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Taylor Crown Series: Hard & Soft Freezer Lock Solutions
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Yes, I want a weekly email with USED Equipment Inventory UpdatesHow do you unlock a Taylor soft serve machine that is freezer locked?
Good afternoon fellow ice cream enthusiasts! Today’s post is a step by step guide on how to fix your Taylor machine when it’s become freezer locked. This issue can be very frustrating for first time machine owners, but once you understand what it is and why it happens, you’ll be able to deal with it immediately, and avoid delays caused by the freezer lock condition in the future.
This solution will work for the Taylor C713, C712, C717, and C723 crown series soft serve machines, and may work for other similar crown series models too. If you need assistance, feel free to email us at equipment@turnkeyparlor.com with questions.
There are two types of freezer locks; a Hard lock and a Soft lock. A hard lock requires the machine be disassembled and brush cleaned, while a soft lock can be corrected by either starting a heat treatment cycle, or similarly, disassembling and brush cleaning your machine.
Removing a Taylor Freezer Lock: Hard & Soft Locks
To unlock your Taylor machine, you either need to reset the machine's cleaning timer, or run a heat cycle. Generally, running a full heat cycle takes a few hours to complete, and is not the ideal method if you need your machine up and running right away. Also, the heat cycle will only work if the machine is soft locked.
The following method will work for both soft and hard locks, and will take less then 10 minutes.
The cleaning timer is designed to compel machine operators to clean the machine on a regular basis. To reset the cleaning timer and remove the freezer lock, there are three parameters that must be met:
- You must empty your machine completely. No product can be in the hoppers or cylinders of the machine.
- The faceplate of the machine (the door) must be off the machine.
- The temperature of both hoppers and both cylinders must be above +60 degrees Fahrenheit.once empty. Temperature for both cylinders and hoppers will appear on the screen once you flip the power switch off.
Once all three parameters have been met, you will need to flip the power switch to the off position. If you did everything correctly, you will see a timer, starting at five minutes and counting down. Once the timer hits 0, your machine will unlock and is ready for operation!
Preferably, while the timer counts down you would be brush cleaning the machine, but in reality it's not required to get the machine unlocked and running.
It is important to do regular cleaning. if you need help with learning how to clean or operate your soft serve machine, watch this training video HERE.
Why does a freezer lock occur on a crown series Taylor machine?
There are a few reasons why your machine may have freezer locked. Generally, an error message will show up on your screen, above or under the freezer locked message.
If the error message that shows the reason for a freezer lock is no longer on the screen, you can restore the message by turning the power switch off for a few seconds, then flip the power switch back on. The error message, including the reason for the lock will show back up.
Freezer Locked: Hardlock
There are two things that will cause your machine to hard lock: If either the Brush Clean Timer has elapsed or if a Thermistor has failed in the Cylinder or Hopper during a Heat cycle. Below is an example of what the Brush Clean Timer error and the Thermistor failure error will look like on the screen of your Taylor soft serve machine:
Freezer Locked: Softlock
When your Taylor machine is freezer locked due to a soft lock, it is often because a heat treatment cycle has not run within the last 24 hours.
The heat treatment cycle should be scheduled to run a few hours before opening, and should run daily. The process of setting this up to run automatically is pretty simple, and instructions for scheduling automatic heat treatment cycles are available here if needed.
The heat treatment cycle is important to removing bacteria from your mix, and running the heat treatment cycle daily will reduce the amount of full brush cleaning needed for a sanitary operation, as well as avoid having future freezer locks.
With this being said, there are a few reasons why a heat treatment cycle might fail and cause a soft lock. There are also a few less common reasons unrelated to heat cycling that can also cause your machine to soft lock. Below is a table with a few of the most common error messages that will accompany a soft lock:
| POWER SWITCH OFF | Power switch was in the OFF position when the heat cycle was scheduled to run. Solution: Flip the power switch and choose Heat Cycle or Brush Clean. |
| MIX OUT PRESENT | Mix in the machine was either too low or empty. Solution: Add Mix, then choose either Heat Cycle or Brush Clean. |
| AUTO OR STANDBY OFF | The machine was not in the AUTO or STANDBY Mode. Solution: You should empty your machine, because the mix has likely sat unrefrigerated overnight. |
| NO HEAT CYCLE TRIED | A heat treatment cycle was not attempted in the last 24 hours. (AUTO HEAT TIME was advanced or a power loss was experienced at the time the cycle was to occur.) Solution: choose either Heat Cycle or Brush Clean. |
| PRODUCT OVER TEMPERATURE | This error can occur during actual machine operation. This occurs for a few reasons, when:
Solution: choose either Heat Cycle or Brush Clean. Make sure temperatures are corrected. |
If you decide to choose Brush Clean instead of Heat Cycle when in a soft lock, you will Hard Lock your machine. This means you must follow through with the steps above, and will not be able to run a heat cycle until the hardlock procedures have been completed.
Troubleshooting Guide: Freezer Lock Solutions
More information about why your machine is freezer locked, either soft locked or hard locked, is listed in the table below. This table comes directly from the operations manual of a Taylor crown series soft serve machine and is part of the troubleshooting section of the manual:
| Problem | Probable Cause | Remedy |
|---|---|---|
| Soft lock message appears on display. | a. More than 24 hours since the last HEAT cycle. | The freezer must go through a HEAT cycle every 24 hours. The freezer must now be disassembled and brush cleaned or placed in a heat cycle. |
| b. The power switch is in the OFF position. | b. The power switch must be in the ON position. The freezer must now be disassembled and brush cleaned or placed in a heat cycle. | |
| c. The freezer was not in the AUTO or STANDBY mode when the heat cycle was programmed to start | c. The freezer must be in the AUTO or STANDBY mode. The freezer must now be disassembled and brush cleaned or placed in a heat cycle. | |
| d. Mix out or mix low condition. | d. The level of mix in the mix hopper must be above the mix low probe. The freezer must now be disassembled and brush cleaned or placed in a heat cycle. | |
| e. The agitator is not installed. | e. The agitator must be cleaned and installed before starting the HEAT cycle. The freezer must now be disassembled and brush cleaned or placed in a heat cycle. | |
| f. There was a power failure | f. Check fault messages and product temperature. Disassemble and brush clean, or initiate a heat treatment cycle. | |
| 2. Hard lock message appears on display. | a. Brush clean interval exceeded. (Programmable from 2 - 14 days.) | a. The freezer must be disassembled and brush cleaned within 24 hours when the counter indicates one day remaining |
| b. A barrel or hopper thermistor is faulty. | b. Call an authorized service technician. |