Back up and running

[beazle00]

After a few trials and tribulations, I finally got the Pepsi machine up and running. I called about 10 refrigeration places in town until I found one that would help me out.  Then I  had to wait until they had a guy available, after 3 weeks A guy dropped by one evening.  Turn out he lives 2 streets away from me. Anyways he removed the old piping from compressor to evaporator and even sweated off the expansion chamber just to check it. Then he installed new lines in a more direct and neat manner complete with tool bent square corners. He then charged up the system with 414 and then began testing the cooling adjusting the gas volume/ pressure as it ran. All in all a very professional job.  
So while the machine was out of commission, I took the liberty of replacing the two old blown out ballasts with with a single dual lamp unit from home depot and added a switch for it.  I ordered  a coin mech and lock and got them installed.Polished with compound to removed scuffs and scratches and bgrighten the chrome.  The light socket was missing from the bottle area so I was going to add some rope light to light up the bottles. I didn't like the way it looked, so I decided upon using EL wire which turned out pretty awesome as than it produces a good diffuse light while not being to bright and it hides out of the way real well. Here's some pics
The machine

 the bottle area lit with El wire

Pic of the el wire itself

[johnieG]

I like the way it evenly illuminates all the way down the bottle rack! how does it hold up in the cold enviroment.
I've seen some EL lights poop out when it gets below 40-degrees F.

EL= electroluminescent light ;  available in flexable plastic sheeting & ropes like shown here.  commonly used in back lighting of instrument panels, nite-lights, etc. also known as "cold fluorescence"

[beazle00]

No probs with it operating below 40F, I have the machine set to cool to 2.8C(~37F) and no probs.  I originally wanted to use cold cathode lamps, But they don't really like to operate too well at  temps lower 10C.  So i looked at el wire which after some research found out that it will operate as low a -20C.  Basically it can operate at lower temps because no arc needs to be struck like a cold cathode/flourescent.  Basically it's a  phosphor coated center wire with 2 common wires running it length inside a bendable plastic sheath.  I was very surprised at how inexpensive the el setup was. It cost me about $16 for 10' of wire plus the inverter. Got it fromVibeLights

ps forgive my use of the metric system, I'm Canadian '>

Edit: life expectancy is about 3000-5000hrs

[Creighton]

Great info and good looking machine!!
Thanks,
Creighton

[SIGNGUY]

I really like that EL light stuff. I'm gonna get some of that for other applications I've been looking into... thanks for the lead on that!
Oh yeah.. congrats on the "working" machine now.

[Jim]

Awesome job on bringing the machine back to life ! ! !

[Kilroy]

Ya done good.
And you realize this is only the start.....  

[dr galaga]

Lookin' good!  About how thickis the EL lighting?  The thickness of a pencil?

[beazle00]

(dr galaga @ Mar. 07 2007,5:54)

QUOTE

Lookin' good!  About how thickis the EL lighting?  The thickness of a pencil?

it's 2.3mm thick, that was the only size that came in white.

[globalcompressors]

Neat idea with the lighting!

Looks good.