A clean solution for contactless payment
Modern control system in a self-service car wash
“100 percent humidity, temperatures around 50 degrees Celsius and the vibrations of the 1.5 kilowatt pumps – in this kind of environment, PLCs can be rather capricious. The easyE4, on the other hand, has so far not let us down – despite the fact that it is housed inside a standard IP68 switch cabinet.”
Background
Car Wash Center H. Hanle from Schwieberdingen was one of the first companies in Germany to launch self-service car washes and has been operating them for more than 30 years. As no off-the-shelf systems were available at the time, this family-owned business has a long-standing tradition of designing and building its own car-wash facilities.
“This enables us to build systems specifically for our needs, as we have all the necessary components in stock and are always able to react quickly and with the necessary flexibility,” explains Marcel Haupt, Head of Development & Modernization at Hanle. Today, the company operates seven facilities in the Stuttgart area, and the eighth is currently under construction. A unique selling point of the Hanle systems is the contactless and brushless technology, which works exclusively with high-pressure steam jets and environmentally friendly washing programs. This protects the paintwork and avoids scratches. Since Marcel Haupt builds the systems himself, he can always keep them up to date with the latest technology: His latest project is to enable customers to make contactless payments. “Our motivation is to make it easier for business customers to use our self-service car washes and to offer them added value,” explains Marcel Haupt. Until now, car rental companies and car repair shops regularly received tokens in small bags, which they could then use to pay. “With app-based payment, we not only save our customers the trouble of handling the tokens, but the system can also provide them with exact invoices or proof of when a car was washed.”
Challenge
In Ready2Wash, Haupt found the right partner for the implementation of secure contactless payment: this Czech software company has developed an IoT platform especially for operators of car washes and self-service car wash facilities, which is already available in eighteen countries. For Marcel Haupt, the main challenge was to connect this platform to the control hardware of the car wash. Previously, the various system functions had been implemented using contactors purchased from third party suppliers: seven to eight fully interlocking contactors, including auxiliary contactors, resulting in a “cable trench”, as Haupt puts it, that required extensive troubleshooting in the event of a fault. “In addition, this solution offered only limited functionality and could not be expanded.”
Solution
That's why Marcel Haupt eventually switched to the control relays from Eaton. “After looking at various suppliers, I chose Eaton's control relays because of their rugged design – and because of the highly personal and hands-on support that Eaton offers.” The easyE4 is designed to act as a flexible control solution for applications of varying complexity. It delivers reliable performance at ambient temperatures from -25 to +55 degrees Celsius and is also highly resistant to vibrations, as Marcel Haupt confirms: “Each wash station is controlled by its own control relay. The control relays are housed together with the high-pressure pumps and dosing equipment in one unit, meaning they are directly exposed to the vibrations of the pumps.” The control relays are not the only Eaton products installed in these modules: Marcel Haupt's parts list also includes DILM contactors, PKZM0 motor-protective circuit breakers, PXL miniature circuit breakers, indicator lights, pushbuttons, switches and many other components from Eaton. For Marcel Haupt, the possibility to obtain almost all the parts for his solution from a single source was an argument in favor of the Eaton automation components.
The eight inputs and four outputs integrated in the easyE4 base unit can be expanded by up to 11 modules, for a total of up to 188 inputs/outputs: “We use two expansion modules, and in total we work with 16 digital inputs and 11 relay outputs,” says Haupt. This makes it possible to cover all the necessary functions – from detecting the inserted tokens to dosing the detergent. “The available relay outputs were a further argument in favor of the easyE4,” as Marcel Haupt emphasizes, “because they allow us to directly control all components such as the solenoid valves without any coupling elements.”
Result
To date, Marcel Haupt has already equipped three of Car Wash Center H. Hanle’s seven facilities with the easyE4 control system, and the others will follow. “The easyE4 can be easily integrated into any network via the Ethernet interface, and the programming software makes it very easy to configure the network,” says Haupt. He also uses the network to access the control relays via a VPN tunnel, in order to carry out diagnostics from his office or to control the system remotely. “PLCs are somewhat capricious when it comes to their operating environment. Our machine rooms are subject to up to 100 percent humidity, temperatures of around 50 degrees Celsius and the vibrations of the 1.5 kilowatt pumps – a PLC would struggle to cope with these conditions. The easyE4 has so far not let us down – despite the fact that it is housed inside a standard IP68 switch cabinet.”
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