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Hello all,

I am happy to join this Forum, as I recently picked up a Coke machine for my wife, something she has wanted for quite some time as a part of our game room.  These machines are all new to me, but I fix various electronics (arcade games and pinball) as well as cars, so I'm sure I'll be able to find my way around this machine with a little help.

When I bought the machine, the seller claimed it "used to work, but just stopped".  Shortly after I got it home, I found that the cord had been poorly repaired, and one of the wires in the repair section had come apart.  I did a much better repair, and was happy to hear the fan and/or compressor come to life.  Unfortunately however, no lights on the front of the machine are coming on.

With my multimeter I checked the connections going up to the fluorescent light in the top and it's getting no power.  The selection lights are also not getting power.  At the bottom of the door there is a harness of white wires that are connected by a molex connector into a junction box in the bottom left side of the machine's "body".  I'm guessing my lack of power issue must lie there.  Are there fuses or anything on the underside of that junction box?  It has a 2-prong connector at the bottom with 2 wires feeding it (I think), then a 2nd molex connector with wires coming out and going to the compressor, and then there is the top molex connector which has the white wires in a harness going to the door.  I will also say I have not yet acquired a schematic for this machine.

Even if I can get the thing lit before doing the cooling check etc, my wife will be excited by the aesthetics.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Forgot to mention that I believe this to be a Vendo 125-5 or 125-G from what I have seen on the Web, not sure if that's right or not.  It DOES say "Vendo" in the bottom right-hand corner of the machine in white letters on the faux woodgrain.

Looks to be a Vendo 165...
Confirm this with the info on the ID Tag and I'll see if I have the manual which would/should have the schematic.

As I'm not the most knowledgeable on these later models, I don't recall fuses being utilized in the wiring harnesses, but I could be misinformed...

Thanks Jim, and after seeing a post here on a Pepsi 165 machine, I think you're right.

I just found this info online, and it appears to be identical to my wife's, with the exception of the side graphic:

http://www.colamachines.com/imagegallery/cpg135/thumbnails.php?album=262

Can someone tell me where the ID tag is located?  I didn't see anything inside the door or on the front.  Thanks!

There are no fuses or circuit breakers for the doors power harness, it's feed with line voltage directly from the main harness located down near the lower left side underneath near the compressor area, so if your coinmech/vending circuit and the lightup sign  have no power, start at the molex connector you mentioned unplug it & test it for line voltage with a digital volt meter ( or the like) they ( the whitish nylon connectors) are prone to become brittled & turn brown to light tan when they age & from overheating & then the brass contacts inside fail to make a connection.

I have a  Vendorlator VF-165 which I think is the same machine and the ID tag is on the side of the right side of the machine. I circled the tag. Also the machine just  looks bad because I took this before I cleaned it up. Looks a lot better now.
(http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t357/ScaleBowler/IDtag.jpg)

It definitely looks similar in design Alex.

Well thanks to the snow we got, I was home and had some time to tinker with the machine today.  I'm sad to say though that I'm getting frustrated because I can't figure out why I'm not getting any power to the lights on the front door  :darn:

I powered up the machine, I can see the fans running and I hear the compressor running, I popped the plate off of the fuse box in the front center part of the machine, and I put my multimeter on each prong individually of the circuit breaker with the black part of the multimeter on the metal area of the box (ground).  Neither prong is showing any current at all.  I also tried putting the red of the multi on one prong and the black on the other prong and still nothing.

This may be a dumb question but, does the coin mech/assy need to be in there as part of the series to power the selection lights and the fluorescent bulb up top?  At this time that assy is not in there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated because I am totally hitting the wall with this at the moment.

VG

I looked at that place on our machine, and you can see where something "was" there but now there's just a white spot in its place.  It does look like though on one of the schematics in the door that at the bottom of it there IS a #165.

