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ACW4 Changed all prices to $63.75 on its own.

Etowah
S

sparkey

Active member
My hamilton ACW4 autoteller prices all changed to $63.75 along with all the wash names disappeared. I assume the battery needs replaced in the controller. I am still trying to locate an entire days worth of credit card sales that got charged $63.75 so I can credit their cards. Fun Fun. What was hamilton thinking defaulting to such an outrageous price.
 
If the battery pack, BRAM module goes bad it will say “Memory Data Altered” if the memory chip is going bad it will go to the $63.75, it means that the controller has completely lost its memory. I’d replace both the BRAM module and the memory chip.
 
Randy said:
If the battery pack, BRAM module goes bad it will say “Memory Data Altered” if the memory chip is going bad it will go to the $63.75, it means that the controller has completely lost its memory. I’d replace both the BRAM module and the memory chip.
Click to expand...

I assume you are talking about the SRAM chip that sits on top of the BRAM module? I talked to hamilton and they talked like it was rocket science to replace the battery and would not support it nor sell the parts. I found both chips on the internet for less than $35 with shipping. I ordered both of them. I can't be out of service while I ship the controller to hamilton for a 20 minute job.
 
I had this issue a few weeks ago where we lost all settings whenever the attendant powered down when he was trying to reset credit card issues. I searched the archives here on the forum and found the info on changing the bram and memory module. Just wanted to thank randy and others for the information. I swapped mine out with another and it fixed my problems.
 
So I purchased 2 sets of chips for 2 seperate controllers. A battery chip, and a memory chip. The first install worked out perfect. The second install everything worked, but after I power it down I get a fault, "power outage" that must be reset for the acw to continue. When the power outage fault is reset everything worked as normal, no memory loss. I ended up installing the old chips for now to ensure I am not out of service after a power outage. Just wondering if I got a defective battery chip?
 
So I had this problem on my ACW4 this morning. Can anybody link to the archives where there is more information on the BRAM and memory module?? All prices reset to 63.75 and I lost all wash names and welcome scrolls. Also credit cards arent being accepted (cryptopay). I have reset the prices but the ext msg menu doesnt appear to have any options to select from anymore. For now cash works to activate a wash but cc does not. Any help with this is much appreciated. Thanks
 
Today, got the "Memory Altered" alert. All prices and prompts were lost and default price of $63.75 appeared when any wash selected.

Upon disassembly, I found that in June 2021, the Dallas DS1243Y-120 had been replaced. Gee, that's almost brand new???? (FWIW, the old "battery" module plus memory chip has been superseded with the DS1243Y....a one piece unit).

As part of troubleshooting, I found a 4 year old DS1243Y-120 in my "used" parts stash that had been removed for the exact same issue.

Guess what....it worked perfectly. It had retained the old prices and prompts from 4 years ago.....so the chip was obviously able to hold it's memory.

This makes me wonder if there's another issue inside the ACW 4 controller?

Is there something else that could cause the memory dump?

Is it just bad luck that the new chip from last June is already bad?

Ideas?
 
It sounds like you got a bad SRAM Module. The problem with the one piece SRAM modules is you can't clear the memory. They stopped using the Dallas DS1243Y-120 sometime ago. The one piece replacement is a DALLAS DS1244Y-70. The 2 piece that was used forever was a DALLAS DS1216C DIP-28 Smart Watch RAM with a Sharp LH5164A-10L memory chip on top
 
FWIW, Replacing the SRAM with a Dallas DS1244Y-70 didn't work. The ACW 4 kept saying "Memory altered", and after clearing the alert...it just kept going in loops. I was (at one point) able to program in a few prices....but they wouldn't stick. My controller didn't like that chip.

I put in a new DS1243y-120,....and it programmed and held things just fine.

Another bad chip????
 
Rudy said:
FWIW, Replacing the SRAM with a Dallas DS1244Y-70 didn't work. The ACW 4 kept saying "Memory altered", and after clearing the alert...it just kept going in loops. I was (at one point) able to program in a few prices....but they wouldn't stick. My controller didn't like that chip.

I put in a new DS1243y-120,....and it programmed and held things just fine.

Another bad chip????
Click to expand...
Where did you buy the Dallas DS1244Y-70 module?
 
I check eBay about once a week for Hamilton spares I might need. Gotta watch out for the idiots who try and sell a used hopper or controller for 90% of what a new one runs. I managed to talk one guy down to a reasonable price on a used hopper, turned out to be almost like new inside.
 
Randy....you ask a GREAT question (Where did you get the chip from)......

To be completely honest, the chip that worked came from Mouser (a reliable supplier). ($35)

The chip that did NOT work, came from eBay overseas. ($10)

It was worth a try.

Lesson learned.....
 
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