AP 6600 trouble

[CajunCandy]

The AP 6600 with the built in factory chiller is acting up on me and I hope the forum can help me, (genius) { not me}!

The machine shop where it is located starts work at 2:00 am. When the first guys show up the light on machine is off and it will take there money and not give change back or the product they want. They will unplug it and plug it back in, then it will take there money and give change along with the product. but the light will not come on. I tried to stimulate the same thing by unplugging just the light, putting in starter for light and taking it back out, but it works like normal. It has been cool here lately so I don't think chiller has been turning on. I even forced the chiller to run by adjusting temp. Does not act up like the guys claim.

Any ideas??

mike

[AZVendor]

Mike,

A bad light, starter or ballast can wreak havoc with a control board by sending out stray electromagnetic interference that the board won't know what to do with, locking it up. Replace the 24" T8 light and FS2 starter together first and see if the light has any trouble starting. If it does then you should replace the ballast. There is also a light harness filter available that I have in stock that is to protect the board from this sort of thing. It plugs into the light harness. I can send it with the Royal parts I'm sending you.

Randy

[CajunCandy]

Thanks AZVendor

Yes include the filter for me please.

I already changed out bulb and starter, just today and will service machine Saturday morning. I asked the guys to leave me a note on machine if it still acts up on them. This machine sat in a storage unit for almost fifteen years in the hot Louisiana heat cooking, already changed out board, coin mech, and one motor.That is not to bad for a free machine.

mike

[moondog]

Mike,

A bad light, starter or ballast can wreak havoc with a control board by sending out stray electromagnetic interference that the board won't know what to do with, locking it up. Replace the 24" T8 light and FS2 starter together first and see if the light has any trouble starting. If it does then you should replace the ballast. There is also a light harness filter available that I have in stock that is to protect the board from this sort of thing. It plugs into the light harness. I can send it with the Royal parts I'm sending you.

Randy

Hey AZ,

As an old lighting guy, I'm amazed that the vending manufacturers would have used a starter style fluorescent system as those have been obsolete since the sixties in the lighting industry. Regarding the interference with the board, have you noticed this happening with the electronic ballast systems?

[AngryChris]

Hey AZ,

As an old lighting guy, I'm amazed that the vending manufacturers would have used a starter style fluorescent system as those have been obsolete since the sixties in the lighting industry. Regarding the interference with the board, have you noticed this happening with the electronic ballast systems?

I am certainly not a lightning guy, nor am I an electrician. To be honest, I am not even a vending machine guru or anything close. Regardless, I think the starter situation might have something to do with the fact that the lights are controlled/powered by the machine's power supply/board. I think the reason why starters are needed is because the board/power supply itself cannot send the right kind of current to start the bulb. I think the starter works kind of like a remote capacitor.

Regarding this issue, I have wondered many times about if it would be possible to install an aftermarket LED bulb(when they become cheaper) that hooks up to a battery.

[AZVendor]

Hey AZ,

As an old lighting guy, I'm amazed that the vending manufacturers would have used a starter style fluorescent system as those have been obsolete since the sixties in the lighting industry. Regarding the interference with the board, have you noticed this happening with the electronic ballast systems?

The magnetic ballasts and starters have been used all the way into the 2000's in new machines up to the AP120/130 series, National 780 series and USI snacks that used the newer GVC2 controllers. It has only been since those machines that either high output T5 lamps (AP) or LED lighting in all manufacturers have been used. Magnetic ballasts are being manditorily fazed out now in favor of electronic ballasts to save electricity, even though it means more work in some cases to wire in a new electronic ballast (Oh thank you, great US government), but at least you can still use the same T8 lamps you used before so you won't have to replace the lamp sockets. Newer soda machines are also using T8 lamps now for energy efficiency, but it's not feasible to change from T12 lamps to T8 in soda machines because the T8 bulbs are only 48" max length and you need 4 staggered lamps to light a bubble front sign. The newer LED replacements for snacks are very expensive and, in my opinion, not cost efficient. LED lights in T8 sized tubes will last for years, but you would have to replace 6 - T8 flourescents before you broke even on a LED stick.

As to interference, I haven't seen any interference in electronic ballast machines because you are removing the starter, which is the firing mechanism for fourescents when using magnetic ballasts. The interference occurs at the moment the bulb tries to light and is exacerbated when a marginal lamp tries multiple times to light. This can be fatal, by the way, to USI logic boards, so you must be prepared to change or remove any marginal bulbs in USI machines. Electronic ballasts, on the other hand, have no starting mechanism - either they are on or they aren't and a bad bulb simply won't light and it won't flicker to cause interference, it will simply not light at all.

[AZVendor]

I am certainly not a lightning guy, nor am I an electrician. To be honest, I am not even a vending machine guru or anything close. Regardless, I think the starter situation might have something to do with the fact that the lights are controlled/powered by the machine's power supply/board. I think the reason why starters are needed is because the board/power supply itself cannot send the right kind of current to start the bulb. I think the starter works kind of like a remote capacitor.

Regarding this issue, I have wondered many times about if it would be possible to install an aftermarket LED bulb(when they become cheaper) that hooks up to a battery.

