Phantom $512 credit - Has it ever been addressed?

[I.B. Washincars]

I have several ACW-4 & 5 machines. Over the years I have on several occasions found the machine with a $512 credit on the display. All anyone has to do is push a selection button and they get a car wash and over $500 in change. This seems to happen after cycling of the power since it is usually noticed after a storm or when the unit has been turned off for some reason. I have probably caught this issue 20 times, who knows how many times I didn't. I have brought it up numerous times, but get nothing but blank looks and shuffling of feet. No one but me seems to have this issue, but maybe I'm the only one that seems to catch it and complain. I have had five of these machines do it at three different locations in two different towns. The only thing these seem to have in common that may be different from everyone else is that they all dispense dollar coins. Maybe the problem is isolated to only those, who knows. Anyway, I sure would like a fix for this. Anybody listening?

 

[pitzerwm]

For that kind of money, you could put a PLC in to count the hopper output and kill it, if its kicks out more than you expect.

You might experiment with killing the power and back on, throw a protected power strip in case its dirty power.

 

[MEP001]

If it's "dirty power," a power strip alone won't fix it. A power conditioner would be the proper solution. A cheap UPS would protect from spikes and dips, but not noise in the power. I agree with the PLC idea, at least you could limit loss with it, have it disable the hopper if it dispenses more than the largest bill you take, or more than the maximum change a customer would receive when purchasing a wash with cash.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I have the Etowah monitors that I purchased a while back to put on them. After chatting with Jim we figured out that they wouldn't shut the ACW down until the correct amt of change was dispensed to the customer. Since the controller says it has $512 credit it was still going to pay out the change. He told me to send them to him and he would modify them to shut down the hopper when whatever limit I set is reached, ignoring what the controller is telling it. It's not a fix, but a band-aid. Hamilton needs to address this, but I'm wondering if they ever will.

 

[pitzerwm]

I'm not sure that it is something that Hamilton or anyone else could "solve". In the real world under certain conditions electronics can do anything. Planning for all possibilities that might happen if a component changes value or a power spike is not even reasonable. Look at the Toyota gas pedal 100 out of a million cars, lets be real, crap happens and sometimes you never know why.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I know crap happens, but this is the exact same crap happening every time. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one this happens to. I guess I will just live with like I have been for the last decade.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Here's what it looked like in real life, just this morning.

 

[Doug P.]

IB, I Have 6 ACW4's and have never seen this in 18 years. I dispense quarters in 5 and dollars in one. I drive by your washes about once a month and I will be stopping by to wash now.

Doug P.

 

[toddmullens]

Have you compared your audits totals to the cash in the machine, that is if you reset the count each time you pull the cash from the machine? I had two Goldlines do something similiar not long ago and it was the $5 signal constantly pulseing adding $5 each pulse to the credit amount. It bypassed the limit enabled setting for some reason, and hit a total of $450+ before a customer pulled up and selected a wash and hit the jackpot when it attempted to give back $400+ in quarters. It eventually jammed up and went out of service. Probably not the same deal since your total is always $512. Very strange....

 

[soapy]

I found a phantom amount on one of my goldlines today. It was trying to give a customer a $253 payout after he used a $20 bill for a $3 wash. He even gave me back the receipt with $253 printed on it. This is the first time I have seen this on any of my acws.

 

[toddmullens]

I found a phantom amount on one of my goldlines today. It was trying to give a customer a $253 payout after he used a $20 bill for a $3 wash. He even gave me back the receipt with $253 printed on it. This is the first time I have seen this on any of my acws.

Sounds like you have a validator shorting out. I have had some STA validators go bad and cycle the $5 pulse over and over placing a large credit on the machine

 

[copperglobe]

I'm resurrecting this old thread as I've had this same problem just today. ACW4 paid out $40 in quarters then went to "out of service". Then pushing the yellow button it read "$5 input stuck". Other's mentioned this problem and some mention bad validator?

30 years of washing cars and never had this problem.

Ideas?

 

[Randy]

You've got bad validator. The $5 relay on the main board of the validator is acting up or shut. You'll have to send it in for repair. There's you can do to fix it yourself.

 

[copperglobe]

You've got bad validator. The $5 relay on the main board of the validator is acting up or shut. You'll have to send it in for repair. There's you can do to fix it yourself.

Randy: So the validator is racking up $5 increments to a high balance then a customer pushes a selection and the hopper pays out the change? Today customer came to me (honest guy) saying "I think you've got a problem with your automatic". Says he swiped his card pushed a selection and it paid out $40 in quarters. He didn't notice the amount of credit on the display.

Thanks Randy, I've got a new validator on the shelf to switch out tomorrow.

 

[Randy]

Randy: So the validator is racking up $5 increments to a high balance then a customer pushes a selection and the hopper pays out the change? Today customer came to me (honest guy) saying "I think you've got a problem with your automatic". Says he swiped his card pushed a selection and it paid out $40 in quarters. He didn't notice the amount of credit on the display.

It almost sounds like you've got 2 problems. What kind of validator are you using? You shouldn't give any change on a credit card transaction. Do you have a spare controller?

 

[copperglobe]

Mars validator. Scenario: If there is a cash credit (from the faulty validator?) on the acw before the customer swipes his card (wash gear card equipment) and pushes the selection he'll get change. The question I've got is how the large credit gets on the acw?

 

[Randy]

You got something wrong with the controller or the wash gear system. The Mars validator doesn't have a $5 relay, only the Hamilyon validators.

 

[copperglobe]

Probably the controller then. This is a "spare" that I've never used but had for years as my primary is in for service (dead back-up battery) so I made the switch two days ago.

 

[copperglobe]

Resurrecting this thread again. Just had the acw4 hopper (old slide out type) jackpot again until it "timed out". This time with a different controller than last week's jackpot. The hopper ran until it was out of quarters. I've got a new wiring harness coming from Hamilton that I'll install when it arrives. After tonight's jackpot I replaced the payout switch on the hopper as it was the only thing I could replace tonight.

Anyone have any other ideas?

It's a mars validator. Could that be the problem?

 

[copperglobe]

I think it's a good idea that we post how we solved our problems with this issue. I'm the one that bumped this post back up because we were having a problem with our acw4 jackpotting quarters.

I called Valley Pride and they knew of the problem as they said many others had had the jackpotting issue but they didn't know the solution. Called Hamilton and they knew of the problem but didn't have a solution. Called several other companies as well with no success.

Finally I just decided to change out parts in the acw one part at a time until it stopped jackpotting. Well I've found the solution. After changing out the Mars validator it quit jackpotting. I was told that "that's impossible for the mars to cause that" but it quit jackpotting once I changed out that validator to a new unit and it hasn't jackpotted since. I'm not saying that it won't in the future but I believe it's solved since I was jackpotting every couple days and now it's been fine for coming up on three weeks.

Chaz started a post today about "courtesy" and responding to problems once we figure out what's going on so this is my post. I think Chaz, Randy, 2biz and other are right in that we need to update each other on the results.

Thanks to Randy, Chaz, 2biz, I.B. and others for helping me over these past 30 years of washing cars.