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Frustration with IDX acceptors.

I.B. Washincars

I.B. Washincars

Car Washer Emeritus
Someone please talk me off the ledge here. I have been going round and round for the last year and a half with my IDX acceptors losing their settings. They are mostly X-20s from Etowah and at least one MA-800. I have spent a lot of time on the phone with Jim Gosnell and his son Shannon, only to verify that I am hooking them up correctly and have a ground all the way back to the breaker panel. I've also spoke with Randy from here on the forum, Mike Oliver at IDX, and maybe one other person at IDX...I forget. The same thing keeps happening. I install the acceptor, program it, and it works fine. After a week or so it starts rejecting coins. Sometimes reprogramming works sometimes it doesn't. I have sent them back to IDX for repair numerous times, explaining that it's not the first time, only to have them sent back "repaired" and go through the whole cycle again. I have replaced them with new ones and had the same thing happen to the new ones. I have had them in SS bays, generic vac with paraplate timer and mercury relay, and a Coleman combo only to have the same issues. These are not all isolated to the same location either. They have replaced old Microcoins that had been in place for 10+ years with no issues until their time eventually ran out.

The common denominator here is me, which makes me think I am doing something wrong, but everyone that seems to know says I'm doing everything right. I am at my wits end here and feel that I'm never going to get out of this cycle. Please help me :(
 
Mail one to me, I'll swap it with one of mine. That will eliminate the "its me" variable.

edit:
This comment concerns me a little bit:
I.B. Washincars said:
verify that I am hooking them up correctly and have a ground all the way back to the breaker panel.
Click to expand...
ground wire back to the breaker panel??? Mine dont either, just the 24V hot and common. Makes me nervous that mine will act up too!
 
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Years ago we installed 16 Fragramatics combo vacs for a customer, and they were having the same problem. IIRC, the light would flash alternating red/green, and just like yours sometimes they could be reprogrammed and sometimes not. Unfortunately I don't know if there was ever a resolution to the problem, but since they came installed in a Fragramatics unit they were surely wired correctly. My only guess would be voltage dips or spikes causing your problem.
 
IDX coin mechs seem to be highly sensitive to votlage supply. They need a constant 24 Volts AC. If the voltage drops much below 24 Volts, they will fail and seem to lose their programming. The acceptor draws nearly 1 amp during operation for short periods of time. A poor connection will cause severe voltage drop during these periods of high draw.

Nine times out of ten the problem is wiring. I have had seen these installed using automotive crimp-on connections crimped with a side cutters - THIS DOESN'T WORK. Usually the connectors are so loose they pull of the wire with hardly any effort.

I'm not saying this is your problem, but in my experience sites with problems usually have poor wiring.
 
Why not change out the 24v supply with a bigger supply. I bought all mine from a local hardware store and are all doorbell power supplies. Paid around $16 , I bought like 12 of the acceptors from jim in the last year and a half -so maybe not the acceptor. I have heard they are sensitive to light if the cover is not closed completely. I think Ken is right about the P.supply, my transformers are so big the vac is tight with the mercury relay.
 
My Experience

I.B. Washincars said:
Someone please talk me off the ledge here. I have been going round and round for the last year and a half with my IDX acceptors losing their settings. They are mostly X-20s from Etowah and at least one MA-800.
Click to expand...

I.B. Pat,

About a year ago we grounded the metal part of our IDXs with a ground wire & then ran the wires to a separate dedicated grounding rod over 8 feet deep in outside wet earth. I think Ken-Pro has some very good points --- so you may want to consider his suggestion of the possible intermittent out of IDX tolerance range of voltage.

I am not sure how much the primary side of your transformers affect the 24VAC secondary. If it does --- I believe your utility company will put a monitoring device on your meter for free as a precaution --- that will eliminate that potential variable.

mike walsh king koin of bismarck
 
No need to jump off that skyscraper!

ken-pro said:
They need a constant 24 Volts AC. If the voltage drops much below 24 Volts, they will fail and seem to lose their programming. The acceptor draws nearly 1 amp
Click to expand...

