WW 1.0 Boom Nozzles Intermittently Scraping Rear of Cars?!!

[Carl]

Here's my costly headache: Lightning struck closeby and got an electrical surge that caused my WW 1.0's gantry to strangely go non-stop up and down the rail until we killed power to it. Couldn't get it restarted so distributor sent his experienced serviceperson on over and he got it started back up but said, "I really don't know what I did to get it going again?"

Then had a problem a few days later where when the boom was washing the rear of a car, the gantry didn't clear the rear end far enough so when the boom came down to wash, as it was tilted toward the car, the nozzles scraped up rear bumper gouging it and causing almost $300 worth of damage which I paid to have this customer's car fixed.

AND THEN this "lightning-frazzled" auto bay began acting more strange a few days later in that it would begin the clearcoat pass after the triple-foam pass and then almost immediately SKIP the rinse pass AND spot-free pass and then would say EXIT NOW telling the customer to leave covered in soap?

Serviceperson ended up changing: end of track prox & cable, safety can eyes (transmitter & receiver) yet after a few days, same problem resurfaced of the WW skipping the rinse passes? So he then changed out the input card that goes in the gantry AND the home prox and cable and guess what just happened about an hour ago? BOOM NOZZLES AGAIN HAVE SCRAPED UP A REAR END OF A NEW CAR W/ LESS THAN 6,000 MILES ON IT! Yup, this automatic even though it successfully washed cars all afternoon & evening on Saturday, Sunday and Monday...on this day, Tuesday, I've damaged yet another car. (I only reopened this bay after much replacing of parts by the service company on Friday.)

Any advice on what to do next? Electrical surges are proving to be a royal PAIN 'cause the problems don't seem to happen but once in a day or two or three days but since this is a CONTACT problem where I've damaged a car again by contacting the actual car w/ a "touchless automatic", you can bet this bay is closed down indefinitely but gosh, what to do now?

Just hoping that maybe someone out there night have had experience w/ this to where they could guide me in some sort of direction which would give me the confidence to reopen this bay ONLY AFTER a wise parts replacement is again tried. Thanks. - Carl

 

[Tom Thumb]

Carl,
By having the gantry come down to early sounds like the wheel count could be part of the problem, go to test cycle and have it do several wheel count test and see if the numbers come up the same, they should be within 2 of each other.
Did serviceman check proxy on wheel counter?

 

[Carl]

Proxy on Wheel Counter

Tom Thumb - Thanks for your reply. We did do numerous wheel counts which all were either "right on" or off by only "1".

When you mention a "proxy on wheel counter", I will ask them.

What's troublesome about this problem is that we could wash all day long and then the next "incident" won't happen until 24 hours later, even after successfully washing many, many cars in between so in other words, this is one of those difficult "intermittent" problems which is so hard to correct since it's so infrequent when it happens but...I can't afford to open up this bay until this problem is intelligently diagnosed since today's is now "Car #2" which I've damaged and which needs repair at the body shop thanks to my "touchfree automatic" that's "lightning frazzled" even to this day since it got the electrical surge on June 7th.

Thanks so much! - Carl

 

[Tom Thumb]

I understand were you are at, been there.
Best way I have found to check the proxy and cables is to watch the lights on the boards in gantry panel (ID16) ect.make sure the right terminal lights when the proxy comes on, have had shorts in cables before and found this way.
Also check bushings on vertical rods that gantry rides on, sometime they wear and allow the boom to move away from the proxy especially when the air comes for tilt.
Sorry I can't be more helpful sounds like you might have more than one thing going on here.
Please let us know when you solve this problem.

 

[robtl]

I know you said you ran the wheel count and it was good, but make sure the rail is clean on the top and the spring which holds the wheel down is working good and the wheel is clean. make sure there is not a leak spraying on the prox or the cover that is on the transmission is not loose and getting in anything around the wheel, also we had this problem and had to increase the count on the rear count to give more distance in the rear of the car,and also had to go thru the program and reprogram on the one that the cycle would hit the car on. We found it only happened on the spot free pass on just one program. Look at this.

 

[Carl]

Resolution of "Boom Scraping Rear of Cars" Problem, Hopefully!

Thanks so much for all your comments which have been very helpful! I did try all that you guys said and here's a summary of all that we did which finally gave me enough confidence to reopen this bay to the public:

- changed out cable to safety 'can eye' transmitter
- changed out cable to safety 'can eye' receiver (both transmitter & receiver eyes had already recently been changed out after the first collision of the boom to the rear bumper of a car but problem persisted)
- changed out original 2003 cable of wheel count prox
- changed out wheel count prox
- changed the distance on the computer of this Water Wizard which is the "gap" between the car's rear end and where the gantry is supposed to stop from an "8" factor to a "9" factor which means we're gaining one to two additional inches of "safety margin" away from the boom when it's at the rear of the car

So far, after washing cars w/ this automatic bay having been reopened now for 28 hours since the above service work was performed, no problems. (keeping fingers crossed)

 

[robtl]

Hey sounds good so far, and God forbid, if it happens again try to find out which pass of what program hit the car and reprogram that cycle just to make sure everything is ok there
Luck to you,
Bob

 

[Carl]

Interested in Doing Anything to Increase Peace-of-Mind, Yes!

Bob - After having to send two cars to the dent repair shop, I'm willing to do even more to give me increased "peace-of-mind" so regarding your "reprogramming" advice:

1. Do you mean if it is the $6.00 Wash that was the "culprit wash" where the boom hit the rear bumper, should I maybe create a whole new wash recipe w/ exactly the same passes, put this into the computer and then assign this bay's new $6.00 Wash to "draw from" that program instead? I'm willing to do this.

2. Or do you mean just to reprogram a portion of the "culprit wash" somehow?

I'm guessing that maybe what your advising would be even more thorough a "try" by just deleting the "culprit wash", in this case the $6 Wash, and reprogramming it into a newly created wash recipe which will be numbered differently, assign this auto bay to this newly created wash recipe and then sleep even more peacefully at night knowing yet another something could be and has been done to try and alleviate a third damage claim from this "lightning frazzled" Water Wizard 1.0?

Thanks again! - Carl

 

[robtl]

We had to reprogram a complete new numbered wash and fill it in for the bad program because we could not get the old program to change the items that needed to change, this was after a lightning strike also, I guess it just burned the program in and now it will not change anything on the program.
Yes just make another no that is the same program you need and replace the old one.