Came across this manual in a quick search, maybe it can help you out?  

http://www.vendoco.com/Documents/Serpentine%20165,%20246.pdf (http://www.vendoco.com/Documents/Serpentine%20165,%20246.pdf)

Maybe you could snap a quick photo of the schematic and we could help you out, I can't find one online anywhere.

Thanks, that one is somewhat more like my machine than one that another member here forwarded to me, but I have looked through them both and what I'm really needing is a way to determine which wire in the harness for the lights is the "hot".  Neither manual has a schematic that shows me which wire is which, and I hate the thought of having to nick every single wire casing to find the hot  :(

I'll go get a pic right now and upload shortly.

Here are the pics- I am seeing the plug "outlet" on the left side of the fuse box, but there is nothing plugged into the sockets and I see no male plug end to put into them.  

Schematic pic #1:

http://www.59registry.hypermart.net/IMG_0101.JPG

(http://www.59registry.hypermart.net/IMG_0101.JPG)

Pic #2:

http://www.59registry.hypermart.net/IMG_0102.JPG

(http://www.59registry.hypermart.net/IMG_0102.JPG)

Loading Instructions:

http://www.59registry.hypermart.net/IMG_0100.JPG

(http://www.59registry.hypermart.net/IMG_0100.JPG)

From what I can see, the wires for the main top light are labeled "1" and "2" on the schematic.  Should that be on the wire casings?  The thing that's killing me is the harness goes into the door at the bottom, and then you don't see the wires again until they pop out either inside or above that fuse box.

That would be where the coin mechanism plugs into the machine. 9-pin??

On page 22 of the manual I linked to, you'll see a connector labeled #15, that is the connector where the light is powered from.  I'm not sure where it is located on your machine, but it is most likely near or in the junction box where the coin mechanism plugs in (the 9-pin Jones plug).  The schematic has the plug being close to that, so check there. 

Well here's where I get the doof award for the night..  Because all of the electronics I've been working on recently have all been DC current, I naturally was setting my multimeter to DC for everything..  But, that doesn't work on AC stuff  :darn:  After I flipped the switch over to AC on the multimeter, I suddenly found 124 V going up the cord to the fluorescent assy in the top...  I had already swapped the starter in it, so I checked the end contacts where a bulb would go and power was getting there so..............   I ran like hell up to Home Depot before they closed to get a new 20W fluorescent bulb.  I popped it in there and after a slight "hum", as if it hadn't been used in some time, the light came to life!

I guess next I will have to check the selector buttons to see if they are AC as well?  I'd been checking everything with DC!   Sonofa...................

Anyway, we're a step further than we were during my last post! 

Happens to all of us, way too often I think! 

As for the selection lights, are you sure that they light up all of the time?  Based on the schematic you posted, it looks like they are only sold-out lights, not on all of the time.  I could be wrong on that one.  Do you have the machine stocked right now?

I have 5 cans in it to close whatever switch makes it ready to vend.  I saw that it said each selection had to be filled to make it function properly.

I've noticed quite a few bulbs up underneath of the selection panel, but I have not yet recognized if they were just for "selection out" or if it's supposed to be on all the time.  Looks like I have some more reading to do!

This machine is my wife's, and when she saw it lit up tonight, I could tell she really liked it.  I just need to locate whatever translucent red paint is available now to touch up the sign in the top.

How big of an area is the coke sign? I had a small area on my machine that I was abel to touch up with some plastic model paint that my room mate bought for a model car. It was Model Masters clear red but that was a small area and for a larger area I would think you would need to spray it on.

I'd have to guess it's 10" x 10" or something around there?  I can measure today.

Here is a pic of her in the dark!

I had the same prob with my cs-80c cavilier machine(coke)        the coin mech has to hooked up to the jones plug      should be a 9 pin housing    the jones plug comes out of the coin mech and makes a complete circuit   which will tell the lights to come on and also makes a complete circuit                     after finding one here from cokccolaman      all went well and mine now is complete and just waiting to dispense beer and soda in my garage shop            hope all works