WW2.0 pump motor tripping

[Reds]

I have a 2.0 that has 65,000 washes on it. Original pump and motor, not rebuilt. The motor tripped out 2 weeks ago and I had to reset the overload control on the bottom of the contactor and also replace the 24v 5 amp fuse that is beside the bank of 3 blue colored relays in the control panel. This week it tripped out twice and blew fuse too. One day after 72 washes, the next day after 30 washes. I can reset the overload and replace the fuse, but the problem seems to come back sporadically. I ran the wash repeatedly to try to get it to trip so I could see what it was doing when it tripped, but could not get it to trip out. Could this be a high pressure solenoid that is shorting out erratically? Or a damaged wire somewhere that is blowing the 24v fuse, then making the pump deadhead until the overload trips? I am not good with electircal trouble shooting, so this is very frustrating for me. I can get the distributor to come look at it but it is hard to find a problem that comes and goes. Plus the dist. is 3 hours away and I would like to find the problem myself before spending the $ on travel and troubleshooting time. I have spare solenoid coils and was going to replace all 3 coils in my gantry high pressure cabinet just for starters. I am grabbing at straws and confused as to why I am blowing 24v fuses and tripping my 25 h.p. motor overload at the same time. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Buzzie8]

I had a similar problem that happened twice on my WW 1.0.. All high pressure functions would stop and the 5 amp fuse in the ECC would blow. The enter now light bulb shorted out and it took a while to troubleshoot. I am not sure if you have the enter now and the tower, but if you do I would look for a short in all of the light fixtures. This actually happened to me two times with wires burning up and shorting out. Worth a try anyway.

 

[Buzzie8]

Curious if you figured this out yet or not. Please update when you get a chance.

 

[Reds]

I have not figured it out yet. I have been trying to look for a bad wire but it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I ran it for a while today but had no problems. It is snowing, 15 degrees out, zero wind chill. It's supposed to get real nice towards the end of the week. If I don't get it figured out I will lose a lot of business by having one of two IBA's shut down. If I don't get it figured out by tomorrow night I am going to call the dist. for service. Very frustrating. I wil keep you posted

 

[Greg Pack]

Have you got a schemtic sheet for the layout in the ECC? It's on a huge piece of paper. I think your theory could be plausible.


Hey-How about going to autozone and buying inline fuses and a box of 3 amp fuses? You could install them on each solenoid output and the problem might reveal itself there at the 3 amp instead of blowing the five amp. Cost maybe 15 bucks and half an hour- might be worth a shot?

 

[Reds]

I do have the electrical schematic for the ECC and the Gantry. I went over the lines with colored pencils to match the wire color so that i could trace the wires. Everything in the panel looks fine. Right now it is up and running. I am trying to be there as much as possible so I can try to see exactly what it's doing when it blows. Gets boring sitting there watching cars go thru, so I came home for an hour. Going back in a few minutes to watch. If I can figure out where the gantry is and what function is going on when it blows I may be able to zero in on the problem. Inline fuses sound like a good idea. If I can't find something this afternoon I will look at that tomorrow.

 

[MEP001]

I had an issue with the Vector that I couldn't catch happening to find out why, so I turned the camera usually trained on the auto cashier around to face the machine. I had it solved the next day.

 

[Reds]

I may have fixed my problem. I say may because it was happening erratically and could pop up again. I had a triple whammy going on. First I had one of the manual wash buttons on the face of the ECC that had a wire broken off and may have been shorting to the cabinet face. Second I had a spot free delivery problem at the same time - the ECC was sending the signal to the contactor but it was not getting there, and the contactor was clicking in and out. I swapped the blue relays on the left side of the ECC ( one controls spot free and other controls the manual buttons ) and my spot free problem seems to have gone away. The motor tripping out was my biggest issue. I rebuilt the WW2.0 unloader valve about 3 weeks ago - that's also around the time that this problem started. When I did that I adjusted the pressure from 1050psi to 1200 psi. But I must not have been paying attention and wound it in a couple turns too far. When running the WW repeatedly and watching/listening to it I noticed that when only the boom was spraying it was putting out 1500psi. I also noticed that the pump sounded like it was straining at start up and then "catching up". I wound the pressure down to 1100psi and the pump sounds better. The dist. told me that the high pressure could have been straining the pump and causing the contactor to trip. I don't know if the spot free issue was blowing the 24v fuse or if it blew when the contactor blew - that fuse sends power to the contactor coil. Anyway, it is up and running and has washed over 200 cars in 2 days without any problems. If the problem comes back I will come back and whine a little.

I would like to wish everyone a safe, happy, and prosperous new year.

 

[Reds]

My motor contactor tripping seems to be solved. But my 24v AC fuse still blows erratically. I am looking for bad wires.

 

[toddmullens]

I may have fixed my problem. I say may because it was happening erratically and could pop up again. I had a triple whammy going on. First I had one of the manual wash buttons on the face of the ECC that had a wire broken off and may have been shorting to the cabinet face. Second I had a spot free delivery problem at the same time - the ECC was sending the signal to the contactor but it was not getting there, and the contactor was clicking in and out. I swapped the blue relays on the left side of the ECC ( one controls spot free and other controls the manual buttons ) and my spot free problem seems to have gone away. The motor tripping out was my biggest issue. I rebuilt the WW2.0 unloader valve about 3 weeks ago - that's also around the time that this problem started. When I did that I adjusted the pressure from 1050psi to 1200 psi. But I must not have been paying attention and wound it in a couple turns too far. When running the WW repeatedly and watching/listening to it I noticed that when only the boom was spraying it was putting out 1500psi. I also noticed that the pump sounded like it was straining at start up and then "catching up". I wound the pressure down to 1100psi and the pump sounds better. The dist. told me that the high pressure could have been straining the pump and causing the contactor to trip. I don't know if the spot free issue was blowing the 24v fuse or if it blew when the contactor blew - that fuse sends power to the contactor coil. Anyway, it is up and running and has washed over 200 cars in 2 days without any problems. If the problem comes back I will come back and whine a little.

I would like to wish everyone a safe, happy, and prosperous new year.

I was told a while back by Al at JC that you should adjust your unloader to 1000psi while on the rocker panel function. The CAT 3535 should never be running at more than 1100psi according to everybody I have talked to over the years. Just spreading the gospel! Hope that helps and I hope you have fixed your issue.

 

[MEP001]

The CAT 3535 should never be running at more than 1100psi according to everybody I have talked to over the years.

Its maximum pressure is 1300 PSI.

 

[Reds]

Adjusting the unloader down to where it should be seems to have fixed the problem. The motor has not tripped out since I readjusted the pressure in late December. I also fixed the broken wire on the panel face buttons. The 24v R.O. water fuse that was blowing was due to a bad relay. But I am convinced that the motor tripping issue was due to my setting the pressure too high on the unloader. Thanks for the responses.