IBA doors opening for no reason?

[slash007]

Tonight both the entrance and exit doors to my soft gloss opened for no reason. I had actually shut the bay down due to weather, and while it would have worked fine, I didn't want to risk a door not closing. Instead, I washed 0 cars and the doors opened anyway! No idea why. After closing them, it happened again 10 minutes later. I turned the air off to one of them so that it wouldn't open, but I'm really confused as to how it happened. What would likely cause both doors to just open on their own? It's 3 degrees here and couldn't have happened at a worst time.

 

[MGSMN]

Both doors? Hmm. I had a door open by itself 3 times while I was working in the bay just this past Monday. Traced that back to a faulty flickering door safety photo eye.

 

[slash007]

Both doors is what makes it harder to figure out. Earlier this year both doors opened, but it turned out that someone bought a wash and then changed their mind. That instance the entrance door opened first, then it seems after the wash timed out the exit door opened. Other than that, once I had the entrance door open by itself this year, but I was able to see on the camera a bird fly right by the photoc eye. Can't figure out why both opened today though. Then twice...

To add to my awesome night, the electric company decided 3 degrees was a good time to shut down the power for 30 minutes to fix something that seemed it could have waited based on their explanation. Then an hour later they shut the power off again, but for 10 minutes this time.

 

[Jeff_L]

Check your door settings, maybe the automatic is opening them when the temp gets so low it flags it as an error and opens them. I have that problem with my PDQ icon, thinks temp setting I have to automatically close the wash when it’s cold is an error and opens the doors. Annoying.

 

[soapy]

When I shut my rykos down I always use the emergency stop button and have never had a problem with the doors opening since this shuts the door Kit off. Having both doors open leads me to think it was triggered by the car wash controller. When you shut the IBA down don't use the toggle switch that says closed use the red emergency stop button. If your power cycles off and then comes back on I think the controller sends a open signal to the doors in case someone is trapped inside. It won't happen if you use the Emergency stop button.

 

[slash007]

When I shut my rykos down I always use the emergency stop button and have never had a problem with the doors opening since this shuts the door Kit off. Having both doors open leads me to think it was triggered by the car wash controller. When you shut the IBA down don't use the toggle switch that says closed use the red emergency stop button. If your power cycles off and then comes back on I think the controller sends a open signal to the doors in case someone is trapped inside. It won't happen if you use the Emergency stop button.

Good point on using the stop button. I should have done that last night instead of turning the air off. The way I shut the IBA's down is to just use the schedule option in my portal units. I had scheduled them to shut down for about a day and a half, so a message will pop up on the screen saying we are shut down due to (custom message) the cold weather. Makes it easy for me to shut them down remotely and to schedule when to shut them down based on weather forecast.

 

[MGSMN]

Do you have Ryko coin boxes that arm your equipment with Ryko Net and a Site Server? If so are the coin boxes being used for the temperature settings for the doors or are using a thermostat activating a PLC input?

 

[slash007]

I was just about to post here lol. I do not have Ryko coinboxes. There are thermostats that control the doors opening and closing. Not sure how else they communicate. I did just have an interesting situation though.

Got an alert that my exit door was open. Checked the cameras, and both the entrance and exit were open. Watched the video and at 5:47, entrance opens to let in a customer. Closes behind him. 5:52, exit opens to let customer out. At the exact same time, the entrance opens up! Never seen that happen. Customer exits and exit door closes. Entrance door is still open at this point. 5 minutes later, exit door opens up on it's own. Now both doors are open. Thank God I went yesterday and ran wires so that I was able to close both using my phone, but I need to figure out what's going on.

 

[MGSMN]

Definitely weird. I would start by hard wiring the door thermostat PLC inputs to be ON permanently and see what happens. PLC inputs X60 and X61 to wire #19.

 

[slash007]

What would wiring those inputs to wiere #19 do? I'm not familiar with how it works at all. On another note, entrance doors opening on it's own aside, now my exit door on the soft gloss keeps randomly staying over after a wash. Same thing the exit door on my TF used to do. I'm pretty sure I swapped amplifiers, so I'm going to swap back and see what happens. Other than the doors randomly opening, the soft gloss exit stayed open 4 times yesterday and twice today, so something else is wrong.

 

[soapy]

Is it possible that someone paid for 2 washes not knowing it? That would explain why the entrance opened when the guy exited. Then after so long the wash defaults to let the ghost wash out. What brand of openers do you have?

 

[slash007]

Is it possible that someone paid for 2 washes not knowing it? That would explain why the entrance opened when the guy exited. Then after so long the wash defaults to let the ghost wash out. What brand of openers do you have?

That would explain it, but I didn't see anyone else come afterwards. Entrance opening when a wash finishes is what it should do if another wash was loaded, and the exit opening after a few minutes lines up with the same theory. I guess it could have happened somehow, but that won't explain why both doors randomly open on their own at the same time occasionally. Something weird is going on and I'm guessing it's the simplest thing.

 

[JGinther]

What would wiring those inputs to wiere #19 do?

That would eliminate a bad thermostat. Basically makes the doors operate in cold mode all the time.

BTW, you still haven't replaced that amplifier? Sounds like your door problem moved when the amp moved...?

 

[slash007]

Originally my TF exit would stay open occasionally. I swapped the amplifier from my TF bay with my soft gloss bay. The TF bay still stayed open occasionally, while I didn't have any issues with the SG bay. Eventually I changed the sensitivity level on the amplifier on the TF bay, and it has worked perfectly fine since. Both exit doors closed all the time without issue for at least a couple of weeks, but not the SG exit is acting like the TF exit did for 2 years. Not sure why the delayed issue, but the only variable is the amplifier, so I'm going to swap them back and give it time to see if the problem does indeed follow. I hope it does.

 

[slash007]

Is there a place online that I can buy an amplifier or other Airlift parts? I haven't found any and my local distributor take a while to respond sometimes.

 

[slash007]

anyone have source for Airlift door parts? Thanks.

 

[MGSMN]

Airlift Telco part# O18R4003
Ryko part# 27733-159 24Vac Telco amplifier

 

[Roz]

We have a similar issue with the exit door (new airlift) opening during a wash and then closing again. Door should have been closed due to the temp control. I am guessing that the temp was close to the value where they should be open and the warm water spray has fooled the sensor. Just a theory as the mystery is random, rare, and still unsolved...

 

[slash007]

Wonder is anyone can explain this... 3 times in the past two day when the entrance door to my soft gloss opens to let a customer in, the exit door of my TF opens as well... How would that happen? It's random and only sometimes.

 

[MGSMN]

Poltergeist ;-) ... Assuming the OHD and the SGloss have their own door control thermostats, if all the door control signal wires for both bays share a common conduit and for some reason the wires inside are randomly shorting to each other (rusty broken conduit, conduit full of water) is about the only thing that I can come up with at this time. I did have an issue at a site where the power would go off causing the doors to open on power up. This was corrected by wiring the amplifier relay contacts to N/O and changing the light/dark setting on the amplifier. I usually run into these weird door issues with loop detectors controlling the doors more than photo eyes.