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Anyone Up For Ice Vending?


gdbutler

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Sold 32 bags today.  Not too bad considering the machine was down all morning because the dump door jammed again.  Got the text at 8:23am but couldn't get to the machine until I got off for lunch.  When I got there I gave the door a good whack and went back to work.  After I got off I went back to the machine, removed the door and "tweaked" it a bit.  I figured out that the actuator for the door has a tendancy to slide to one side of it's hinge.  When it does that it puts the door in a bind.  I loosened the bolt that affixes the actuator to the hinge a small amount and it worked ok, and has been fine sice (knock on wood),  Tomorrow I'm going to head back and put a washer on one side of the hinge so it will then be a permanent fix.  This machine is really well made, I know it doesn't seem like it by my writing but the process of vending the ice is the best I've seen, once this issue is resolved I honestly don't see why I would ever have any more issues.  The bag Issues I had earlier was fixe by simply not stacking to many bags on the despenser at once.  I had over 1,000 bags on it and it just put too much weight on the bag next to the machine.  Once I got rid of about half of them the bag issues went away...and 500 is plenty of bags to have on the machine at a time.

 

I also figured out how to read the vend monitor so tomorrow I'll have honest numbers to report.  The vend monitor reads 317 bags vended since Thursday, but not all of those were customer vends, we vended many bags on Thursday dialing in the machine and I've vended numerous bags while trying to fix the small problems with the machine.  Overall I'm feeling much better than I did last night.  I had several custmers come by while I was tinkering with the machine, I had vended a few bags in case customers came by while it was shut down.  I spoke with every one I saw, they were all excited about the machine and were complementing me on it.  Made me feel good, one of the customers was a volunteer coach and stated he was going to tell everyone he could about the machine.  Made me think that maybe I need to order a pre-paid card for the machine and give them to the school.  Just a little taste...the first ones always free!  :-)

Just curious, how did Wed/Thurs go, and what kind of weekend did you have?  Any more jams? or other probs?

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I had 28 ice vends on Wednesday, 25 on Thursday, 42 on Friday, 67 on Saturday, 37 on Sunday and 23 today.  I had trouble with the machine on Wednesday and Friday.  That damn dump door was jambing again but I finally got it to replicate the problem with me in the machine on Friday night.  I stayed till after midnight fixing it, had to travel back to the Wal Mart super store to get some zip ties.  The hing on the door had too much play in it, when the door was shoved toward the rear it would hang...after a dozen or so vends the door would work its way toward the rear (just a 1/2" or so) and it would hang.  So the quick fix was to take up that slack in the hinge with a couple of zip ties.  Problem fixed.....but on Saturday morning at around 9:30 I had a customer call me asking if the machine was supposed to be working...seems it wasnt taking his money.  He stated "I was going to buy a bunch of ice but it wont take my money or card"  I realized that I didn't turn the machine back to "Automatic" after working on it the night before.  Bone headed move...I turn it off before working on it just in case someone pulls up to buy ice and never turned it back on after working on it Friday night.  It was after 10am Saturday morning before I got back to the machine to turn it on.  I think all this down time has affected some customers, kinda hard to get in the habit of stopping at the machine if it's broken down all the time.  But after I put the permanant fix in place I havent had any issues what so ever.  I dont expect to have any other problems with the machine.  b.t.w. the permanant fix was to replace the zip ties with some hardened washers. 

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Wouldn't  the manufacturer be interested in that problem?  Did you notify them?  BTW do you have a rep who is keeping in regular contact with you during the "early days?"

 

Probably a good practice is after you close up the machine everytime you've had it open is to do a standard test vend with actual money.

 

Do you have a security camera on this machine?  Seems like this could be educational for you to see what the customer experience is like.

 

You're right, a customer is much more loyal to staying away after a bad experience than they are to patronizing you.  Gotta keep them happy.  I think it is encouraging that guy called you, I read that as he really likes your value and wants to use your machine.  I don't want to be over generous with your ice but anyone who called for a legit reason, reporting some problem of sort, I'd say to them, "Next time you go by the machine for ice, call me first and I'll vend you a bag over the phone."  I don't think they'd abandon you then.

