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Standing up, always. If you use a pallet Jack to move soda machines bring along 2 pieces of 4x4 lumber cut to 32-36” long. Tip the machine to 1 side with a helper just enough to slide the 4x4 under the edge. Repeat on the other side so that it’s sitting on 4x4s. Then you can slide the pallet jack under the machine from the front. Always use ratchet straps to secure your load. I prefer using straps that have the ratchet handle to crank it down, not just the cheap type that you pull on. At least 1000 lbs working load limit (not breaking strength), and at least 1.5 in wide strapping (preferable 2 in) Always use at least 2 straps over the top at the very minimum, preferably a third wrapped around it, and use a piece or cardboard where the strap touches the machine to protect the strap and the paint. Also, always stop after a few miles to check and tighten. Those drop deck trailers do ride very rough. And make sure to cinch things down tight.

Vehicle: can be rental or owned. Renting is probably better for those just starting out. Good choices, from best to good: box truck with rail style lift gate, pickup and lift bed trailer, box truck with tuck under style lift gate, pickup with Tommy lift lift gate. Tools: Dutro dolly, preferably with a top hook strap. Pallet jack, both short and narrow and full size. Piano dollies for tight doorways. If I could only have 1 the Dutro would be my pick, followed by a short and narrow pallet jack. Don’t use regular appliance dollies, they suck and you will drop a machine and or hurt someone.

The RS232 ports on the Rowe are for connecting a printer to print out sales reports. They are not setup to work with a converter, and almost certainly will not work with one.

Yup. Abloy and Medeco are the best for security. Even the LSI Cobra 7 are a small step above because they don’t fit the cheap tubular lock picks due to the shape of the center post, and are a bit hard to tension for hand picking. Still pickable by experienced hands but will deter a casual. And honestly if a Medeco or Abloy and a couple hockey puck locks isn’t enough to stop theft it’s time to pull the equipment from that location or switch to card only before your equipment gets Swiss cheesed by a guy with a sawzall.

No. Don’t do it. These machines are golpher garbage.

There’s a jumper harness for Mars 110v VN series validators to make them always enabled.

Remember that the newest E series machines are pushing 15 years old now and the oldest are over 30. The VMaxes are only slightly newer. Vending machines generally have phenomenal service lives.

It was built to do either, with the right parts kit but the parts to make it vend glass were never very common and haven’t been made in a long long time. Not that it’s a good idea to vend glass in the first place from one of the these. The bottle opener was standard in pretty much all Dixie Narcos up until the 90s, even if the machine was never setup to vend glass from the factory.

Oak Vista cab. Made anywhere from probably the 60s or so (not super sure) to the 2010s. Glass panels instead of plexiglas would indicate earlier production, as would 5 or 10 cent mechs, but parts can and do get swapped all the time so not a very reliable indicator. Best bet for parts would be eBay. The center rod can be replaced with 1/4-20 threaded rod cut to length from a hardware store, if you don’t care about originality. As for value unfortunately not worth a whole lot, 20-60 bucks is fair but you could probably get 70-80 for it in an antiques store storefront. Just way too common, and lots of vendors are selling off equipment.

No, they rely on drop sensors to work. Just get a new sensor, they are prone to failure, used ones are too much of a crapshoot.

If you want to swap it any MDB coin mech will work. An MEI CF7512 has great change capacity and is rock solid reliable. If you don’t need a ton of change capacity get a Coinco 9302GX. Also rock solid mechs.

Yes. The parts I listed are in addition to the ones you originally listed.

Need a main door harness, select switch harness, display harness, MDB harness, transformer, and display as well. Probably some other parts I’m forgetting.

I’ve done it before a couple times. You need every single harness except the lighting harness. Not worth it if you have to buy harnesses. Only reason it was worth it to me is because I had multi price parts machines and clean, nice single price 501Es. One 600E that was absolutely destroyed (picked up a machine at auction for cheap that spent its life outdoors on a beach and rusted out, plus major sun damage and someone used a crowbar to attempt to break into) and 501E that took a swan dive off a forklift. Pull all the harnesses and boards out of the parts machine and transfer them over to the single price machine.

