Hi all,

I have a VFA-Expres Elite 2gp. volumetric machine with a GIEMME volumetric and autofill box.

For some reason, the control box went into thermal runaway and fried some resistors on one of the perpendicular boards inside. The box is not protected by a fuse. As luck would have it, a similar machine came in for scrap that had an identical control box. I have installed it, but the autofill does not work and occasionally and randomly, the box shuts down and all lamps on the doser keypads flash in unison.

The box can be reset by switching the machine off and back on again, but again eventually shuts down at random times. Autofill does not work, though the call-for-water lamp remains lit. Are there any other control boxes that will interface with this machine's membrane keypads? The unit is 230V. The keypads use 12-conductor amphenol plugs, the flowmeters are standard Gicar three-wire units, and all these devices including the autofill probe plug into one side of the box: the keypads into amphenol plugs at the top, and the flowmeters and level probe into spade terminals at the bottom. The bottom of the opposite card has eight spade terminals at the bottom, which connect to the ground wire, neutral wire, three-way valves for group one and two, and autofill solenoid. The autofill lamp piggybacks on the wires for neutral and autofill solenoid. Sounds simple...

My only observations about the electrical service to the machine are these:

-The machine takes over twice as long to heat-up at the customer's cafe as it does in my shop. The client says this is because the machine is run off a "pony" panel under the counter. According to him, an electrician gave his shop's 200A service a clean bill of health recently. I measured 240V across hot and neutral, and 120V from each leg to ground.

-The electrical service is not surge-protected.

If I have to install new membrane keypads from another manufacturer to interface with another control box, I can do that, but hacking-in remote keyboards with mechanical switches would be beyond my financial capabilities. I need a cost-effective solution. Any ideas?

Thanks for any advice.