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Wouldn't  the manufacturer be interested in that problem?  Did you notify them?  BTW do you have a rep who is keeping in regular contact with you during the "early days?"

 

Probably a good practice is after you close up the machine everytime you've had it open is to do a standard test vend with actual money.

 

Do you have a security camera on this machine?  Seems like this could be educational for you to see what the customer experience is like.

 

You're right, a customer is much more loyal to staying away after a bad experience than they are to patronizing you.  Gotta keep them happy.  I think it is encouraging that guy called you, I read that as he really likes your value and wants to use your machine.  I don't want to be over generous with your ice but anyone who called for a legit reason, reporting some problem of sort, I'd say to them, "Next time you go by the machine for ice, call me first and I'll vend you a bag over the phone."  I don't think they'd abandon you then.

 

That's a great idea.  Dont know why I didnt think of that.  I did call the customer back on Saturday just to thank him again for calling and to tell him the machine was up and running again.  I still have his number so I may call him again about the free bag of ice.

 

Wouldn't  the manufacturer be interested in that problem?  Did you notify them?  BTW do you have a rep who is keeping in regular contact with you during the "early days?"

 

Yes, yes, and yes.  I've been in contact with the makers of the machine, the first time the ice door stuck I didn't know what had happened.  The guy I called said he would dispatch someone asap, but I told him to not do that yet and let me see if I could figure it out.  When it happened again on Friday I called again and spoke to one of the guys that actually built the machine.  It was with his help that I figured out the door was working itself back and hanging.  I told him of my idea to fix it and he said that should do the trick, he also said that was the first time any machine had this particular problem.  Most problems are bag related, people either put too many bags on the hanger or pack them too tight with the plate or they leave them too loosely packed.  But those problems are alleviated once the owner figures out those small idiosyncrasies on their own as I have.

 

Probably a good practice is after you close up the machine everytime you've had it open is to do a standard test vend with actual money.

 

Yes, I really need to make up a checklist to hang on the wall next to the machine, kinda like an airline pilots checklist.  Look it over before leaving the machine every time.

 

Do you have a security camera on this machine?  Seems like this could be educational for you to see what the customer experience is like.

 

No I don't but it would be a good idea.  I happened to be watching the machine last Saturday after turning it back on and saw a female customer buy a bag, walk back to her trunk and fill her ice chest using about half of her bag.  She then stood there for a while looking in her trunk, then walked back to the machine and put the unused ice back into the chute.  If another customer had pulled up and didn't notice the bag in the chute they wouldn't have been able to purchase a bag.  There is a sensor that detects a bag in the chute and will not dispence a bag until the chute is cleared.  It will give a message on the PLC dislay asking the customer to remove the bag, but it could cause some confusion if the customer hadn't purchased a bag first.  After she left I removed the bag.  I may put a small sign up asking that unused ice not be placed back into the chute.

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Just made my nightly run to the machine, Tuesday through tonight (Friday, Sept. 13 @9:30) I had 132 vends.  Tonight's take was better than last Friday night...which is surprising because we had a rare occurance this afternoon; it rained!  And continued to rain through the evening.  Anyway for tonight I had 53 vends which beat last Friday's 42.  Hoping for a big day tomorrow, supposed to be sunny and nice.

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

Sounds like South Carolina needs to ax a few bureaucrats ( just like the rest of us )

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am not involved with ice vending, but have looked at a few. Location is key. You need seasonal location if you are in the north to be able to justify a machine. I have seen these opportunities well below the 100K stated above. Closer to $40K is like it. I know that in northern Ohio I have gone to C-stores/gas stations during a heat wave and all within a 3 mile radius were sold out.

Also, if a hurricane were to go through a town, electric for ice vending would also be out. No sales without electric......

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  • 1 month later...

