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Coin Box Issue/Electric Shock

R

RAATCB

Member
Today when I put my whole hand 1 coin box and the motor together, I notice current is going threw my body, not a whole lot but I felt a good amount.

Does anyone know what can cause a current leak that's causing this when I touch my coin box and motor? It's happening on 2 coin boxes next to each other but the other 2 no shock or current.


Anyone can help?
 
Check the voltage at the transformers - if you read 24V to ground on one terminal and 0V to ground on the other, make sure that if the common is grounded to the box in the bay that it's the 0V side. If both read 12V, the common should NOT be grounded anywhere.
 
I got a piece of wire and connected it to the 0V (common ) side of the terminal strip and touched the SS coin box. After when I touched the coin box and the motor, I did not feel any more shock. Now if I remove that piece of wire, I feel the shock again.

I do not understand because on my other 2 bays, it does not look like the common side (0V) from the transformer is grounded anywhere and when I touch the box and motor I do not feel any shock.

Do you know what's going on?
 
RAATCB said:
Today when I put my whole hand 1 coin box and the motor together, I notice current is going threw my body, not a whole lot but I felt a good amount.

Does anyone know what can cause a current leak that's causing this when I touch my coin box and motor? It's happening on 2 coin boxes next to each other but the other 2 no shock or current.


Anyone can help?
Click to expand...

RAATCB,

We had that problem once but making sure that all six coin boxes each had a green wire secure on each frame leading to a wet earth ground rod ... took care of it. One test we found to see if the customers aren't telling us about a slight electrical tingle ... is for the operator to stand on wet concrete with bare feet & operate & touch the coin box ... also with wet hands.

I hope this shared input helps ... it honestly worked for us & our customers.

mike walsh www.kingkoin.con
 
I was reading some other posts, i believe my transformer is 240V to 24V (100VA). When i tested the hot line (black wire) to ground it showed 26v. When i tested the common (white wire) to ground i got 0v.

How come in other post someone said when a transfer is 240 to 24, it will show 12v on each wire.

Any help?
 
Last edited:
I just attached a few pictures of the control box, transformer, and coin box. If you look at the coin box terminal strip, the first 2 wires are incoming 24 v power from transformer. When I touch the white wire ( 2nd wire on terminal strip) with a bare wire and touch it to the stainless coin box, I do not feel anymore shock. If I remove the wire I start to feel it again. .
 
mjwalsh said:
RAATCB,

We had that problem once but making sure that all six coin boxes each had a green wire secure on each frame leading to a wet earth ground rod ... took care of it. One test we found to see if the customers aren't telling us about a slight electrical tingle ... is for the operator to stand on wet concrete with bare feet & operate & touch the coin box ... also with wet hands.

I hope this shared input helps ... it honestly worked for us & our customers.

mike walsh www.kingkoin.con
Click to expand...

ONCE AGAIN, that's only recommended if the transformer actually has a neutral side.

Before you argue, there is nothing wrong with a floating common. It's just different from yours.
 
I can't tell much from the pictures, mainly because the print on the transformers is completely illegible.
 
MEP001 said:
I can't tell much from the pictures, mainly because the print on the transformers is completely illegible.
Click to expand...


I did a few tests; with a volt meter, I touched the black wire(hot) on terminal strip to the SS box, I got 27V. When I touched the white wire (netrual) I still got 27V. My friend said maybe the hot wire is slighting touching somewhere that's causing the voltage. Does this seem right?


On my other bays, when I run the same test, the white wire(neutral) shows only 2v.

What do you think MEP001?
 
It sounds like somewhere in your wires or equipmen t attached to the coinbox there is a hot wire touching the box or somehow traveling by conductor to the box.
Look at all wire connections and wires to see if any have bare wire touching the coinbox. Remove the hot wires from the coin acceptor, rotory switch, etc one at a time and see if this will focus down the area causing the problem. hope this helps
 
I really hope that you’ve got your electrical shock issues taken care of. The back of your coin box looks like something that was made in a high school metal shop. I don’t see any UL or ETL certification stickers. In Washington State you can’t operate any equipment without UL or ETL certification, if you do it’ll nullify your insurance.

