Oak Vista 300

[joebob051977]

I recently received my new Oak Vista 300's. I love the way these machines look. My first impression of these machines are that these are some sharp looking machines. The proportions are real nice. The smaller globe, and beveled metal lid give it more of an upscale look than the 450's. It has an Oak Acorn fell to it. The paint looks nice. It isn't without imperfections though. You can see a round area on the lid where perhaps the lock well was welded in. This flaw is minor, but nevertheless visible if you really inspect the machine.

The machine has the classic Oak Vista ruggedness to it. The all metal construction and solid mechanism makes it a machine that will last an entire vending career. This makes this machine a real steal for the price of only $41 each. I wouldn't worry about the globe size since it is plenty big for just about any location. How often do you sell 300 gumballs in a month! A 54oz bag of candy fills the machine about 1/2 way.

The bottom line: by this machine, and buy it often.     

[dperry]

I love the vista and I also have had my problems with them and with Oak.  I purchased 15 units a few years ago.  I took a day off of work to go locating, but I didn't open all the boxes when they arrived.  To my surprise, none of the machines had any locks.  I called Oak and found that the locks were shipped separately, but they hadn't arrived yet.  This put the kybosh on my locating day.

Another big shipment had all the machines with fully threaded center rods.  Normally the rods are only threaded on each end, and smooth in the middle. This becomes a problem when pulling the base off the stand to dump out the quarters.  The base will rub against the center rod and cause a nice loud zipping noise when you pull it off and put it on.  I still have most of those machines and I always cringe when I service them.

I've also recieved several where the lids had obviously been repainted from yellow to red.  This shows me that they don't do powder coating on all the parts like I thought.

The 300 is great for the reasons you stated.  But I have to say, once you branch off into racks, you will find them to be rather limiting when vending capsules.  Most cap toys have a live display and those displays can be about 1" thick.  This takes up alot of room inside the head.  I'm usually only able to get about 120 caps in the head when using a live display.  But again, most locations don't sell out within my 2-month cycle so this still is not a problem.  But in the future I will be purchasing more panel heads or NW60s simply because they hold more caps.

[Bravo Duck]

Darryl, I got a batch of Vista 300s with the threaded rods also. The next time I ordered something from Oak they sent me 50  non-threaded rods to replace the threaded rods free of charge.

[joebob051977]

None of my machines that I have received from Oak have the threaded rods. None of my lids look like they have been repainted. I am guessing that the yellow may have been a primer coat showing through. I have ordered 8 machines from them recently. I haven't had any problems with not receiving the locks, and the paint has looked good. I'm not doubting the issues you may have had with the Oak that you purchased, I did not have any of the same problems.

I am not expecting to do caps with the 300''s. But the versatility of the Vista allows me the option to change to a larger globe size or to a cab in order to caps if I so choose to. This versatility is one of the nice features of the Vista.