Hey everyone it's me again, been quite a while since I've checked in here so I'll try to bring everyone up to speed since my last post....assuming there are still people interested.  I haven't forgotten this forum, I've just been busy with the kids, wife and life...not to mention the ice machine!  I've been re-reading some of my last posts to remind me what was going on in late September.  I have had no issues with the ice machine dispensing bags like I had been having, my fix with the washers to shim the dump door has worked great,  although I have noticed the washers getting pretty rusty.  I really need to replace them with some type of rubber or Teflon grommet, otherwise I could see them becoming so rusty they seize up the door.  One important lesson I learned was how much these machines HATE cold weather...who woulda thought; An ice machine wont make ice in cold weather!  News to me....read on if your interested;

 

On November 22nd, the Friday before Thanksgiving we were hit with a massive cold front that brought Ice and sleet.  It was a veritable winter wonderland around here.  The lows were in the low 20's and the highs were barely breaking the freezing mark.  By this time I had began a twice a week visit to the machine, on Thursday and Sunday nights.  Since I had been to the machine on the day before I didn't go to the machine Friday...the weather was another reason to stay in the house :)  On Saturday we were coming back from my wifes family and I got a "LOW ICE" text so I stopped by the machine.  When I looked at the PLC display it read 80 lbs of ice in the bin...the bin was set to 1,000 lb's.  There were no faults showing so I tried to reset the ice maker with no results so I called the manufacturer.  I'm now on a first name basis with those guys and the first thing he asked me was what the temperature was.  I told him it was 26F and all he did is laugh.  He said it was much too cold and the ice maker wouldn't come on with air temps that low.  After thinking a little while about that I felt embarrassed that I even called.  After all, the ice maker itself is located on top of the machine...that ice maker has a reservoir of water it pulls from and there's PVC pipes feeding that reservoir and other PVC pipes for drain water.  He told me to pull the breaker for the ice maker (so it wouldn't try to come back on) and turn the water off to the maker and open the drain spigot...then return to the machine when the air temps are, at the least, above 35F.  That day wouldn't come until the day before Thanksgiving.

 

The problem I had at this point wasn't just the max temperature for the day, it was how long it stayed at that temp.  When I went to the machine on Wednesday I still couldn't get it to come on.  I had a chopper motor fault...which meant that something was keeping the chopper motor from coming on.  Probably because the ice tubes had frozen up...because I had let the machine run under too low of temperatures.  Long story short, I missed Thanksgiving ice sales because I just didn't know the ice maker well enough, and I had family commitments and couldn't spend the time that was required to get the machine going before Thanksgiving.  I finally got a chance to clear out the freeze up and get the machine going again on Friday the 29th, it was a nice 60 degree day.  We had a week of temps in the 60's and got word on the next northern front to make its way to us.  This time it would be much colder, but I was ready...or so I thought.

 

I called my distributor to pick his brain about everything I needed to do to "winterize" the machine before the frigid temps set in.  One of the things he had me do was open the drain to the reservoir and let all that water drain out...we were expecting low temperatures in the teens.  That's as cold as it ever gets here in the deepest/darkest part of the winter in January or February.  So I cranked up the bin setting to 1,450 LBS and when that weight was reached I turned off the ice maker, turned off the water lines, drained them and hunkered down for a week of cold that would make a Canadian feel at home.  I figured the ice bin would have plenty of ice in it, after all who the hell is going to buy ice in a once in a decade winter storm. 

 

The day after the storm hit I went to check on the machine, I figured I can sell water no matter what, the inside of the machine is kept at 34F all the time and it's well insulated.  The AC unit has a defrost cycle that prevents the inside temperature from dipping below freezing.  But when I got to the machine I tried to fill my two one gallon water jugs and nothing came out!  What the hell?  I go inside and it's much warmer in the machine...34F like I said.  I go to the rear of the machine and I see the drains have frozen...and the water faucet at the back doesn't come on.  That's when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as I realized the main water line had frozen up!  And the next morning low was supposed to be a record breaking 8 degrees!  Holy crap on a cracker!  Time to sprint to Home Depot and buy some heat tape!  And pray the PVC stub up hasn't busted..

