constant coin jams

[Reds]

I have 2 WS 2's. Both of them have quarters jam up in the so called "rolling coin chute" all the time. I have had 3 coin jams in the last 2 days. I tried buying new ones - they started jamming up within a month or two. Then I tried polishing the inside of the chute with extra fine emery cloth. Then I tried putting armor all and wax inside the chute. Then I drilled the 2 mounting holes out a little and cocked the chute on the hopper to give it more angle. Then I tried putting a shim behind the top of the hopper to give it more angle. And I clean the inside of the coin hopper each time I have a jam, but I don't find any excessive dirt or grit. I also started washing and drying my quarters before putting them in the hopper so that I did not introduce any dirty coins. Nothing has worked. I have several coin jams per week. Anybody have any other fixes for this problem? I am considering taking the entire hopper assembly mount off of the bottom of the WS2, putting an inch of washers under it, and then putting it back on. then I could tip the bottom of the coin chute down considerably more than it is now and give the chute a lot steeper angle. Anyone tried that ? Or any other fixes? Other than the coin chute it is a great machine, but I am very frustrated with it.

 

[Reds]

I have also tried duplicating a jam while I watched it dispense coins, but no luck. I have opened it up and dispensed hundreds of coins but cannot seem to see it jam up. Sometimes just the top of the chute is jammed up, but usually the whole chute is packed with coins and overflowing. I was watching it to try to determine where the jams were starting, i.e. the top or bottom of the chute. The bottom of the chute is aligned nicely with the coin catching cup so the coins are not hanging up by hitting a bump at the bottom.

 

[bigleo48]

Reds,

Usually tweaking and cleaning as you have done fixes it for me, but then again I dispense dollar coins, so they are bigger and heavier. But I also find it aggravating when it happens. It usually takes a good cleaning to get it going reliably again.

Big

 

[Whale of a Wash]

I thought i was the only one with this problem, happens about once a month or less. Maybe the only cure is to raise the price a dollar to dispense less coins. I think the main jam up for me is the beginning of the chute.

 

[jenward]

Reds,
If you haven't already, please contact your Unitec distributor or our Technical Support Department at 1-800-4UNITEC for assistance.
Thank you,
Jennifer Ward
Unitec Electronics

 

[bigleo48]

Jenward,

Would be nice to have a dialog and information posted here so that others in the future could just read this post.

"Call Unitec" kinda defeats the purpose of having a Unitec specific sub-forum.

 

[jenward]

BigLeo,
Absolutely, I agree with your comment. However, until the customer goes through troubleshooting (either with us or his distributor), I don't have any additional information to post. Perhaps the customer/original poster will comment on the solution that we are (hopefully) able to provide to him.
Jennifer

 

[Reds]

I called Unitec about this issue several times in the past. The first time the tech asked me if I had the "rolling coin" chute. I did not know that any other kind of coin chute even existed. When I asked him what it was made of and he told me stainless steel. Since the coin chute that came with the machine was aluminum I concluded that the rolling coin chute must be something new and better than what came with the machine. So I ordered 2 of them. To my dismay the replacement chutes were made of aluminum and were the exact same coin chutes that I have been having trouble with. The tech didn't know aluminum from stainless steel. I kept them to use as "shined up" spares. The next time I called Unitec the tech suggested that I try putting something behind the top edge of the coin hopper to tilt it forward and put a little more angle on the coin chute. I drilled a hole in the top rear edge of the coin hopper and put a 1/4" bolt thru it with a nut on each side of the hopper. That allowed me to adjust how much the bolt stuck out the back of the hopper. 3/8" didn't help. So I increased the angle until the bottom of the coin chute hit the back of the speaker when I tried to close the door. So I cut off about 1/2" of the top of the coin chute where it was hitting the speaker. That seemed to have helped some. But it did not solve the problem. I believe that if the chute was made of stainless that it would have less tendency to build up dirt and not need to be polished so the coins would slide out of the hopper. The aluminum has a rougher surface texture than stainless. It is also seem to scuff up easier than stainless. I'm not sure if it needs to be redesigned, made of stainless, or both. I am going to try elevating the hopper and then putting more angle on the chute to see if that helps.