The light circuit is a direct 110V off the incoming power line directly to the lamp circuit and has no connection with the logic board or power supply. The starter is a condenser (capacitor-like as you say) that sends the bulb an extra jolt of voltage to excite the electrons in the tube so they will begin to glow. After the bulb gas glows, the starter drops out of the circuit. I would not recommend using battery operated LED lights as they will drain a battery pretty quickly and there are plenty of retrofit LED light kits available for vending machines beginning at about $40. The easiest ones are sold by Vendors Exchange and are a direct replacement for the original T8 flourescent bulb. There is no need to mess with batteries.

[moondog]

The magnetic ballasts and starters have been used all the way into the 2000's in new machines up to the AP120/130 series, National 780 series and USI snacks that used the newer GVC2 controllers. It has only been since those machines that either high output T5 lamps (AP) or LED lighting in all manufacturers have been used. Magnetic ballasts are being manditorily fazed out now in favor of electronic ballasts to save electricity, even though it means more work in some cases to wire in a new electronic ballast (Oh thank you, great US government), but at least you can still use the same T8 lamps you used before so you won't have to replace the lamp sockets. Newer soda machines are also using T8 lamps now for energy efficiency, but it's not feasible to change from T12 lamps to T8 in soda machines because the T8 bulbs are only 48" max length and you need 4 staggered lamps to light a bubble front sign. The newer LED replacements for snacks are very expensive and, in my opinion, not cost efficient. LED lights in T8 sized tubes will last for years, but you would have to replace 6 - T8 flourescents before you broke even on a LED stick.

As to interference, I haven't seen any interference in electronic ballast machines because you are removing the starter, which is the firing mechanism for fourescents when using magnetic ballasts. The interference occurs at the moment the bulb tries to light and is exacerbated when a marginal lamp tries multiple times to light. This can be fatal, by the way, to USI logic boards, so you must be prepared to change or remove any marginal bulbs in USI machines. Electronic ballasts, on the other hand, have no starting mechanism - either they are on or they aren't and a bad bulb simply won't light and it won't flicker to cause interference, it will simply not light at all.

Good to know that the electronic ballasts don't cause interference with the board - when they first came out in the early nineties, we had some occasions where they were not compatible with other building apparatus.

To clarify on the magnetic ballasts, there were three types made; instant start (F48 and higher) rapid start (F40 and lower) and preheat (requiring the starter). Preheat ballasts were replaced by the rapid start equivalent in the mid sixties which is why I find it odd that the vending manufacturers would have been using such old technology up to the turn of the century.

Electronic ballasts and T8 lamps are available in all sizes but you'd need to order many of the longer ones ( soda machine lamps ) through a lighting supply house. These are almost always instant start systems (no start up flicker)

LED lighting is the wave of the future. It's been used it in smaller applications, such as exit sign lighting, for twenty years. For a long time no one could make a diode with enough lumen output to satisfy higher light level applications. In the last ten years great advancements have been made in the development of higher lumen output diodes to the point where LED is being used for street lighting in Europe. Currently, the ROI on the T8 to LED conversion is not great, but like all new technology, you will see prices dropping as LED becomes more main stream (remember what your first DVD player cost?). Given that most of our applications deal with 24/7 lighting, we will see LED becoming universal in the vending biz quicker than other industries.

[Walta]

The only real advantages preheat and rapid stat ballasts offer is faster turn on times. And that is no advantage in this application. Preheat and rapid stat ballasts cost the manufacture 2X or 3X the old starter systems. That’s why they have lasted in this nitch.

T8 lamps have a life of 21000 hours or 2 years 4 month if on 24 365. One of my local commercial lighting company’s is advertising LED life of 4X fluorescent not the 7 to 10 I see else ware. 4X is a very close to a real life trial I saw with jail night lights.

I think the return on investment for vending operators has nothing to do with electricity usage, it has more to do with things like how the location feels about “green energy”, lost sales due to failed lamps, Labor and drive time to replace failed lamps and Lamp cost.

With $40.00 LEDs and $5.00 lamps I do not see a less cash out of pocket for vending operators until the numbers change.

Walta

[moondog]

The only real advantages preheat and rapid stat ballasts offer is faster turn on times. And that is no advantage in this application. Preheat and rapid stat ballasts cost the manufacture 2X or 3X the old starter systems. That’s why they have lasted in this nitch.

T8 lamps have a life of 21000 hours or 2 years 4 month if on 24 365. One of my local commercial lighting company’s is advertising LED life of 4X fluorescent not the 7 to 10 I see else ware. 4X is a very close to a real life trial I saw with jail night lights.

I think the return on investment for vending operators has nothing to do with electricity usage, it has more to do with things like how the location feels about “green energy”, lost sales due to failed lamps, Labor and drive time to replace failed lamps and Lamp cost.

With $40.00 LEDs and $5.00 lamps I do not see a less cash out of pocket for vending operators until the numbers change.

Walta

Yep,

When you're not paying the electric bill, energy efficiency becomes less important.

An interesting fact about fluorescent lamps is that the 20,000 hour rated life is based on three "strikes" a day. At 20,000 hours, half the lamps will have burned out (the average life is slightly longer). Since most of us run ours 24/7 (no strikes) we should get closer to 24,000 hrs or roughly 3 years. However, the lumen output on fluorescent T12 and T8 lamps will start dropping dramatically at 12,000 hrs and 18,000 hrs respectively.