 

I got the heat tape and more pipe insulation and I come back to the machine looking like a regular North Dakotan...undershirt, flannel shirt, jeans and roundhouse coveralls and a Carhart heavy canvas coat and gloves.  I had to pull the skirting off the bottom of the ice house to access the stub up, remove all the black insulation from the water line and apply the tape.  It was easy but it took a long time.  I'd work 5 minutes and sit in the pickup with the heater on max for 15 minutes.  That north wind was blowing across the prairie.  One I made that fix I plugged the heat tape in to the outside (weather proof) GFI outlet and nothing happened.  I check the outlet and see the breaker had tripped and it wouldn't reset.  Back to the Home Depot.  I finish the fix by the headlights from my pickup in single digit temps.  You folks that live anywhere north of Oklahoma are nuckin futz.   By the way, we shattered our record low that night by 10 degrees with a low of 3.  I don't care who you are, that's COLD!  But my water line wasn't busted and the heat tape kept it from freezing up again.  The water dispenser was working fine the next day.  In another day I would be out of ice.  Yea, that's right.  People were buying the crap outa my ice,  the only thing I can think of is they were thinking that we might lose power and they wanted the ice to keep their foodstuff's cold.  I figured they would have done what I would....put it outside!  But nope, they bought out 1,400 lb's of ice in 4 days.  Not exactly a record setting ice sales event but a hell of a lot more than I would have thought I would sell.

 

Since then I've spent a lot of time going to and from the ice machine, shutting it down, draining water lines...going back and turning it all on again.  I knew ice sales in the winter wouldn't be very good, but what I hadn't counted on are customers wanting to buy ice, and me having to explain that it's too cold to make ice.  I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out cost effective way of keeping the ice maker warm enough to make ice...other than wrapping the entire ice maker in some type of cover and putting electric heaters up there I'm at a loss.  I've gotten pretty good at watching the daily temps and heading to the ice machine, turning it on and going back when the temps take a down turn to turn it all off again.  Doing that I've prevented running out of ice.  The ice machine is on right now and will stay on till Sunday when the high is forecast to be 38, and a low on Monday morning of 25.  Then I'll turn it on again on Tuesday when the high is supposed to be 54.  I guess winter time in the ice business is going to be just like this.....

 

All told so far I guess I can say I'm happy with my fall and winter ice sales.  I'm selling more than I thought I would.  I've been extremely pleased with the water sales.  Since opening the machine on August 30th I've sold 5,000 gallons of filtered purified water....in fact I hit 5,000 gallons today.  Not a big money maker at $.25/gal but so far month over month the water sales have paid the electricity and water bill on the machine. I'm happy with that.  For ice vends so far I'm at 2,780 some-odd.  Cant remember eighty-what but almost 2,800 ice vends since the machine was put in.  For this thing to work I really need to do a minimum of that amount every month in the spring and summer.  Otherwise I'll be taking money out of my own pocket to make the payments in the winter.  The only reason were having a nice Christmas this year is the SBA loan is interest only.....till my payment in January.  Then I get the whole whammy on the loan payment.  January through March will be lean times in this family.  Here's praying that April through September will put money in the bank!  b.t.w.  The people selling this particular machine tell me that I can expect a 15% increase in sales year over year for the first three years.  After three years they say the machine will be doing all it will ever do.  If that's true, September of 2014 will see me putting more money in the bank than what I'm taking out in loan, utility and lease costs....i.e. I will be in the black for that month.  September traditionally sees a major drop off from June, July and August ice sales.  So here's hoping for a hot summer!

 

Ok, that's it.  I'll shut up now and post some pictures of the machine.  The first one is my washer fix for the ice dump door, the second one is to show all the ice on the back of the machine from the second ice storm.  The last picture is the machine....I've been cryptic to hide the maker of the machine.  I don't really know why but I figure if there's a problem with showing the machine a moderator will pull the picture or send me a dirty message.

 

Ed "The Ice Man" Surly :-)

 

 

 

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Thanks for the updates Ed.  I do enjoy reading about this end of the vending business.  I'm glad you're doing well, especially in the winter. 

 

On your washer fix in the first picture.  I don't think you will have any luck with rubber or teflon/plastic washers as it looks like a lot of force is in play there based on the thickness of the metal parts.  To avoid rusty washers, find some stainless steel washers to put in there instead.  You will probably still get rust on SS washers as they rub against themselves and the other parts but they will last longer than plain steel washers.  You could even try galvanized washers as well.

 

Good luck with the venture!

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Thanks Ed, I too enjoy your posts and look for them when you have the time.

 

First, after your first few posts I had guessed the maker of your machine.  Just matched specs with some searches.  Size, capacity and the clincher was the 3 moving parts.

