AngryChris

For the cost of the cooling deck and other things, you could buy a refurbished machine that's ready to go. I wouldn't take it even if it were free.

Let me just chime in here and tell you this... a very simple issue with a robotic glassfront machine can render the whole machine useless. It requires quite a bit of diagnosis to find out what happens when they fail. Even if you know what the problem is, it takes time to replace those parts. The machine is DOWN until it is fixed. That doesn't include calling a distributor to get the part(s) you need and waiting on shipping. There are so many factors that can make it very frustrating for you and the customer. I have an AMS refrigerated machine setup for bottles. I specifically chose it for a location because it has 40 independent motors and works like a snack machine. The bottles do drop instead of being delivered via a cup, but one motor going down will not render the whole machine useless. HOWEVER!!!, I recently had a "product sensor" error and I have never heard of this. I had to disable this sensor to get it going again. I was probably there for 10 minutes before I had to settle on that and the drop sensor still works so everything is fine, but my point is that a machine such as a 501e, Vendo 721, and a Royal 650 rarely ever completely go useless. I know Mike can see this and he's going to naturally be biased but let me tell you... ever since things like energy drinks, prepackaged coffee and other items became all the rage, the ONE machine that just completely kicks golpher over and over again is the vendo 721. These things just take whatever you throw at them. I have my gripes about some of the door styles and some other quirks that come down to personal preference, but they WORK and they work very well. The only thing that would bring down a vendo 721 or a royal 650 is a bad drop sensor but those things typically seem to go 10+ years before they break. On a bevmax, you could just say something negative about it and it might go out of order.

I'm not sure what you consider to be absurd. I rent from Penske and Enterprise truck rentals regularly. I usually end up paying about $250-350 per day to get all of my moves done.

Hopefully you don't find out that teachers will usually happily tell you what to put in the machines even if they have no plans on buying it.

I basically circumvented ordering directly from Pepsi. I use a different distributor. From what I understand though, both Coke and Pepsi tend to focus on trying to force you (the operator) to buy more SKUs of product by offering rebates if you do. For example, if you buy at least 40 cases of Starry, maybe you'll get $3 rebate per case of regular soda products like pepsi/dew. It does help the bottom line but the issue is that the prices may still be higher than going through someone else (maybe) and they pretty much twist your arm to buy even MORE varieties of products in the future or kind of threaten to put you to a lower tier which means higher prices. And if you have equipment with them, they really give it to you. I have a great relationship with KDP so I am almost exclusively 7up items on the non-cola flavors. I get a great price on their items and they happily send me machines because I keep buying. No pushing me on varieties. My rep does send me new things and I try things out from time to time but I already carry maybe 30 different SKUs from them.

Personally, I think you should sell that vendo for 1500+ and either buy a much cheaper old soda machine or get an actual gun safe.

We move machines regularly. A pallet jack and other equipment makes it pretty easy. If you don't have that, an appliance dolly works.

I prefer the 500 for the side door

Shaffer is in Columbus. My contact is Marty. Look them up. They do arcade and vending

Well I only really email people once I've had a fave to face with them. Unfortunately, you have to knock on doors to get a chance. They want to see that you're a person. Most contacts don't want to deal with strangers even if their vending service sucks. They don't know what you offer and would rather not deal with it. You need to make yourself very approachable, get the gatekeeper to give you a good word to the decision maker, and then you need to follow up until you can get a face to face with a decision maker. Emailing is cool but it only works if you have the right email to the right person in the first place. That usually happens after an initial greeting.

On the bill acceptor? I don't know. Most of us don't work on them if there are board issues. We just send them to get repaired.

It's been a while since I messed with one but you might not have prices set. If you have multiple boards inside and you can't set prices, it's time to scrap that machine.

I think it was the same thing you had. It allowed them to print route tickets. The tickets were perforated with some basic info such as location name, date, money collected, etc.. I can do the same in vend soft except I have to physically cut the tickets as they print on a standard piece of paper

I'm not sure if my former employer used vegabond but they claimed to have paid something crazy back in the day like over 10k for the system. It was something so outrageous as an investment, they refused to switch to something new for a looonnggg time. I got lucky jumping into vendsoft while it was still new.

Yes, as AZvendor said you need some kind of software but anything you decide to get will take a LOT of data entry to make it work. I spent dozens and dozens of hours to get vendsoft going,but it's worth it once you get through the initial phase.

I would never advise that. I'm sure it's possible but now you're talking about a backyard fabrication job and that's not what a professional does. I like to save money too but you'd be far better off just sticking with the standard 16 oz energy drinks. I sell about a dozen different varieties of energy drinks and only the 16 oz to in our stack vending machines. Red bulls go in glassfronts or coolers.

I'm assuming it's just a graphics design but your best bet is to call crane and ask them.

My answer is don't buy the combo if you don't think you can find someone to fix it. Wild guess.. $1,000+ to fix it. This is NOT a machine you want to deal with if it's not cooling and you don't know what you're doing

My money says no eprom will resolve the cash reporting issue.

Geez, if that's how you responded to my attempt at being helpful I'd probably never try to help you again lol

I have an apartment building that does $500+/week. A factory that does more than that. One of my favorites is actually a commission location. They actually have another vendor in their facility and we only do the can machines but pay them 10%. It does at least $200/week from 2 machines. We go every other week and it takes maybe 30 minutes due to the walking distance but it's actually really easy money. I have maybe 6 locations that do 20% of company revenue collectively. Our average location does about $150 per week which is actually lower than I would like but it all adds up.

If I had to start over from scratch, I would do things differently than what I will tell you but if someone wanted my advice as how to make it with vending, I would stick with machines that are common and refurbished such as National 167/168 or AP 122/123. Those machines should guarantee you to be MDB and credit card ready without any modification I believe. I would also stick exclusively with Vendo 721s because, for today's world, they are just better. But Royal 650s and Dixie Narco 501Es are also great. Anything newer than the snack models I mentioned should be good as long as they are american-made equipment and not seaga. If you stick with those, especially from a reputable refurbisher/distributor, you should be well set for the future. The next trick is to find blue collar locations (factory types) with at least 30 people in them. That *should* allow you to get your foot in the door and really get going without having equipment issues. Once you get some experience, you can go after larger locations.

I have no idea what that port is for. It's a question you'd need some rowe expert for or a manual that might explain. Rowe has been out of business for a long time now.

I'm not too knowledgeable with rowes. A 5900 should handle mdb but might not communicate properly with a card reader. Even if it did,that machine REALLY shouldn't have a dime invested in it. You cannot get parts for it

Not everyone has adopted using apps. It's not so bad when you have a younger workforce at a place of business where there's no expectation of visitors using the machines, but older workers aren't fond of using apps and may choose to bring their own items in out of spite. A card reader accepts everything and it integrated nicely with a vms (vending management software). A card reader allows someone to simply pull out their card and pay without an app. Payrange isn't bad, but not great for everywhere. I'm marketing my company as a professional company. We service the locations that the big boys won't do and the little guys can't do. Our prices are a little on the higher side compared to big companies but fair. I've been working on this since 2022 after COVID restrictions eased up. The majority of the population wants a swipe/chip option and I need whatever it is to integrate with my vms.