Sometimes it's the simple things that can really stump you

[mac]

Got a painful lesson the other day while troubleshooting an issue with an automatic. The Unitec Portal would take money but noe fire the Istobal. After several hours we came to the conclusion that the Unitec had a bad pc board. And of course by the time we thought we had it figured out, it was too late to send one. So we get the card in and then another issue comes up. Then another. All sort of related. It turned out that the only thing wrong with the setup was that the underground cable(ran in conduit) from the Unitec to the equipment room, was somehow picking up a stray voltage that was just strong enough to make the Unitec think the Istobal was still in use. There is no high voltage ran in the conduit with the control cables, and the conduit is pvc. Just stray voltage from God. My theory is that this is somewhat common and has been with us all along. Now that so many of the machines are loaded with pc boards that operate on the millivolt range it can really make you think the place is haunted. So after four days of troubleshooting a one dollar resistor from Radio Shack fixed it. Don't EVER think you know it all.