 

2nd, In researching some other units they would advertise the REMOTE configuration, which I believe you have, (or do you?) where the HEAD is outside the main building, and this is done so that they can climate control the ice maker.  The literature, (on others) say this allows you to make ice in very cold (and very hot) weather.  Does any of this make sense?  Is your ice making head heated?

 

I'm surprised you are doing so well in the winter, that is good to know.

 

Hope you keep posting progress, performance and pics.

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AZ; there's really not any side to side pressure on the washers except for the slight rearward pressure.  Teflon or some other synthetic should hold up just fine.  Why this dump door is built with stainless steel that thick is beyond me...everything about the mechanisms in this machine is overbuilt, I don't see how it could ever wear out.  The issues that will become problematic in the future aren't what these guy's built but what they source from outside suppliers...like the ice maker itself, the PLC, the water softener etc.  I suppose the only thing not overbuilt is the water line system.  It's all PVC but I guess that's the modern norm, this thing was already expensive as hell, couldn't imagine how high it would be with copper lines running everywhere....not to mention the difficulty of fixing busted lines and leaky joints. 

 

talfelice; Honest to God I don't know what remote configuration is...nor what a "head" is.  I'm assuming the head is the part of the ice maker that forms the ice itself.  That being the case the way this unit is configured, the head is connected to the rest of the maker (except for the condensers) as a packaged unit in an "L" shape.  the tall part of the "L" is the ice tubes.  It's about 7' tall and the compressor setup is pretty large as well and it's already outside the main building...I don't see how keeping it outside is beneficial to climate control, just the opposite.  To keep all that in a climate controlled area the machine would really have to be built as a two story unit with ladder access or something similar enclosing all of the ice maker.  That's assuming you wanted to keep the compact footprint of the machine the same, otherwise the footprint will grow substantially.  probably the most cost effective means of keeping it climate controlled would be to build an insulated shed around the entire machine and once that's done there goes your single parking spot footprint.  Everything is a trade off.  To make it perfect it would be too expensive and too large.

 

One other thing to clarify....both may have the wrong idea about how "well" I'm doing this winter.  I am happy with the performance but to make it clear; I'm not making any profits.  All told from the water and ice I've been able to pay the utilities and lease and a portion of the interest only note payments.  Once the full SBA loan payments hit in January I'm guessing I'll be in the rears $2k a month till mid March....but that's why I got the HELOC.  I really do believe in this business, otherwise I wouldn't have taken such huge risks (obviously)

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One other thing to clarify....both may have the wrong idea about how "well" I'm doing this winter.  I am happy with the performance but to make it clear; I'm not making any profits.  All told from the water and ice I've been able to pay the utilities and lease and a portion of the interest only note payments.  Once the full SBA loan payments hit in January I'm guessing I'll be in the rears $2k a month till mid March....but that's why I got the HELOC.  I really do believe in this business, otherwise I wouldn't have taken such huge risks (obviously)

 

 

Best of luck to you.

I hope it all goes as planned.

 

The ice machines I see around here stay pretty busy, so they seem to be doing fine from a usage standpoint.

Who knows if they are actually making a profit, though.

 

Of course, machine owners around here have very few days of below-freezing weather to worry about (Texas).

So, they are less bothered by some of the issues you've been facing lately.

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I forgot to mention, the head isn't heated but the ice maker does have a heater in order to keep the refrigerant vaporized.  But afaik, that's it's only purpose....preventing catastrophic failure of the compressor trying to compress a liquid refrigerant. 

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It's been a very unusual start to the winter.  I cant remember it being this cold for so long.  5 days of school closings is almost unheard of, and for it to occur in November and December....well, I don't ever remember that happening.  I'm in SW Oklahoma, our winters can get bitter cold but these low teens and single digit temps we saw a couple weeks ago are rare.  So with my luck we'll have a summer like 2012 where we had 111 days above 100F, no records broken but a hell of a lot of tough days for an ice maker I would think.  We had a string of unbroken 100+ days starting on June 12 thru Aug 10.  That would rake any ice machine over the coals!  I can just see having all these low pressure faults being swapped with high head pressure faults all summer long.  Hopefully we have a mild summer like this last one.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

I am new to the forum.  I really appreciate all the great information provided by entrepreneurs who have ventured into the ice vending machine business.  I am in the process of gathering information so that I could purchase a few of my own.  I am seriously considering buying two Kooler KI810, preferably used.  I am cash flowing this venture and I already have two possible locations.  Any information that any Kooler KI810 owners can provide for my would be very useful.    

