Vendo 63 free vend

[Big W]

Ahhhh, good news.  Pulled cover on vend solenoid.  All complete.  Solenoid would engage but would stick.  Put a couple of drops of 3in1 oil on mech. parts. worked it a few times.  No more sticking.  Still a few problems.  After some R&D Lowered shelves to Large Bottle.  Actually got a few to vend.  Took some working of the free vend switch in unison with working the gate and gate arm.  Going to lube all the Mechanical parts and see what happens.

Any advice is greatly appreciated, Wayland

[Big W]

Dang, the more I touch the more that goes wrong.  I noticed that free vend switch would work sometimes and sometimes not.  I also notice that when the switch would not work that the fan on the inside of the cooler stopped blowing.  So I unplugged the connector on top of the coils that goto the door and checked against the schematic.  Nothing.  Hummm.  So I look at where the power cord comes in from outside the cabnet and it run into a black box about 2"x2" and about an inch thick.  Unplugged the compressor and it stoped and the fan on the inside started working.  Plugged in the compressor and the fan ran for a while and stopped.  Jiggled the wires coming out of the little black box and the fan would come on and go off.  What is the black box, is it just a junction box?  I think I got some bad connections.

Help, Wayland  

[Big W]

Yepee,  Pulled Black Box behind compressor coils.  A little cleaning and wahla.  The old cat started working again.  Now my machine works great.  Two weeks of owning my first machine and I know pretty darn well how the thing is wired and a little about the Mechanical Portion.  Thanks to all who helped.

Wayland

[BryanH]

Quote (johnieG @ Dec. 25 2004,7:04)

1). tie wrap the vending solenoid in the "up postion" 2). use the search feature on this page & type in "free play switch" to find prior postings on wiring up a switch.

JohnieG - why do you tie the vending solenoid in the up position?  I have a VMC56 that appears to have a similar mechanism and I just used the button wiring directions (without tieing the switch) and everything appears to work fine??

Thanks,  Bryan

[loman4ec]

The tie is if you do not want to use a switch. You can just put a tie wrap on the vend mech so that it is always in the vend position.

[johnieG]

Quote (hartlenb @ Jan. 19 2005,8:25)

Quote (johnieG @ Dec. 25 2004,7:04) 1). tie wrap the vending solenoid in the "up postion" 2). use the search feature on this page & type in "free play switch" to find prior postings on wiring up a switch. JohnieG - why do you tie the vending solenoid in the up position?  I have a VMC56 that appears to have a similar mechanism and I just used the button wiring directions (without tieing the switch) and everything appears to work fine?? Thanks,  Bryan

I did not suggest, nor do I ever use the "tiewrapped" or "rubber-band" method of forcing the vend solenoid into the up postion to allow a "free-vend" from all of the bottle gates,

In my personel opinion, these machines were meant to "Vend" so I like using the electrical "free-play " switch wired into the the coinmechs harness, my guests & my kids love to put the coins into the machines & watch them do it's thing, clinks, buzzes & clunks as it vend a soda, I mean come on...if you don't want a Vending Machine , then get a chest cooler, or a refrigerator for cry'n out loud...but hey, I'm jaded on this opinion, gee hope it doesn't show....

[BryanH]

Got it... they were two different options for enabling free vending.  In that case, I gotta agree with JohnieG that tie-wrapping takes the fun out of the machine.  I plan to build a cable harness that supports both regular coin vending and the free vend button (for when coins just aren't handy).

Bryan