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WW2.0 Drive Motor Has Tripped out

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Hello im getting this error and the machine is stopped in the middle. When i try to move it manually from the panel on the machine it moves abit but stoppes and one of the VFDs gives an error. It feels like on of the motors is blown?
 

carwashireland

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I personally would raise up the machine on blocks then run the motors one at a time. (Disconnect the motors at the vfd) You may find the outer casing of the suspect motor is corroded. Then replace the bad one. You may want to separate the motor from the gearbox also and try to turn the gearbox by hand to make sure it is not seized.
 
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Thats way too complicated stuff for. Never raised the machine or chnaged the motor... asked someone to come look at it on Monday but my guess seems to be right that one motor is blown...it does feel like something is seized it goes backward faster than forward. Is there an easy way of unseizing the greabox???
 
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Alberta north

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It sounds like you lost power on one leg.
Put a clamp meter on each leg to see how many amps your drawing. If you have no amp draw on 1 of the legs you could have a broken wire. That will also tell you if your motor is drawing too many amps causing the vfd to overload.
 
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It sounds like you lost power on one leg.
Put a clamp meter on each leg to see how many amps your drawing. If you have no amp draw on 1 of the legs you could have a broken wire. That will also tell you if your motor is drawing too many amps causing the vfd to overload.
well I can hear the motor working but it sounds like it doesn't engage the gearbox. But I will check the amp on it to make sure its not an electrical issue. Thanks
 

carwashireland

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Could be a drive bearing collapsing and seizing, or gearbox seizing or the motor. You will need to split them all to know!
 
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Thanks i did take them all apart. The motor turns but doesnt seem to have enough juice to turn the gearbox. we increased the frequency at the vfd but the voltage at the motor didnt go over 50esh volt. We did take the gearbox apart and it doesnt seem to be seized. So im going to get a new motor tomorrow and see if it solves the problem.
 
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Just one question, what kind of an oil and how much should I use for the gear box? Because when I Opened the side of it all the oil drained. Thanks
 
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Update:changed the motor and the entire machine goes back and forth like usual to some extend( pls keep reading) So the motor was the issue. When i changed the motor before connecting it to the gearbox i switched on the machine and the other motor started to bring the entire machine to the starting point(yes bad my stake) So now I had one leg ahead of another leg. So i did connect the new motor to gearbox and by a bit of a push, made both leg aligned. But now when the machine gets closer to the starting point one of the legs want to move out of the rail asif the other leg falls behind.is the lazy leg wheel too tight and friction makes it to go abit slower and make the other leg to want the to move out of the rail?
 
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Update: Noticed the new motor I put in is not 100% the same as the faulty one. Motors on both legs need to be exactly identical. The new one is 1740 RPM while the old one is 1725 RPM. I'm thinking because of that one leg moves slightly faster, that makes the other leg's wheel to lift up. I'll let you know what happens after changing the motor again with the same exact motor.
 

I.B. Washincars

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Update: Noticed the new motor I put in is not 100% the same as the faulty one. Motors on both legs need to be exactly identical. The new one is 1740 RPM while the old one is 1725 RPM. I'm thinking because of that one leg moves slightly faster, that makes the other leg's wheel to lift up. I'll let you know what happens after changing the motor again with the same exact motor.
Absolutely. Also, wheel diameter will do the same thing. If you install a new drive wheel on one side and leave a worn one on the other, one side of the gantry will outrun the other.
 

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Absolutely. Also, wheel diameter will do the same thing. If you install a new drive wheel on one side and leave a worn one on the other, one side of the gantry will outrun the other.

I will sometimes replace an idler wheel without changing out the opposite side, but drive wheel have to be changed in pairs.
 
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Update: Changed the motor and still same issue. Next step: making sure railing is level, and then changing the wheels...I hate my automatic machine...
 

Greg Pack

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Unless you have a sinkhole on your property the level of your rails has not changed. Look at wheels and bearings. make sure your wheels are not so worn down that you are catching on a rail anchor. Also boom and attachment system including bearings.
 
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I think I'm 99% there, I checked it this morning, and all it is only for 2feet or so the idler wheel on passenger side lift itself up abit(maybe 2-3milimiltter) so it wont contact the rail and it wont turn, but it will come back to the rail after. Am I overthinking this? Should I go ahead and use my machine? What's is the worst case scenario? From safety point of view, there is no way that one leg goes and the other one doesn't (that's Eye Can sensors jobs, right?)....
 
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Update: Ok boys I did it... started the automatic and washed my car 2 times...no issues and had few customers already... it seems like the wheel are adapting themselves as sometimes i dont even see that 2mil lifting up the wheel....
 

Greg Pack

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Have you checked boom bearings both at wall and on machine?

Have you verified drive wheels ares same diameter?
 
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Update: noticed after few wash that the drive leg stops while the other leg goes. From safety point of view the machine is smart enough to bring back the passenger leg back but will ask the customer to exit without finishing all the passes. I noticed that the leg stops on the passes that I have the "Slow Gantry Speed" on. So removed the slow speed... and no more stopping on that leg, as if when its on slow speed the motor doesn't have enough juice to go against the friction. When one leg stops we kept getting Alarm 1 which says there is an obstruction on gantry track... but I can see that the idler wheel on the passenger side stays few milliliters higher than the track. hope things wont get worse...I see that all the other wheels are cleaner which shows they are under more friction ...
 
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Question1: I accepted to have a rocking WW2.0 now,lol. It rocks a little when it gets to the home position because the idler wheel on passenger side is few millimetre above the rail(so not touching the rail as explained above). No issues so far, we washed almost 100 cars and no error. Just one thing, sometimes the home prox sensor doesn't sense the metal bar because its not close enough ( which is due to the wheel being few mills up). I don't want to make the prox sensor closer that what it is because then it might hit the metal bar. when the prox sensor doesn't detect the metal, the machine goes to the end of the track and hits the block at the end, is that damaging to the machine? have you ever tried to make that metal thing longer so the machine detects it earlier?


Question2: Going back to the original issue, if I want to fix this problem(rocking machine), I need to understand why the driver side drive motor stops at a certain location while on the Slow Gantry Speed option, it also makes noise when it goes past that point. When its on normal speed it pauses a bit on the same location but it will go past it because it has enough initial speed.
 
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