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Hey guy's.  It's been a while since I've checked in....been a long cold winter here and the sales have shown it.  It's been pretty rough and had to do a lot of "belt" tightening in the household.  But I'm still optomistic about the summer.  I'll be back in another day or so and fill everyone in on all the info from this bruital winter. 

 

Preview;

Pipe freezups!

Selling a metric assload of water!

How to sell ice in a winter storm! 

How to sell ice in another winter storm!

How to sell ice in another...you get the idea!

Freezing my nut-zoids off in the dark with a 50 mph 15 degree wind!

Vinyl lettering peeling off!

Leaking roof!

OH my!

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Hey guy's.  It's been a while since I've checked in....been a long cold winter here and the sales have shown it.  It's been pretty rough and had to do a lot of "belt" tightening in the household.  But I'm still optomistic about the summer.  I'll be back in another day or so and fill everyone in on all the info from this bruital winter. 

 

Preview;

Pipe freezups!

Selling a metric assload of water!

How to sell ice in a winter storm! 

How to sell ice in another winter storm!

How to sell ice in another...you get the idea!

Freezing my nut-zoids off in the dark with a 50 mph 15 degree wind!

Vinyl lettering peeling off!

Leaking roof!

OH my!

 

 

Sounds like you've had a few tribulations, glad to hear you are still standing and looking forward to your update when you get a chance.

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  • 3 months later...

Tuesday July, 29, 2014 update.

 

It's been a very long time since I've posted anything useful.  Been pretty busy with the machine and my "real" job, although these things are most definitely a real job.  They are NOT some get rich quick scheme where you just show up a the machine once a week a take out tons of cash...it don't work that way.  This summer I go to the machine on average every other day.  There were several days where I was at the machine every day, usually days when it was really busy, like the weekend of the 4th.  We didn't take a family vacation but we did have two family reunions, one was on Table Rock Lake in MO over Memorial Day weekend...which is the farthest I've been from the machine....it was an 8 hour drive.  I had a guy I trust come out before the trip and I showed him some of the simpler things that could go wrong and he agreed to answer when I called...and he did answer lol.  We had just left the cabin for our return trip home on Tuesday after Memorial Day when I got a phone call from a customer that said the machine had displayed "Out of Order" right after he put his money in for a bag of ice.  By the time he called and I answered it dispensed his bag and the "Out of Order" display was gone.  Being an 8 hour drive away I called my buddy and when he got there he said everything was working just fine.  Didn't get anymore calls that day, I did purchase a 1,000 bill magazine for the MEI bill changer before I left, and I'm glad I did because it was pretty full...about 2/3rds full...not a thousand but a hell of alot more than the little 500 bill magazine that came with the changer could have handled.  All told for the month of May I sold 1,300 bags.  On the 4th of July weekend I did almost half that....over one weekend.

 

On Friday the 4th I sold over 6,500 pounds of ice.  I got a call at 11:15am on the 4th from a customer that didn't get change for a 5 he put in the machine...he got his ice but no change.  This has been a recurring problem with the machine, and the problem has since been solved (the light bulb in the electronic box that prevents moisture buildup was getting the circuit board too hot, after replacing the bulb with a CFL bulb the problem went away...that had been a pain in my golpher for months)...anyway back to the story.  The guy wanted 3 bags so I dispensed him two more from my smart phone, so he got one bag for a dollar off and was happy.  When I got to the machine it was a madhouse, there were cars parked behind other cars with a line of people waiting to buy my ice.  10 minutes after I got there the machine texted me a Low Ice message, I looked at the display on the ice machine and it read "Making Ice, Please Wait" that exact moment a customer said "Hey, your machine isn't working" Holy crap, out of ice at 11:45am on the 4th.  I stayed at the machine until around 2pm greeting the customers and apologizing for the wait as I explained to them the ice maker couldn't keep up with demand.  I had set the bin weight to 1,400 lbs the night before in anticipation of large sales and once the bin weight gets below 100 lbs of the target weight the ice maker kicks on and dumps 55 lbs every 8 minutes (that varies depending on the temp and the 4th was pretty cool for us as it was only in the low 90's) and it still couldn't keep up with demand.  The machine will send out a text message for many different problems that it recognizes and low bin weight is one of them...once the bin weight gets to 100 lbs or below it sends the message.  I would get a low bin weight message every 8-10 minutes with the last low bin weight message at 7:50pm that evening.  Which means; from the time the bin weight got below 100 lbs at 11:45 that morning (that's TOTAL bin weight....only 100 lbs of ice in the bin), there were people buying one or two bags every time the ice maker dumped, which as I stated above is every 8 minutes.  I made as much money over the Independence day weekend as I had during the entire month of April.  July was shaping up to be a money making month for me.  