Pat & especially Kevin & others,

Whale-John said the transformer size could help. It seems like that 1 amp would require a minimum of 24 VA or watts. Correct me if I am wrong. So if Pat was running a 20 VA transformer --- that could be an issue.

An electronic engineer told me that on a 24 VAC transformer a person should always ground one side of the secondary. That supposedly eliminates floating voltage issues. Before he said that --- I was always baffled at why on some secondaries I would get 12 VAC from either of its leads to ground & on other secondaries I would get 24 VAC from the hot side of the secondary to ground. I don't know if that could be a factor or not.

Out of curiosity --- I wonder if anybody has gone to the below length --- to verify that their 24 VAC voltage was not dropping. It would have to be put on the final leads of the 24 VAC input of the acceptor to eliminate the possibility of faulty wiring though.

http://www.myaemcstore.com/p6651/aemc_l562_datalogger.php

mike walsh king koin of bismarck
 
PaulLovesJamie said:
Mail one to me, I'll swap it with one of mine. That will eliminate the "its me" variable.

edit:
This comment concerns me a little bit:

ground wire back to the breaker panel??? Mine dont either, just the 24V hot and common. Makes me nervous that mine will act up too!
Click to expand...

The 24V common wire that comes out of the transformer is also grounded in many cases.
 
Have you tried closing the door on the faceplate while feeding in the sample coins? If not, clear memory on all slots, and start over while closing the faceplate for each coin programming. It takes very little white light to mess with the optics.
 
I would first check the voltage at the acceptor. I had a similar problem a long time ago with some equipment. The voltage check checked right at 24 volts when nothing was being used. Several bays drew power from the same transformer and when several solenoids would be on demand voltage would drop down to 22 volts or less. This would cause all sorts of problems with different things. If you have an occasion ever so often that creates a high demand on your 24 volt supply and voltage drops this could be causing your problem. In my case the problem turned out to a transformer that could be used for 208 or 240 volts was wired up for the wrong voltage. It was wired for 240 but I only had 208 coming in. When wired correctly the voltage was up to 25.8 static and I have not had any problems in years.
 
Pat you said you had one MA-800. Is it doing the same as the X-20s? I've had good luck with the MA-800 and was wondering if the problem is isolated to the X-20.
 
I have had the same problem with X-20's. And I can replace them with MA-800s in the same meter face and they will hold the program. Jim from Etowah Valley says there is no difference between the two but I still cannot get X-20s to hold the programming.
 
Just to add something different, have you checked incoming line voltages? Probably not an issue, just thought I'd throw that out there....
 
I had to replace 2 MA-800 coin acceptor this last week that had both lost there programing, they both had been installed for sometime. This got me to thinking about your original post. Have you found a fix to the problem that you were having or did it just go away. Did you check the voltage? My voltage is 25.6 volts
 
True to form one failed a couple of months ago about a week after I installed it in my Coleman combo. I had already replaced it a couple of times this year as this machine was one caught in this vicious cycle. I finally just threw my hands in the air and ordered a couple of Microcoin QLs from Etowah and put one in this machine. It has worked flawlessly ever since. I have a couple of the IDX that I have gotten back from repair that I haven't installed yet. I think I will see if I can get Jim to trade them out for the QLs.
 
Randy said:
I had to replace 2 MA-800 coin acceptor this last week that had both lost there programing, they both had been installed for sometime. This got me to thinking about your original post. Have you found a fix to the problem that you were having or did it just go away. Did you check the voltage? My voltage is 25.6 volts
Click to expand...

Is that voltage with the vac or bay in use, the reason i ask is that i had a customer that was had a problem in his bays it would lock up his cc system, checked voltage out in the bay 26v turned the bay on and put on high press soap and voltage droped to 23v replace transformers and no more problems, voltage stayed at 26.5v.
 
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