Laser 4000 goes wide

[GALESBURG LASER]

I had posted earlier about a problem with one of our laser 4000 going to the extreme right. We still are having a problem with this at times. It measures the cars right at the start of the wash. oddly enough it washs cars ok until the 2nd high pressure pass,then it goes to the extreme right,and possibly hangs up on dump valve if its to far over.The arch does not drift to the right on passenger side as if a gearbox was bad.Any suggestions? Also noticed when wash is in progress vt board(version2.1) flashes error through whole wash,then when wash is done error light is not lit.???

 

[madscientist]

You mentioned in the previous thread that all 14 tabs are there on your counter/pulse bar. Are they rusted out? It seems like a pulse counting issue to me. When the high pressure is on and the arch is at 180, the trolley may be just a little further away from the counter/pulse bar. If the tabs are rusted out the prox may "miss" a few of them. Just a guess, but it certainly seems to be a pulse counting problem.

 

[jcollins]

Are the snap rings holding the trolley rollers on all 4 trolley rollers? If one's missing, the high pressure could be pushing the arch and trolley towards the entrance (increasing the gap between the X-30 prox and the counter bar) making the X-30 prox miss pulses on the counter bar as it's spraying across the back of a car. That would make the trolley go too far to the right (computer didn't count enough pulses).
If the gap between the X-30 prox and the counter bar is a little too wide, low tires will let the force of the high pressure spraying push the trolley over enough to miss pulses also.

 

[Mike]

I had posted earlier about a problem with one of our laser 4000 going to the extreme right. We still are having a problem with this at times. It measures the cars right at the start of the wash. oddly enough it washs cars ok until the 2nd high pressure pass,then it goes to the extreme right,and possibly hangs up on dump valve if its to far over.The arch does not drift to the right on passenger side as if a gearbox was bad.Any suggestions? Also noticed when wash is in progress vt board(version2.1) flashes error through whole wash,then when wash is done error light is not lit.???

Turn the dial to the #2 positon and see if the #5 led is on. this indicates a issue counting pulses (X30) going across the back of cars. It is a resync error, meaning we reached the middle gap between the counter bars and were off by more than 2 counts, and if this happens we force the machine wide as we are not sure where the arch is.

This is usally a drifting of gearbox on pass side, or X30 missing counts for some reason. Could be

Trolley drifting becase of roller slop making the prox move away from count bars

festoon issue, broken wire for X30

bad prox or cord

or electrical noise from Drive and motors getting onto the signal wire going back to VT inputs.

The noise issue can some times be addressed by ensuring all grounds are good from motors back to main site electrcal panel, and the grounding rods outside building.

Some times it can be RF noise from festoon cable, you will have to run a shielded cable to isolate the X30 prox signals from RF noise.

hope this helps, please call if you have questions
Mike

 

[Kwiki]

We have a couple Laser 4000's that are about 9 years of age and doing all of these same issues. Multiple calls with the ditributo tech support and no resolutions to what is going on. The issues are very intermittent (probably once every 150 cars) Ours will either loose its mind mid wash and go wide on the passenger side or the worst is the arch rotate a little past midway across the back of the vehicle and then move forward striking the car in the middle of the rear. We have tried VT boards, x30 replacements and exhausted our thoughts on a resolution. Any new suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[jcollins]

I'd think you also have a problem with inputs coming from X-30. Go back and double check all the mechanical aspects first. Make sure the tires are up and have equal pressure (25lbs). Look for any visible damage to the X-30 prox or flags. Can you see where the prox has been rubbing across the flags on the counter bars? Pry the trolley towards the entrance then towards the exit while looking at the gap between the X-30 prox and the flags on the counter bars to see if there is enough "slop" in the trolley rollers to allow for miss counting. I like 1/8" gap. Make sure none of the flags on the counter bars are missing or almost rusted away (Why couldn't these have been stainless?). If half the metal of the flag is rusted away, it may barely have enough metal for the prox to sense.
If you've already replaced the prox switch with new a new cord, I'd probably look hard at the festoon cable next. The wire for input X-30 (pulse counter) is right beside the wire for input X-17 (arch index) which is on/powered up as the arch is going across the back of a car. With both ends disconnected, try to read any continuity (should be none) between the #10 wire and the #11 wire in the green festoon cable.

 

[Kwiki]

Thanks for the info / tips. Yesterday we were able to get the machine running in some consistent manner once again. After spending a few hours looking over all the mechanics and then moving onto the electronics we found the drivers side ultrasonic was dead. We then ran the VT through a few rounds of calibration exercises. The drivers side is set to ignore / negate out any sizing so its running to the left limit all the time which is no problem. The right side it now set good and running. Apparently this all went bad when the drivers side ultrasonic died and in turn making the unit go so far wide on the passenger side that when the arch rotated it would strike the T bar. So now since recalibration of the VT all seems to be well again. Note: The ultrasonics are the old style. We have also heard that these ultrasonics should be recalibrated once any big weather changes occur such as in the Fall going into Winter and then in the Spring as Winter fades away (mostly due to temperature changes).