MEI in bay bill acceptor

[John_Thomas]

Hello all,

I have a strange problem with one of my in bay bill acceptor's. It will take a bill but wont set any time. I changed that acceptor out and I also changed the timer out and still get same result. I have never had a problem with this bay. I took the same units and put into another bay and they worked fine.

Nothing changed or was worked on in that bay when it happened. Does any one have any ideas or something else I could check?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

John

 

[MEP001]

Sounds like the harness or wiring. Can you swap that to another bay?

 

[John_Thomas]

No, Its hard wired. Raining here today so Im going to tinker with it some more. Thanks for reply!

 

[txheat]

I had the same problem. Fortunately, i left the validator unplugged for 4 days, and plugged it back in for the weekend and worked ever since. Next step is to check wirings.

 

[John_Thomas]

txheat,

I can leave it unplugged for a few days and then plug it in with success but it wont last. It stops working again.

 

[slash007]

I still haven't figured out what's causing the issue. I did buy all new wiring for one vac, but have not put it in yet.

 

[txheat]

Did you ever get it fixed? Mep was referring to the wiring from the validator output. It should be a plug then hardwired to the timer.

 

[John_Thomas]

No, still not fixed. There is another operator here in Oklahoma that had several bays go bad like that. He had validators serviced and bought new harnesses with no luck. Are you having same issue?

Thanks
John

 

[txheat]

No, still not fixed. There is another operator here in Oklahoma that had several bays go bad like that. He had validators serviced and bought new harnesses with no luck. Are you having same issue?

Thanks
John

Fortunately mine still working after days of being unplugged. I guess time will tell and i might be sitting in the same boat. But i did run into another problem with another validator where it would not accept $5 bill only $1 bill. I called in Customer service he told me to clean the sensors but it didnt help so told me to send in for service. i just order a brand new one for spare from KR and pack of new harness. I don't trust repaired ones.

 

[John_Thomas]

There is a place about 30 minutes out of Oklahoma city I take mine to for repair Nd reprogramming if a new bill comes out. Any chance you lost power? Sounds like it lost part of its programming. I can leave mine unplugged for a few days, plug it back in and it will work, but only for a short time. I have ot taped off now until I can figure it out.

Good luck!

 

[MEP001]

Lost power should not affect the programming. If it does, it has something wrong with it anyway and it needs to be serviced or replaced.

 

[Randy]

I’ve repaired a lot of Mars validators over the years and I’ve only seen a handful that have lost their memory. Normally when they lose their memory they won’t work at all. Back to your problem. Are you connecting the validator and the coin acceptor coin pulse wires together to pulse the timer? What kind of timer and coin acceptor are you using? How many wires are you using off the Mars bill validator? You should be using 4, Black, White, Orange and Brown.

 

[slash007]

I'm going to chime in again since I still have the same problem. After giving up last year, I switched out the whole bill acceptor to a new one at both vacs that had the issue (2 different car wash locations). Lo and behold, it kept working. I figured wow, it was the bill acceptor the whole time. Then about two months later, one quit. Would take the dollar, but not turn on the timer. Resetting the vac breaker would make it work for about an hour to a few hours, but that was it. There are four wires from the bill acceptor, and one is going to the coin pulse that includes a wire from the sensatron coin acceptor and cryptopay cc. Both the cc and coin acceptor worked fine. I just unplugged the bill acceptor and gave up. Then a few months later, the cc swiper started doing the same thing. Swipe a card and it would authorize, but not turn the timer on. A reset made it work for a few hours. Save behavior as the bill acceptor. Coin acceptor still works. I put the cc swiper in another vac and it works fine. Has been running for months not. On that trouble vac, the coin acceptor still works and activates the timer and hasn't had one issue. My other wash did the same thing on a similar timeline. I took the cc out of that one as well and put in another vac. Now both trouble vacs just have a coin acceptor. Makes absolutely no sense to me since all coin pulse wires were together.

 

[Randy]

Sami, What Timer are you using?

 

[slash007]

1034R timer in one, 1034S in the other. Both are JC combo vacs. One is vac/shampoo, other is vac/fragrance.

 

[slash007]

To add to the timer question, I did replace the timer and it didn't fix the issue. I also changed the wiring harness to the bill acceptor. The only thing I haven't changed was to replace all of the wiring to the vac. I did buy new wires, but haven not put them in yet as honestly I don't believe they will make a difference.

 

[John_Thomas]

I have a jc 1034r timer, mei ae2412 bill acceptor and a sesatron coin acceptor. The coin acceptor has four wires, red, red w/gray stripe, black, and yellow. Those four wires are tied into the loom.

 

[Randy]

The problem is the 1034 timer wasn’t designed for multiple inputs with different pulse rates and voltages. The 1034 timer is looking for 24 volts AC on the coin credit line. The Mars validator puts out 5 volts DC with pulse rate of 50msec On and 50msec Off on the coin credit line and the Cryptopay card reader put out 24 volts AC but at a pulse rate of 40msec On and 60msec Off. I talked to an electrical engineer friend of mine at MEI and he said it sounds like your back feeding power into Mars validator and the Cryptopay card reader, they are designed to pulse out not receive a pulse back in. He based this on the fact that you can power down the device for a few hours power it back up and it will work for a while. I told him that some of these systems have been installed for some time and he had a no positive answer, the only thing he could say was something has changed. The only way to get it to work properly would be to isolate the devices from one another. The only way to do that would be to install a Dixmor LED-6 or LED-6S timer, it has a separate input for coin acceptor, bill validator and credit card reader.

 

[slash007]

Randy, that does make sense and may very well fix the issue in these vacuums, but something to consider is that I have 8 other vacuums with the same timers and all work perfectly fine with the 1034 timers and bill acceptors/cc readers. In the two trouble vacs, not a single thing has changed that I can see. Also, just resetting the breaker for a second makes it work, it doesn't have to be off for hours or even minutes.

 

[Randy]

I know what you mean, it makes absolutely no sense to me either. Why would 8 vac’s work and 2 don’t.