Help with Ginsan boards frying

[slash007]

I am trying to help a friend with his wash and we are trying to figure out why the boards in his SS Ginsan doors keep frying. Started about a month ago and happens randomly and to different bays. Any idea what could cause something like this? He's had several electricians try to figure out the issue and they don't see any voltage issues, but of course car wash experience is different. The electric company even replaced the transformer to the building and they noticed it had some minor regularities. Here is a picture of one door:

He's been sending them back to Ginsan and getting them repaired, but it keeps happening.

 

[JGinther]

Same bay every time?

 

[slash007]

Same bay every time?

No, that would have been helpful. Been different bays, just random.

 

[JGinther]

Not sure what we're looking at there, but I would start with an ammeter on the timed load and run each option and verify nothing is pulling more than 2 amps. Have these boards been installed on the same equipment for a long time?

 

[slash007]

Yes, same original equipment, nothing has been updated or changed. So just run each option and timed load should not be above 2 amps?

 

[MEP001]

It would help to know what that component is that keeps burning up. Does it happen again on a board that's been repaired? Could be something that's just failing with age.

 

[water guy]

Where's Dan!!

 

[Dan kamsickas]

That is a capacitor that helps regulate the incoming power supply to the board. That is what one looks like when the incoming voltage goes too high(over 30VAC +/-)

 

[MEP001]

That is what one looks like when the incoming voltage goes too high(over 30VAC +/-)

Then assuming all the "commons" are connected together somewhere, I would recommend checking all the 24V outputs against each other. If you use a voltmeter and touch one probe to bay 1 "hot" and the other to bay 2 "hot," the voltage should be at zero; same with the commons. If someone has moved a wire while changing a transformer or contactor, you could be getting 48V between two bays. I always start at the contactor inputs and make sure they're in phase there (Same procedure as checking the transformer outputs), then make sure the transformers are all getting power from the same lines.

 

[JGinther]

Based on Dan's component ID, I would consider what MEP said, and also verify that one of the 'electricians' didn't land a line wire somewhere like possibly on a contactor overload relay (electricians are used to doing that to break the control circuit). In that case, all would work fine until someone turned up the pressure too high on a bay, and when the overload tripped, 110V would ride the 24 Hot wire until the smoke leaked out. Are there individual transformers per bay? Who makes the pump stand?

 

[mjwalsh]

I wonder if a "floating ground" might potentially have a way to contribute to an intermittent problem similar to this? My EE control specialist nephew tended to be a stickler for making sure that one side of the 24VAC was best always made to be 0 VAC.

 

[slash007]

Thanks guys. I just got involved trying to help, so will get as much information as possible. It is a Ginsan pump stand. Makes sense that power is sneaking in from somewhere. I wonder if he had electricians try to fix something in the past and they did it their way and created this mess.

 

[mac]

I like Ginther's idea best. Have seen where a failing solenoid or contactor coil draws more amps than it should and makes things fail. Not enough amps to trip the circuit breaker. His way tp eliminate that is the best. Know how to use an ammeter and check every function. The use of regular electricians is mostly tricky at best. They can tell you what gauge wire to run to a circuit breaker, and what size breaker, but they are not trained in troubleshooting electronics. Another cause could be water. Many years ago all the meter boxes were wired so that if you squirted tire cleaner in the slot, the time would accumulate. Look for any signs of that. The fact that they are all now failing randomly may be a red herring. Have just seen too many things that happen for no traceable reason. Security cameras in the bays may help with vandals. I also doubt the analysis that now, all of a sudden, they are failing, when they have worked for years. Unless someone has cursed the place with bad juju, that don't fly. You could ask the power company to put on a recording device that monitors the line voltage. Most do it for free. These are all just stabs in the dark, but sometimes even a bling squirrel finds an acorn.

 

[slash007]

I think for sure that somehow double 24v is getting to the board, so starting there is a good idea. If it was only one bay, I would think that maybe 2 wires were somehow fused together somewhere on the way, but it affected all 4. From what I learned today, all 4 bays went out at different times during a 3 week period. They replaced the boards with a mix of rebuilt and new boards. So far 3 bays have already gone back down with the 4th still kicking. Out of the 3 that went down, 1 had a new board, 1 had a rebuilt board and the 3rd still has a working board, but no HP functions were working, so they kept it shut down until they could figure out what was going on so that that board wouldn't fry. I haven't been to the wash yet, but plan on going the first chance I get. They say nothing electrical was performed before the boards started acting up other than the utility company working in the area.

 

[washnvac]

I dumped those boards and went back to rotary switches on the location that had them. No more board issues. Electronics and moisture really do not get along, regardless of how well they are coated. (IMO)

 

[JGinther]

If the utility company had something wrong, you would have larger sparks than those board components. If main power from the building goes directly to the transformer for the bay, you are looking at a miswire situation. Someone may have landed a hot wire in the wrong spot there. I dislike individual transformer setups because a very small screwup can cause a very big problem and be difficult to sniff out. If you can't find it, it might be cheaper than burning man-hours on just buying a larger transformer that will run all the bays. You will need to individually fuse each bay, but then you eliminate most miswire issues that would cause this issue (unless of course someone landed a building line wire on the controls....)

 

[slash007]

I think the bays are already individually fused. I was told that on one of them they received a complaint that the door lost power. They replaced the fuse in the ER to that bay and then went to the bay and the door was smoking. Seems weird though that the fuse wouldn't have just burned a 2nd time.

 

[2Biz]

I'm siding with Mep and JGinther on this one. Sounds like the transformers aren't phased correctly if commons are connected. Especially when you say they are down to 1 bay and it seems to be working correctly....Makes sense IF they have power turned off to the other affected bays...

 

[JGinther]

I think the bays are already individually fused. I was told that on one of them they received a complaint that the door lost power. They replaced the fuse in the ER to that bay and then went to the bay and the door was smoking. Seems weird though that the fuse wouldn't have just burned a 2nd time.

They're individually fused, but probably on the transformer secondary. If you remove the transformer like I mentioned, you will also remove the fuses. That's why I said you would need to add them.

Burning up a component will only blow a fuse if it's pulling too many amps while doing so (shorting). The fuse doesn't care about the fire, only how much amps the wire is currently pulling and for how long.