same brand as the amp. for example you use a pair of pantron photo eyes with a carlo gavazzi amp, the eyes will fail prematurely. They will work, but will end up failing prematurely, you will probably get about a year out of them. The amp board will almost certainly be carlo gavazzi, but the amp itself may be something other than carlo gavazzi. If carlo gavazzi amps are what you have, my advice would be to stick with carlo gavazzi photo eyes. The original high velocity's have pantron amps/eyes in the t bars, lw4000 I believe is all carlo gavazzi though.

 

[whitescout]

Carlo gavazzi will work only with carlo gavazzi. Pantron and telco are interchangeable.
First generation washworlds used carlo gavazzi, and there was a transition to pantron, and finally telco.

 

[MDrost1]

Yes. I have heard that as well. My 4000 is all Carlo Gavazzi eyes and amps. It is just that there is an old style amp and new style. Functionally I think they are the same thing, with different control layout.

 

[BBE]

Yes. I have heard that as well. My 4000 is all Carlo Gavazzi eyes and amps. It is just that there is an old style amp and new style. Functionally I think they are the same thing, with different control layout.

Do the older ones have a delay off/on function?

 

[MDrost1]

I am not sure....