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Wittern VT5000 - Giving Away FREE Product


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Any ideas on this issue I'm facing?

My vending machine is occasionally giving away free product - A person puts money it, it dispenses one product, doesn't recognize that it did, tries again and vends a second item.  Then it tells the customer to please make another selection.  Upon the third product being dispensed, it finally charges the customer for the product.  So the customer gets three products for the price of one (if they don't ask for their money back after the first two free products)....

I thought it was the iVend sensor technology, so I completely unplugged that sensor.... but it's still having that issue...

Losing money each day!  I'd estimate that this occurs about 20% of the time if not more...  The machine is not set to Free Vend...

When I call the service number (1-800-833-4411) some of the guys are helpful and knowledgeable, but it still hasn't led to this issue being solved...

Any advice would be sooooo  helpful!

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Make sure you have turned I-vend off in the programming and check to see if there is an I-vend option like "home" to turn on so the motors will go to home after every vend. If this keeps happening then you may just have a bad logic board.

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1 hour ago, AZVendor said:

Make sure you have turned I-vend off in the programming and check to see if there is an I-vend option like "home" to turn on so the motors will go to home after every vend. If this keeps happening then you may just have a bad logic board.

Ok, thank you AZVendor, I'll try that... just in case it doesn't work out... are logic boards a dime a dozen or what?  Haha...

And I guess another thing about what's going on... it seems to spike in the spring and that's when my refrigeration system starts having a lot of condensation forming and the "Health Safety" warning pops up when I go to the "Service Mode"...  Has anyone had issues with cooling systems leading to free products being dispensed?

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Condensation is rampant in those machines.  They are by no means air tight and not even close to it.  I believe the door glass is heated so check that.  Check all the door gasket materials for breaks or loose materials.  If the health control is on and you aren't doing any food or dairy from this machine then you need to disable the health control or adjust the programming so it doesn't behave as a food machine.  By the way, you will regret owning this machine if you ever need to work on the cooling unit because it's the worst one ever built by USI for service work.  The box around it is glued together so it doesn't come apart at all.  The evaporator drains water to a formed plastic cardboard piece that gets deformed and spills water everywhere, the drain hose from it to the pan behind the compressor gets kinked causing an overflow but you can't reach it or remove it, and the condenser fan is at the inside of the cabinet rear on a harness so short you have to climb all the way into the bottom of the cabinet to get to the harness.   

I forgot to add that no cooling problem leads to free products unless the I-vend sensors are fogged up I suppose.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, I think I've figured it out... Does this make sense?

The IVend sensors - I think that if something is blocking them, the vending machine is meant to bypass its messages - and you can tell if something is blocking them because this red light turns off.  When it's clear in the path of the sensors, then the red light is solidly and clearly bright.

But it seems there's a third possible state and that is that the sensors are partially block/misaligned.  What seems to happen then (and it was happening for me) is that the red light seems to very frequently blink on an off (maybe 10-20 times/second?)... maybe in this state, the vending machine can't bypass it and it can't recognize a product falling through the chute...  I don't know.

But in the end, I was taking apart the vending machine a bit and was eventually going to put in another logic board, but on the way I noticed that the Ivend technology was misaligned (a pin that was holding it in place broke and allowed it to move)... so far, since I've realigned the sensors, the light is brightly solidly lit and it doesn't seem to be giving away free product - at least that I've observed yet...

Thanks for your help AZVendor, and I hope this helps others too

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On 7/9/2017 at 3:40 PM, ArcticVendor said:

Ok, I think I've figured it out... Does this make sense?

The IVend sensors - I think that if something is blocking them, the vending machine is meant to bypass its messages - and you can tell if something is blocking them because this red light turns off.  When it's clear in the path of the sensors, then the red light is solidly and clearly bright.

But it seems there's a third possible state and that is that the sensors are partially block/misaligned.  What seems to happen then (and it was happening for me) is that the red light seems to very frequently blink on an off (maybe 10-20 times/second?)... maybe in this state, the vending machine can't bypass it and it can't recognize a product falling through the chute...  I don't know.

But in the end, I was taking apart the vending machine a bit and was eventually going to put in another logic board, but on the way I noticed that the Ivend technology was misaligned (a pin that was holding it in place broke and allowed it to move)... so far, since I've realigned the sensors, the light is brightly solidly lit and it doesn't seem to be giving away free product - at least that I've observed yet...

Thanks for your help AZVendor, and I hope this helps others too

Out of curiosity, have you had anymore issues with the misvends on the machine since adjusting the ivend sensor?

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Hey winning123,

Not that I've been able to detect - the stock in the vending machine and what my VMS indicates there should be are all lining up now and when I've used the machine, it's dispensed properly... I think that was the problem.

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