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etowah valley timer

Etowah
S

smallwash

Member
I have Etowah valley meter boxes and wanted to see if other operators have had this problem. I am having an issue with the timer going completely dead when a customer puts money in. After going dead/blank it will turn on and go to the default time given of 3 minutes.

It does not happen the same way every time. Some times its when a single quarter is inserted and sometimes it does not happen until multiple quarters are inserted. these timers are built with five stacked circuit boards and process credit cards dialing out. I have took the timer/board stack out and made sure all connections are good. The green light on idx20 coin acceptor is still lit up when the timer goes blank. I was trying to avoid having to ship this timer in for repair and being down for a week.

Do any of the other Etowah valley meter box owners have any ideas on this?


Thanks
 
If you have not already done so, I would check all of the connections on everything inside the coin box including bill and coin acceptors and rotary switch. After that I would swap the timer only (not the whole faceplate) to another bay to see if the problem follows the timer.
My Etowah Valley timers have been mostly trouble free but I think you may find that the problem is with the card swipe. Make sure that the card swipe is attached to the face plate using plastic screws. I seem to remember some of the original card swipes (from 8 years ago)going bad and causing a similar situation. It has been so long since I had trouble that I have forgotten more than I remember.
 
I recall that there is one wire that is the ground for the card reader that etowah came out and said should not be hooked to anything. The other thing I would check is the power plug that is the 3 wire plug in the upper corner. I have had these go bad. If it does not make good contact the timer will go blank. I would also take the timer out and pull each board apart and then plug them back in. This has helped me in the past with random issues. I know it is expensive but you really should have a spare timer in your stock.
 
Thanks for the replies. I was able to examine it again and found two wires disconnected from the pin plug in the female connector to bill acceptor wire harness. Got them reattached and timer is working perfectly again. Thanks!
 
One thing also to check, and some miss this when installing, is the "polarity of the control power transformers. It is explained well in the install instructions. Basically you need to make sure that all the bay transformers are connected to the same two legs of the main incoming power.
 
Spoke too soon. Timer is going dead again. Spoke with Jim this morning and my bay panels are not wired correctly. Got an electrician over there today. I've had minor problems with coin acceptors and bill acceptors since the install summer of 2012. I thought these issues were normal wear and tear. Hopefully this will correct my issues.
 
It's easy for an installer to wire these incorrectly. Let us know how things turn out.
 
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