 

[Reds]

Incidently the part of the coin chute that I cut off was the very top edge at the bottom of the chute. It was not any part of the actual coin path. I also checked the alignment of the bottom of the chute to make sure that the coins had a smooth path into the cup that catches them. All of my jams have been in the entire chute so I am perplexed as to where the problem starts. If the coins start jamming in the top how does the bottom of the chute get jammed up? Most of the time the chute is packed full so I had to make a coin removal tool out of a hacksaw blade that I ground the teeth off of and then ground a hooked end on it. I can unjam it in a hurry while it is still in the machine. But the hopper has to be removed to clean it and polish the chute. Not a good thing to have to do while it's 10 degrees farenheit and there are 4 cars stacked up waiting to get in the wash.

 

[bigleo48]

Reds,

I never had to make such drastic mods, but with the dollar coin, I think the additional weight helps.

I also changed the coin input chute. First, their coin mech (IDX) had trouble with some Canadian quarters as they changed their metal content a few years back (that's a different topic). So now the coin mech output just drops down to the bottom in front of the hopper guided by a stainless steel screen I molded and attached into place (so coins would go flying in the circuit board, etc). That has completely solved coin jambs in the mech and input chute, but it doesn't recycle coins back into the hopper

 

[bigleo48]

All,

So I started to have coin jams again. I decided to do more testing to try and find out what was happening. What I found is that every 20 or 30 coins, the hopper had a hard time spitting out the coin into the chute (see picture below). As you can see, the coin is halfway out of the hopper, but not even touching the chute.

When this happens, it seems that the hopper motor or assembly is a little weak and it doesn't 'pop' it out.

So I disassembled the hopper completely and checked everything. There is a manual available here http://www.happcontrols.com/images/pdf/10-1700-XX_man%2005061.pdf

It looked OK, I cleaned it all and even added a little grease to the small gears. The only thing that didn't look good was the play in the motor/gears, but this may be normal. See it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY9qCtgkonY

I also checked the voltage to the hopper (12VDC when dispensing at Pins 8 & 9). It was good.

My conclusion is that its just worn and weak. I ordered another.

Big

 

[bigleo48]

So I got a new cube hopper and it's been good ever since.

 

[Reds]

I still have this problem but not as often. I finally was able to put the machine in diagnostic mode and see the coins jam up. The jams that I have seen started about an inch down the chute. If you look at Big Leo's picture the jam started right where the vertical piece stops and the piece that is flared to the right starts. Then the following coins backed up and when they were done dispensing one coin hung in the opening from the hopper. Maybe I should wire a rubber mallet to the side of the machine so people can beat it until the coins shake loose. Do you think I am frustrated?

 

[bigleo48]

Reds,

Sorry to hear its still happening. Since I replace my hopper and tilted the whole thing forward a bit, I have not had a problem since. Did you replace the cube hopper?

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I've never owned a piece of Unitec equipment and probably never will because I keep reading about this same problem over and over. I can't imagine they don't address this issue. There is no telling how much this has cost them over the years.

 

[bigleo48]

IB,

The design could be better, but the real problem here IMHO is the cheap cube hopper. When you guys are dispensing quarters, you can dump a bunch of them at a time and the thing just wears out 4 times faster than dollar coins like we have up here. However, the cube hopper is cheap and can be purchased for cheap.

All in all, I would give Unitec a 6/10 for their products. The WSII is good, the whole inbay Washpay unit and the WashPay server that I have is not so great. Not well integrated and presented. But this is the carwash industry...things are never great.

 

[Reds]

I like the Unitec Wash Select 2. I just have an ongoing nagging issue with the coin jams. Other than that it is very reliable and user friendly. IMHO the chute would stay polished longer and could be polished to a higher degree if they made it out of stainless.

 

[bigleo48]

Like I said, tilting the whole coin hopper and chute forward a bit has solved those problems for me. But I use the bigger dollar coins.

 

[cleaning up mud]

Try using wax paper to polish the chute!!!!!!!!!!! Its amazing how fast the coins slide! One a month helps, and depends on how many coins slide down!