Screwey Hopper Counter(S)

[Earl Weiss]

Have Hamilton changers (3) at one location. #3 gives a screwey count like it dispensed 12000 quarters since last taking $ out which is of course impossible and the hopper is still half full. Same type of issue the next week. So I swap hoppers 2&3 figuring the mess up is in the hopper counter and the issue will now move to #2. It does not. #3 formerly #2 now has screwey numbers. So I switch it now with #1 . #3 formerly #1 still has screwey numbers.

So, how can this be and what do I fix?

 

[Randy]

Try swapping the controllers to see if the problem goes with the controller.

 

[MEP001]

There's not much to the hopper, and there's nothing electronic to it. Either the counter is bad and it's chattering instead of advancing one tick at a time or the switch is bad and it's not holding the contact closed like it should. It can't be the controller because the switch and counter wiring is completely independent and can't be affected by the controller.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Try swapping the controllers to see if the problem goes with the controller.

Unfortuneately this is not simple because #3 changer is a non sorting stacker and the other 2 are so the setup is a little different.

 

[Earl Weiss]

There's not much to the hopper, and there's nothing electronic to it. Either the counter is bad and it's chattering instead of advancing one tick at a time or the switch is bad and it's not holding the contact closed like it should. It can't be the controller because the switch and counter wiring is completely independent and can't be affected by the controller.

Your answer makes perfect logical sense except that if it were the hopper counter, when I moved that first bad hopper to #2 and the second to #1 the problem should have moved with it. Instead the problem stayed with the hopper in #3 after 2 seperate hopper swaps and the hopper - now 2 of them, the original and one swap in replacement audited perfectly in the other changers.

 

[mjc3333]

Earl,

You may have an intermittent problem with your wiring harness in the machine that keeps giving you the problem in the first place no matter which hopper is used. I had a similar problem with my Hamilton change machine, the problem turned out to be in the wiring harness itself. I changed everything in the "bad " machine, controller stacker validator hopper. Not until I changed the only thing left, the wiring harness did the problem subside. Try switching the wiring harness from a machine that is working correctly with the "bad" machine.

Mike

 

[Randy]

Earl,
Before you rip out another main harness from another changer swap out the controllers, they are easier to swap out than swapping out a main harness. Setting up a controller to be a non sorting controller isn’t hard at all. Everything you need t know is in the C-2000 manual. If you need to use a loaner controller let you me know and I’ll send you one. If you do end up replacing your main harness, do it right and secure it with cable ties so it not flopping around inside the machine. Last week I had a customer who I’d sold a harness to about a year ago call me and he had pinched one of the wires in the door of the machine, shorted out the controller and validator. He’s looking at almost a $300 to fix it now. A few cable ties and little time and he wouldn’t be in the situation he’s in now.