Once again, you MUST LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS to get a reply. But I will answer it here.
——————————————
Dear TanningBeds.org,

My wife and I have recently aquired a 1996 SonnenBraune/Wolf System Type 730 Beach ( 7J84?) bed. It however does not work at this time and was assured that it had before it was moved. I am a Master Electrician and have an extensive background in simple controls as these. By some chance would you be able to direct me to a possible simple fix? I have already check the obvious possibilities! The design of this product is fairly involved to just be taking sections apart and looking around. Any clues? What would you do now? I feel confident to take the entire bed apart, but, I know there is no need to do so. Thank You in advance!
——————————————
Dear person who didn’t give me their email addres….,

That bed was made by Lohmann-Werke in Germany (out of business) and sold by SonnenBraune, a US company (also out of business) so there is no official support available anywhere. Fortunately, I used to sell and work on those, and we still have hundreds out in the field. Those beds are commercial and designed to use a remote timer system. Most of the time if the bed is intermittant or just dead, it is the cords on the back of the bed that connects the two halves, OR the timer shorting plug. Make sure everything is plugged in tight. Check for a burned smell in the plugs, which would indicate arcing. That is a common issue with 1990s SonnenBruane 730/728/732 beds in salons. If the cords all check out, you get to go digging.

Special note to readers: only a certified electrician should ever work on a bed while it is HOT! A novice following these instructions could get injured. Or electrocuted. Or die. This is seriously dangerous for novices. You have been warned. These are quite technical as well, and apply to this particular bed.

The relay will be in the same half of the bed that the power cord comes in at (I can’t remember which at this time). Open that half of the bed, remove lamps and reflectors til you find the relay. This is usually toward the back. With the power ON to the bed and bed timer OFF, force the relay center plunger down. If the bed comes on, the problem is behind the relay, not in front of it. Assuming this works, then test to see if the coil on the relay is getting power. It will have two contacts, A1 and A2. One will always be hot, the other one only gets a hot feed when the timer is on. Since the power bleeds through the coil, they will both show 120V to ground when the bed is off, so that is useless. Disconnect either A1 or A2, then measure the voltage between the two wires. With the bed ON, it should read 230V, more or less. If not, the problem is likely in the timer, a $25 part if its a MS65 Siebel (likely), or the on/off button if yours has one, maybe $10 or so. You just short the two wires on the on/off button to bypass and test.

Another possibility (although rare) would be a bad “safety switch”. Some SonnenBraune beds had switches that detected when the acrylic was in the bed, both bench and canopy. If the acrylic was off, they would not trigger the relay, so the bed won’t start. We generally just removed those, and joined the two wires leading to them (230V, so seal properly). They are just a simple mechanical swing/arm switch found typically in the corners. Your bed may or may not have them. Their value as safety equipment isn’t required, and dubious to say the least. We always had to tape them closed when working on them, and found them to be a pain.

If you can’t get the bed to come on when you manually trigger the plunger, then the problem is on the line side of the bed. This is much less common, and is either the relay itself has burned contacts (possible) or bad capacitors (unlikely as each bed half has it’s own capacitors.)

You MIGHT be able to get an owners manual for a small fee to cover copying/shipping as Archie probably has one on file, although there isn’t much to them. You can call him at 1-800-274-1744 x127 He would have any other part you would ever need for that bed as well. Ok, that was really technical, but as a Master Electrician, I have faith you can figure it out. Good luck, and let me know how it works out!

Dennis

Email has slowed a little (it always does during the summer) but I haven’t forgotten about everyone! I still answer each within a day or two. I have been very busy writting for http://en.wikipedia.org and adding some images, like a tanning booth and other tanning bed related stuff. Most of the questions I have gotten this month were either already answered here on the blog (but I answered again anyway) or were so unique and obscure as to not be viable for the blog. Rememeber, we only publish things that others may run into in the future. So with only a few emails coming in a day, July has been a slow month for publishing.

I have been collecting a few questions I have gotten over the phone, and expect to publish a long list of quick questions and answers pretty soon as well. So if you have a tanning bed question, feel free to email as I will answer it quickly. Once fall gets here, the questions will start pouring in again, and we will have lots of fodder for the blog.

Dennis