On another note. There was a car wash operator here who installed a new bill changer and when his guys went to plug it in they found that the electrical receptacle was a ungrounded 2 prong receptacle, so they cut off the grounding pin from the changer plug and plugged in the Bill changer, now the bill changer is ungrounded. Over time the wiring harness got worn and the 110 volt power lead that operates the stacker came out of the plug that plugs into the stacker. Instead of replacing the damaged, worn out harnessing they used a bent paper chip to push in the wire so the stacker would operate. The paper would fall over and just barely lay against the stacker case, every time the stacker would cycle 110 volt would go to ground, if someone was torching the bill changer they would get a good shock, they still didn’t fix the problem. One day a guy with wet hands used the bill changer and got shocked so bad that he couldn’t use his arm for a few hours, he was lucky he wasn’t killed. It got real ugly and the guy ended up taking legal action against the car wash, the car wash is owned by someone else now. So there is a reason for electrical codes, UL/ETL certifications. You need to take electrical problems very seriously.
 
I am always amazed that with all the electrical equipment and water around that there aren't more serious injuries. In my over 35 years i know of only one death that happened many years ago and only a handful of serious injuries usually involving negligence.
 
I worked on a wash that had just been built once - the electricians not only failed to ground the vacuums, they hooked them up backwards. The concrete guys also did really poor work so when it rained water pooled under the drying shed, so customers using the vacs in wet weather would get shocked when the vac started.
 
Over the years we’ve been in self serve car wash equipment rooms of car washes that were for sale that scared the hell out of me. If the public knew how dangerous these car washes were operated they wouldn’t go there, some of them looked pretty good on the outside but inside OMG. Water leaks, water running down the wall over electrical boxes, open power boxes with bare wires hanging out, meter boxes that looked like a rats nest. I remember one wash that had 1 light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the equipment room that you screwed into the socket to turn it on and all the wiring was done with speaker wire, 110 volt and 24 volt, the owner must have gotten reels of the stuff for free, he was pretty proud of his wiring. Most had a miss mash of junk parts that they never tossed into the dumpster when they went bad, saved every soap bucket, everything was a haphazard mess of different valves and fittings just to make it work, seemed like no one had a clue about what they were doing. It’s no wonder the car wash business is a low profit by gosh by golly business.
 
Kevin James said:
Water leaks, water running down the wall over electrical boxes, open power boxes with bare wires hanging out, meter boxes that looked like a rats nest. I remember one wash that had 1 light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the equipment room that you screwed into the socket to turn it on and all the wiring was done with speaker wire, 110 volt and 24 volt, the owner must have gotten reels of the stuff for free, he was pretty proud of his wiring.
Click to expand...

Kevin,

You just gave me a flashback of some of my observations during time spent in Guatemala back in 1998 ... you mean this can really happen in our more industrialized country? Some of the homes built on the mountain sides down there had lots of similar inappropriate live wires dangling precariously. A master electrician contractor friend of mine's wife was insisting that he go down there with her to help ... even after I described to them what I saw. He kept shaking his head ... no no no please ...

Correct me if I am wrong ... back in the 60s self service car washes had 110VAC inside the coin boxes within the wet environment. I remember back in the early 70s we had a leak develop above a non watertight electrical box that caused a small amount of moisture to get on a live terminal. It was a case of school of hard knock learning ... thank God for no loss of life considering the also wet floor: When the box was opened just the right amount of oxygen & water caused enough of a flame to be created to burn & char badly a portion of the internal wiring. The crazy part about it was that the flame was burning with exactly the same appearance as from a candle.

mike walsh http://kingkoin.com/USA_Deficit_Reduction.html
 
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