Am I the only one that seems to have trouble with Fullwood milk meters? I'm afraid to pressure wash the parlour for fear of getting moisture into the cards or parts of the pads failing to work after. We have replaced so many pads and repaired cards. The other thing is that the company that repairs them or our Fullwood rep. will only give a 3 month warranty on them which fills me with enthusiasm!! Anybody any ideas or suggestions for repairs etc.?

I assume you need electronic meters to link to computer or something, otherwise Waikato meters were never a moments trouble for us - but needed pen and paper.

We have gone out of milk now but previously had Gascoigne electronic meters which I installed myself. A few times when washing them(only with running warm water)we had problems at the next milking but taking the card out of either the display or the meter and drying it over the Rayburn or in the airing cupboard solved it.This will also sometimes work on pretty well anything electronic that has had a dunking or has been affected by condensation.Also it has the advantage of costing bugger all. Are your meters high or low mounted as I've found low mounting to be disasterous.A bit like hosing the TV down everyday and expecting it to still work. Another option might be to toilet train the cows so the meters don't need cleaning but I spent 20 years at that one and got nowhere.I did once read that "dairy farmer" was just a posh name for a "bovine toilet attendant" which sounded stupid until you stopped and thought about how much of a day cleaning up after them occupies. In reply to Swede-Head electronic meters are miles superior than anything else at contolling ACRs and are worth their odd faults for that alone.

Which type have you got? are they the old blue type, or the newer type shown in the pic? We've had both, and the old blue ones were more bother but it was the inside of where the milk goes through that gave the trouble. When they came to it, the dealer said it was the poor quality chemical we were using to clean it. The best one we found was the Alfa Laval powder and did a milk stone remover wash more often. We used to prssure wash them 4 times a year but didn't have that much trouble inside. The newer ones we have in the 20/40 (see photo) have been very little trouble at all and we pressure wash them bi-monthly. I know we shouldn't, but we do. We've been told not to but it's the best way to clean them. The touch pad is wiped clean with a TFR mix, soaked cloth once a week. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v371/JamesF/Fullwood20-40.jpg

For us, ACR was when one particular cow used to try to nick the cake, and in so doing, would walk off wearing a neighbouring cluster for a necklace, which vented the pipeline and dumped all 5 remaining units in the shit. Occasional happy memories.