Total Newbie with a CSS-64-GC

[turbowhiz]

I’m a totally new guy to the world of vending machines, but I’ve been lurking around for a long time waiting for the right machine for me to come up locally.

And it finally did, and I’m now a proud owner of a CSS-64-GC… (3d lighted StyleStar sign, what I’m assuming is what they called “Craftsman” with the brown front/tan sides without decoration) Looks to be entirely original, certainly far from perfect shape, but far from gone. I figured since it seemed to kind of work I was good to be in it for $200, as the sign itself is in nice shape.

I’ve played around for a few hours, replaced the sign bulb, the “have a coke” bulb, the bottle door bulb, cleaned up the coin mech and set the price (a 9800A does kind of weird things when you have the price set to 0 as I discovered), fixed the bent lever the bottle gate switch so the “have a coke” light actually worked (I have no idea why someone would have bent it… I suspect it was a misguided attempt to make the thing free vend).

Now on to some parts I have some questions to people who know a whole lot more then I do about these things:

Cooling:

The cooling system seems to work okay. But the compressor is pretty darned loud. Probably louder then it should be. When I first plug it in, the noise will change a bit (as in be al little louder then a little quieter) then settle into a pretty loud variant of what I suppose I’d say is “normal” compressor noise. The evaporator coils also ice a little after its been running for bit... Is that normal? The whole thing seems to get cold fairly quickly, and seems to work in general, its just noisy. I figure the compressor is a little sketchy, but until I move the thing out of my garage I’m okay with then noise. With that in mind is there anything I can/should do with the cooling system, or just let er run until it quits or I can’t stand the noise? Is there any point in trying to repair the current system or am I better finding another cooling system entirely? I’m in the Toronto area, so with that in mind, anyone suggest someplace that would repair/rebuilt it? Or am I better off trying to just buy a whole other machine just for the cooling system? CSS-64’s seem to be common enough around here, just not stylestar ones.

Bottle Door:

Not quite sure what’s going on here, but I’m not entirely sure if its original or some sort of hokey repair. The net result is condensation forms in the bottle door glass… How is it supposed to be? Can someone point me to a detailed breakdown on how it’s supposed to go together? Ia there glass and plexiglass? I suspect that someone did some sort of repair around it and that’s why I have the condensation problem..

Liner finish:

So its kinda rusty on the bottom of the liner.. What is my best option for dealing with that? Remove the liner sandblast paint? Or some such? If I remove the liner to do that, what about insulation replacement? What are my best options there?

I’m sure I’m going to have lots more questions, and I can already figure that this could be a very slippery slope of more machines and problems in the future…

Thanks,
Andrew

[Pixel]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.  

I'll leave proper answers to the more experienced forum members, but I can give you a general impression of the Cavalier CS-64. I owned a regular model for a few years, and it is still in the family.

When it works properly, I don't think you could ask for a better cooling system. It's really good at dealing with the warmer parts of the year. It will freeze drinks hard enough to bust if you set the thermostat low enough. You don't actually want that to happen, it will make a mess. The system is more than capable of doing it though, if it's like the one I had. Do you have all the bottle shelf adjusters? I don't know if they are absolutely necessary, but I don't think it would hurt to have them all.

The only real problem in general is the cost of Coca Cola or Pepsi in glass bottles.

 

 

[MoonDawg]

        Many...........but not all Cavalier compressors I have owned are just plain loud.

[kbareit]

Check the rubber mounts on the compressor. They tend to get hard or dry rot over the years and could be the cause of it being loud.

[turbowhiz]

Yup, the whole machine appears complete as far as I can tell. All the shelf adjusters, cap catcher, coin box, drip pan all there.

Funny you should mention the thermostat and freezing bottles; As I've been running the thing for a little while I noticed that I had a little bit of ice in a bottle I pulled out.
I have it set for "3", but I've now backed the thing right off. I have a suspicion that the thermostat isn't working correctly.

I've backed it right off until the compressor stopped, warmed the sensing line with my hand and it will kick the compressor back on, but I'm not entirely sure that its reliably turning off again when it gets cold. Anyone comment thats a common failure mode for the thermostat?

Along the noise point, as I've run it a bit more, its seems to run a little quieter for a while after starting before getting louder. And when its louder its a somewhat metallic noise from the compressor. My guess is that this thing was probably been sitting for a good while without being run, so I don't know if thats a factor or not.

Considering I cleaned out of the bottom of it a old coke classic bottle label, a coke classic bottle cap, and a tab bottle cap, it looks like the thing was shutdown and has been sitting around for years. There was a very good accumulation of crud in the bottom of the thing. For me though I want it to work, not just sit around...

Anyone have concerns about actually leaving the sign lit with the florescent light? The oh so groovy style star sign (the whole reason I bought it) doesn't seem to be yellow to speak of, and I'm wondering if there is is any harm from lighting the thing over the long term (i.e. yellowing). When I got it the light was burnt out, so who knows how long its not worked for. The bulb starter is also wonky, I have a replacement on order. I'll probably want to put it on a switch, but I'm loathed to cut the original unmolested wiring harness to do it. My thought is to get some donor connectors and put in a splice that was so I can turn the thing on and off.

Thanks for the info guys!

[cola62]

I have my Vendo 63 on a timer. It cuts off every night around 9pm and back on at 9 am.  So the light runs 12 hrs a day.  Been running that way for six years with no issues to the products or the sign.  I do believe the Style Star Sign is more of a thin plastic but you shouldnt get much heat from a flourescent bulb.

[Pixel]

I've heard that UV can sometimes cause plastic to yellow. I do not know if the style star sign will be suceptible to that. You don't by chance have an early model American-style Super Nintendo do you? The outer shells on those regularly turn yellow.

[turbowhiz]

It is the UV light output of the florescent tube I'm worried about, exactly.

The inner part of the sign appears to be some sort of vacuum formed plastic. I've just not seen enough of them to know if they yellow or not over time from the light, assuming the sign itself is not in sunlight.

[Pixel]

I couldn't say for sure either. 

On the 64 I had the fluorescent sign lighting isn't very reliable. The bulb would burn out every few months and they're several $US each at WalMart. It's using the original transformer ballast. It may be dirty socket or bad connections, I don't know. The ballast is likely using house current (120 Volts AC in the States), so you do
NOT want to mess with it with the machine plugged in. I've been burned by bad bulbs trying to take them out, too.

It's not impossible for plastic to yellow anyway. I'm pretty sure white plastic will sometimes yellow no matter what. I had my Super Nintendo stored under a bed for awhile, I don't think it stopped the yellowing from getting worse. Being ABS plastic may have made it more prone to yellowing, I don't know.

[Kilroy]

They will yellow over time.  They will also shrink and curl  and  make you thyink it was exposed to high heat