Strange issue with Cryptopay

[Greg Pack]

Wonder if it's worth having a separate, dedicated power supply for the cryptopay side to maintain a clean, stable power source for that unit?

IIRC It appears that the unitec control board gets it's power through a ribbon cable connected to the I/O board, so that is above my pay grade to figure out how to do that, but that might be a good idea.

I know this thread makes these units look unreliable but the WSIIs have been very reliable outside of this problem and it seemed to start with the cryptopay retrofit. I'm still running coinco bill acceptors and motherboards that are at least ten years old.

 

[Keno]

I have no experience with Unitec or cryptopay, but I would assume the power and ground are just 2 wires out of that ribbon cable. Can cut and splice in an external power supply into the ribbon cable on the appropriate wires?

 

[chrisg]

I’m having the exact same problem. I changed out the 5v power supply and it worked for a month. Even the speaker started working which I had never heard before. But when it started happening again I replaced the Cryptopay swiper (very old) with a new cryptotap. Still the same issue. In fact, because of the constant light show on the cryptotap, I started noticing it would intermittently start flashing yellow as if it had lost connection then it would reconnect.

It has been taking cash and starting the wash just fine. I’ll try moving the wires to see if that helps. Any other advise?

 

[Greg Pack]

Check to ensure your power supply is indeed at 5VDC with a meter. My problems started when the voltage was sagging into the low 4 volt range. When I disconnected some of the display LEDs the voltage crept up to nearly 5VDC and the problems went away.

Power comes to the display from the mulit colored ribbon cable on the I/O board, and I think comes to the I/O over from one of the light gray ribbon cables from the main board. I would follow that path backwards, checking for corrosion or poor connections.

 

[chrisg]

Check to ensure your power supply is indeed at 5VDC with a meter. My problems started when the voltage was sagging into the low 4 volt range. When I disconnected some of the display LEDs the voltage crept up to nearly 5VDC and the problems went away.

Power comes to the display from the mulit colored ribbon cable on the I/O board, and I think comes to the I/O over from one of the light gray ribbon cables from the main board. I would follow that path backwards, checking for corrosion or poor connections.

After I replaced the power supply, the voltage stays within tolerance (4.8-5). I also changed out the whole display board and LEDs.

But now that you mention the corrosion, I’m wondering if there is something on the J13/J14 connectors on the main board. Sometimes when the unit would start freaking out I would push on the connectors for any looseness and when I hit those two connectors the unit would come back alive and act normally. I’ve restripped those wires before but never checked the connector itself for corrosion. I’ll do that next.