 

Which was a Godsend as May was only break even, I actually turned a profit in June and as to this date July has been a smash hit.  On the 16th of July I had equaled my June total and we've had a cool summer, I know this machine can do far in excess of what it's done this summer if only we had a normal hot summer.  The ice sales rise and fall with the outside temperature, almost to a "T"...heck, you could plot ice sales on a graph and get a pretty good idea of what the temperature is by that graph.  Although if the July 4th weekend was of the normal 100+ degree weekend it normally is, I couldn't have sold any more bags than I did...the machine was working at max capacity that day to say the least.  I know in a few posts back I had hoped that we would have a mild summer because I was worried about ice maker problems...but damn, I didn't want it this mild!  Where's that damn global warming when you need it?  I have lived in SW Oklahoma my whole life and I don't remember ever having as brutal a winter as we did this last winter...and now we have a very mild summer, we've only had a half dozen days above 100 degrees so far and as I write this we had rain.  RAIN!  I'm not gripping about the rain as were in a desperate drought in this area...we need all the rain we can get, but I will be glad when its done and it heats up again.  So far my totals since August 30th 2013 when the machine was put in is almost 9,000 bags of ice sold and just over 15,000 gallons of water sold.  Which is great, but next year it needs to step up a bit for this do be a truly profitable endeavor.  I don't have any worries about making the payment this fall and winter as my CPA let me know that I could depreciate 100% of machine this year.  We don't make enough money for that to be a smart thing to do but we did claim enough depreciation to where the loan payment will be taken care of this winter.  That in and of itself is a huge load off my mind.  I think over the coming fall and winter I will be outselling what I did this year, and I also think I will be outselling next summer what I did this summer.  More and more people are using the machine, and since the machine is (finally) dependable I don't have a need to visit the machine every single day to stomp out little problems that arise.  I have met more  people since I put this machine in than I ever had at any other time in my life.  I make it a point to personally repay money customers lost at the machine, sometimes driving to their house to hand it to them in person.  Other times the customer will take repayment in bags that I can remotely dispense from a simple text message to the machine.

 

One of the main problems with this machine I just figured out yesterday.  The coin return button has NEVER worked on this machine.  Something that you guy's would have probably figured out the first time you ran into the problem has taken me damn near a year to realize.  I got a call months ago where a customer couldn't  put money in the machine (coins) when I got to the machine the coin slot was filled with quarters and dollar coins.  I'll be there was $5 or $6 in the slot.  When you push the "Change" button I could hear a distinctive click, but that was it.  I wondered why the change button didn't release all the coins, but I just figured the button didn't open the coin "inlet" enough when you push it.  It wasn't until I thought to ask a customer to push the "Change" button while I was inside that I saw the solenoid didn't push on the plunger hard enough to open the coin inlet (or whatever it's called).  Here's a video of what I'm talking about.  This is from last week after a customer called and said the coin slot was plugged up with something (that something was a bunch of change).  You can clearly see all the change balled up in the inlet for the changer...for some dumb reason when this has happened in the past I always just opened the little coin inlet "door" by hand...never thinking about the change button and what it's supposed to do**.  In the video I depress the solenoid plunger and most of the change falls out...a lot of it going into the change return to the front of the machine.  Click the link to see the video...I couldn't figure out how to embed them here even though I had done it before.

