Poltergeist in the Dixmor LED6?

[OurTown]

We are in the process of doing a self-serve coin box update. We're adding Cryptopay readers to the bays, Dixmor timers, and more options on the switch.
It's probably relevant to mention the wash was built by Super Wash and there is a PLC in place that counts SS minutes used.

Here's where our poltergeist comes in. I have two of the three bays wired with Dixmor LED6 timers. Customer came in and started Bay 3 with the new Dixmor. Suddenly, it turns on Bay 1 that had a Dixmor installed. Also turning on Bay 1 powered up Bay 3. The new Dixmor timers work perfectly well so I don't think they're fried. All the options on the dial work. We tested it with CC and coins and they work fine.

Strangely, the bay I haven't wired yet that still has the old Timemaster wasn't affected.

We switched one of the two back to the Timemaster timer and the problem with starting the other bay went away. Note that the Timemaster harness in the box appeared to be the same wiring config as the Dixmor, so we used it. All three SS boxes have a relay in place that I'm not really sure what it does. It would be a non-issue if the Cryptopay reader worked correctly with the Timemasters in the first place, which is why we bought the Dixmor timers.

When we installed our new foaming brush system (our wash never had one) we had to run separate common wires to each bank of solenoids instead of tying them together because all bays would start up when one was powered on.

 

[Robert2181]

The separate common makes sense. You could be getting feed back or enough stray volts to activate .

 

[MEP001]

When you say the bays are coming on, is one bay's coin pulse activating the other timer and displaying coins added? If both bays are coming on but nothing reads on the Dixmor, unplug the one that shouldn't be on. If it stays on, your issue is probably with the PLC.

Check the phases of power, especially if the commons of any other systems are still hooked together. Dixmor timers can do weird things if the phases are mixed up. You should be able to put a volt meter between the 24V hot of bay 1 and the 24V hot of bay 2 and it should read zero volts, same between bay 2 and 3.

 

[mac]

I remember installing some Dixmores a while back and had some strange things happen. It was something like reversing the hot and common to the bill acceptor that fixed it.

 

[cmawash]

its looks a grounding problem floating ground ie grounds are not tied to a common reference, we purchased a carwash that timers would turn off or on a random time, problem existed for years power company even came out and recorded power measurments and it took us about a year to figure it out and after drawing a schematic of all the control ckts the grounding problem was found and control wiring was changed no more problem. this is a common problem over the years, changes are made and these small problems will show up

 

[Jeff_L]

Call dixmor, they usually can solve it really quick.

 

[OurTown]

We fixed it! I think everyone who replied were on the same track. Dixmor recommended removing the ground wires from the timer as they are not needed. (according to him) I still feel like there is an issue somewhere in the wiring. The voltage measurements between the 24 volt transformers were not zero but less than a volt. How do we fix this? Tie the commons together somewhere?

 

[MEP001]

Near zero voltage is okay, the problem comes when it shows 48v between two bays.

Some 24v systems use a hot and neutral common, some are a floating common where both sides to ground are 12V AC. In the case of the latter, the common should not be grounded.

Unless you have something that requires the commons to be tied together, such as a multiplexer for a motor control, you don't need the bays' low voltage power interconnected.