I think you are looking for product pushers. They snap on the end of the spiral to either keep product in or help push it off the shelf. https://www.vesolutions.co/PRODUCT-PUSHER-UNIVERSAL-BLACK

Only posts that this guy has is hijacking threads or reviving dead ones to ask about how to get into Pepsi HVVs. I personally do not give out info on how to open machines to new users, it’s a security risk. I’m sure a lot of other experienced guys feel the same. Doesn’t help that he’s ignoring forum etiquette at the same time, either.

Your overhead is killing you. That amount of overhead is appropriate for someone with 20+ machines. You’ll need to expand to make money. Personally I’d keep the phone number, insurance, and tax. Maybe the website and email if you plan to expand. Drop the accountants and quick books, just use an excel spreadsheet or Wave, which is free. Get good used full size machines, don’t get new unless you land an awesome account that demands one. Probably a location doing 1000-1500 a month gross is when you should start considering new equipment, so 3-4 times the size of your current location at least. 350-500 a month, used machines all day every day. If a small location like the one you have balks at used equipment they aren’t worth the time. Product cost should be no more than 40% of sales price. Screw the complainers, they’ll always be there and usually don’t buy squat. You could sell a bag of chips for 50 cents and there will still be some boomer that thinks it’s a ripoff because he’s still stuck in 1985. Just curious, what make and model of machine did you buy?

That looks like an aftermarket UCB board. The factory manual programming is useless, as the board has been replaced and upgraded. This is actually a very good thing. The UCB boards are much more capable and you can run credit card readers on the machine because you have one. Looks like you have the inOne board, manual here. https://www.dsvendinginc.com/images/pdf-manuals/ds950b.pdf

While your at it replace the battery too. CR2032 button cell available at any grocery or hardware store.

I use both short and narrow and short and wide pallet jacks depending on the machine. On full size machines (sodas and 5 wide snacks) I find the full width jacks to be much more stable. For narrow machines I use the narrow as the full width won’t fit under it nicely. Also have a Dutro dolly in my arsenal. For clamshelling I bought a few sets of casters that have threaded stems that are the same thread as the leveling legs. Tilt the machine on a Dutro, screw them in in place of the levelers and away we go. Once the machine is through the doors remove the casters and replace the leveling legs. Occasionally there’ll be a situation (mostly height limited doorways) where I’ll need piano dollies, but I just rent those from a local rental place.

If they only take Zelle/Venmo, wire, and crypto it’s almost always a scam.

They have plastic mechs, not the best reliability or quality. BUT, none of that matters for a home use machine. You are not going to beat the golpher out of your own machine, and if something breaks it’s not a huge deal, as you are not losing sales or looking bad in front of a customer. Parts are pretty common on eBay just because of how many were sold. Also, a major concern about the 8 head is wasted product. But you know how much candy you go through. For 80 bucks if you like the looks it’s not a bad option for home use.

To add on to what AZ Vendor said, Personally, as much as it pains me to say it, the single price Dixie’s are probably past their prime at this point. Great, solid machines, just a bit outdated at this point. But for a newbie on a shoestring budget they can still work for smaller locations, if you buy one dirt cheap (<3-400 dollars for a mint one in good working shape) Dixie Narco 501Es are the perfect starter machine in my opinion. There’s a lot of them out there, and they are easy to learn and setup. Plus, they are still very much relevant and can have credit card readers installed on them fairly easily. Other decent machines are Royal 650s (Merlin IVs) and Royal 660s (GIIIs). The 650s are somewhat rarer, but are fairly simple as well. 660s are much more common, but are a bit more complex with their single motor chain drive vending mechanism. Both machines are a bit more complex than the 501Es tho. As for Vendos the 721s are great machines, but not super common to find used, and usually a bit pricier when you do. These are probably the simplest to operate and are still in production. The previous model, the 720 (VMax) are kind of ok, but are a pain to setup initially. The other issue is that a couple of wear parts (gate links and gage bars) are no longer being made, so keeping them running could be an issue going forward. Wouldn’t necessarily recommend the 720, but you could do a whole lot worse than that.

No bottle will vend from this machine. It’s a serpentine machine so all it will ever be able to do is standard 12oz cans. If you need bottles you’ll need a separate machine for drinks and snacks. Or an AMS or USI combo, but I would recommend a separate drink and snack for other reasons anyways.

These are made by inOne Technologies. Their retrofit UCB boards are pretty decent but I don’t know if they are making these doors anymore. Support for these might get a bit iffy.