What’s THE most overcomplicated equipment you’ve worked on?

[MEP001]

How do you cycle the oil - drain it and measure?

Yes. You can check the oil level via the info center.

 

[2Biz]

I'll chime in and say that the most difficult to work on system out there is the Old Mark VII Pumpstand! The consept was ok, the original plumbing was hideaous and virtually impossible to work on! Some pics of the Old and pics after a lot of modification to make it easier to work on. Similar concepts...

 

[ACTcarwashlover]

Wow, yeah that honestly does look complicated, How did you previously control all the high and low pressure functions? because that looks like a pain to work on!

oh yeah I finally got the photo of the timer from my piece of equipment that inspired me to make this thread

The first Image is of the control box, from top left to bottom right, you have the 24 V transformer which supplies power to the timer as well as a power on LED indicator light, The four digit coin counter with programming for the control board underneath, on the bottom left is a 24 hour timer for the inbuilt fluorescent light that is physically built into the vacuum, that way customers can see when they’re vacuuming at night, in the centre of the enclosure is the contactor for the motor and that’s in the electricity out to the motor and yes it is three-phase, And the bottom right is the motor overload that cuts power to the entire vacuum if the vacuum motor is overloaded

The second photo is of the lower half of the control and timer board which I think controls how much time per coin, and this is not a accumulating timer, But it also does have an emergency stop button Which when pressed, kills all credit to the timer and kills power to the vacuum motor, Great for when someone accidentally sucks up their brand-new Wedding ring, I still haven’t figured out how to dial six minutes with the dip switches as the tokens that it uses are priced at two dollars each

I’m gonna probably replace that timer sooner than later just because there has been times where someone put the token in, it does actually recognise the pulse from the coin switch and it shows up on the board when the coin pulse comes through, but somehow the timer physically doesn’t start, it just pulses the contactor for a brief moment, but I found that leaving power applied to the Vacuum seems to help things along, And considering that all the components are just coming up over 20 years old(excluding the 24 hour timer and the bulb in the fluorescent light ) the Vacuum seems to be doing quite well for itself, I’ll probably just have to generalise all the components for it

 

[TMoliver]

Livingston Industries self service bays with ALL white wires to every low voltage connection. or maybe there touchless Automatic "Rotorail" using 2- 3 relays to control all the different valves, motors and sensor out to the tinner control programmer . and second was the original ROBO wash from RoChemco. That is it for me

 

[ACTcarwashlover]

Livingston Industries self service bays with ALL white wires to every low voltage connection. or maybe there touchless Automatic "Rotorail" using 2- 3 relays to control all the different valves, motors and sensor out to the tinner control programmer . and second was the original ROBO wash from RoChemco. That is it for me

Where are all the wires numbered? Because that sounds like an absolute nightmare to diagnose

 

[TMoliver]

Where are all the wires numbered? Because that sounds like an absolute nightmare to diagnose

No there were not. The wires terminated in a 15 plug with pinout wiring in the control panel from the valves. Back then if you sold Livingston equipment your service personal were required factory training to be able to install and service. Or the factory did the installation. Operators could go to Livingston in Lenexa KS for factory training as well.

 

[ACTcarwashlover]

Oh jeez, wow they really should have everything labelled and colour-coded because wow that’s a shocker

 

[slash007]

Anything PDQ

 

[Earl Weiss]

Direct injection of chemical at stainless steel eductor unit on the left. Two adjustments on eductor - one for discharge pressure to bay, another for dilution. When solenoid valve on left opened, some of discharge from HP pump would flow through eductor, pick up undiluted presoak, then go back into pump inlet. It varied in pressure and dilution, leaked, failed, gave poor customer experience.....and drove me nuts. Good riddance!

View attachment 8009

Chrome / stainless unit Looks like a dema injector. . Long ago a chemical rep advised me that tey are too finicky to use for dilution adjustment. Best to run at mk injection and adjust dilution at the Tank they suck from.

 

[Greg_T]

Chrome / stainless unit Looks like a dema injector. . Long ago a chemical rep advised me that tey are too finicky to use for dilution adjustment. Best to run at mk injection and adjust dilution at the Tank they suck from.

From memory they were Dema injectors. They certainly were finicky. From one week to the next the pressures and dilutions would change. Shifting to a hydrominder setup has proven to be much simpler.

 

[ACTcarwashlover]

Chrome / stainless unit Looks like a dema injector. . Long ago a chemical rep advised me that tey are too finicky to use for dilution adjustment. Best to run at mk injection and adjust dilution at the Tank they suck from.

So something like this would be a lot more finicky? It’s where someone swapped out there hydro minder for an injector and float valve (sauce from talk Car Wash)

 

[Earl Weiss]

I acquired a Belanger equipped tunnel that had Dema injectors drawing straight from the concentrated chemicals attempting to adjust dilutions with the injectors. I refined it by letting the demas inject at maximum capacity and flow and set up Hydrominders with buckets to achieve desired dilutions keeping in mind the Solution provided by the Hydrominder gets diluted again as it goes thru the hydrominder. Note, theri are probably 2 adjustment screws on the Brass De hown above. On the Plastic part it adjusts how much is drawt from the cleaning solution and one on the Brass body to adjust flow. Once I set a max flow and injection not very finicky.