 

<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fvid274.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj259%2Fedsurly%2FWP_20140725_004_zps79246b4c.mp4&title=">

 

**Alot of this is due to the terrible advice I received from the sales rep I purchased the machine from.  A month after I got the machine I called him complaining that the coin return/change button didn't seem to work.  He said "They don't work like that."  Then I asked him why they even put a change button on the machine if it does nothing!  I honestly don't remember what he said, and in his defense he may not have understood my question.  Looking back I really don't know, but the way I understood it at that time was the button was all but worthless...I've never had a vending machine before so this was/is all new to me.  So forgive me if I look like a moron.  Anyway, to make a long story longer; when I got to the machine and found the problem last week I decided to make a video with my phone.  I purchased a new solenoid on Friday and I got it in today.  I installed it this afternoon and I'll be damned if it didn't give change!  However, it STILL doesn't open the "inlet door" enough to dislodge coins in the throat.  A customer was at the machine after I installed the solenoid and I asked him to hit the button...he did, several times and the plunger still didn't push the little yellow lever down enough to open the device.  However it did "move" it enough to get the MEI changer to register a button push so change does come out of the machine if the button is pushed.  Why the heck will that solenoid not push the yellow lever down enough!?  It's a 24 volt solenoid and it goes down with quite a bit of force...it seems easy enough to push down by hand.  Do you need to lubricate those things?

 

Oh, the vinyl lettering on the side of the machine finally got so bad looking I had to fix it.  I had a local sign company make all new vinyl signs on a smooth aluminum substrate and I think it looks nice...far better than what it did look like with the peeling letters but it left me $750 lighter....$750 that I don't think I should have ever had to spend...but we have a harsh sun and constant wind in SW Oklahoma, I guess I can understand how something made for and in the SE can't hold up as well out here.  This picture was taken the day I finished painting the bollards, I need to come up with some kind of snow cap for the tops...although the white concrete looks kinda like snow lol;

 

WP_20140611_001_zpsf7f6fb7a.jpg

 

Well, that's enough for tonight.  The trials and tribulations of this past winter will have to wait for another posting...or maybe it's best I push that out of my mind and never speak of it again. lol

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Ed, thanks for another great write up about your ice vending venture.  I'm glad you're now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. 

 

About your change return issue:  The solenoid should not be lubricated as there should be dry contact between the plunger and the inside of the solenoid.  You might have the plunger binding up as the solenoid energizes and if there's too much lateral movement of the plunger it won't slide down easily.  You might also want to change the angle level of the solenoid bracket so when the plunger attacks the changer it hits it at a slightly different angle.  All you need is for the changer coin return arm to begin to move down and once it begins downward travel less force is needed to move it.  You might not need much of a different attack angle, so don't move the bracket too far. 

 

Did your solenoid come with a new plunger?  Is your solenoid actually rated for 24V and is the actual voltage to it at 24V?  If it's a 110V solenoid supplied by only 24V then it will fire weakly, if at all.  Could you replace it with a rewired 110V solenoid which might give you more force?  The Mars changer will also jam like you showed in the video if too much change gets clogged up before the inlet to the changer.  The changer can't pass that much change at one time.  If you find fifty cent pieces in with all the coins then that could be the cause of the jams.  No coin changers can accept that large a coin and if your machine allows them to be inserted you should put a restrictor plate on your coin insert slot to prevent the fifty cent pieces from fitting. 

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Very interesting reading.  Glad you are turning the corner.  I'd say that a less than ideal location (sounds like you have a very good or ideal location) it would be hard if not impossible to make a go of it.  Just curious, your vinyl letters were not covered under some kind of warranty by the company.  Seems pretty crappy for a quality operation.  And OMG, $750 for those two squares of vinyl?  Really?  Are there others on the other side that you replaced?

 

Also, do you sell many 5 gallon vends of water or is it predominantly gallons?  And one thing your post made clear, you sound like you are tied to your machine.  It would be hard to get away.  Good business keeps you servicing the machine to empty out money, replace bags etc and problems keep you servicing jams, solenoids, etc etc.  A two week vacation is almost out of the question and you'd still need good help and good luck.

 

You get an "A" for customer service.

 

Sounds like the cost of money is the biggest cost you have (servicing the note), but what percentage of sales does water and electricity make up?

 

Thanks, keep posting seasonally, it is very very interesting.

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