Rowe 648 Food Machines

[Amigo]

I have some Rowe 648 food machines and they are starting to show their age.

 

My problem is that the Wiring harness pins for the control board are going bad and need to be replaced.  They only have a life span of 25 connect/disconnect and after that they start to oxidize and don't transfer electricity.

 

Any of us that operate Rowe equipment that parts are really scarce.  A wiring harness would be totally out of the question.

 

Of course I can make them work by hard wiring them, but that's not what I want to settle for.  I know these parts are available, I just need to find a supplier.

 

What I need is someone who knows who the plug and pin manufacturer is, (Molex or AMP) and the terminal sizes. (.100 or .156 centers)  Wild guess is that they are .156 centers.  If you know of a supplier that would be great. I also need the crimping tools and extracting tools.  I know you can use a razor blade and other tricks but that is not me.

 

I currently fixed one by using tricks from my pinball days but that is just temporary and I will have problems down the road.

 

Thanks,

 

[AZVendor]

All our local electronics suppliers are drying up and blowing away.  We end up at Frys Electronics far more often than we want now.  I can't answer whether these will be Amp or Molex pins but Happ might be your best choice for the pins and tools.  Maybe even Betson if you can browse their catalog - they used to have a real good supply of electronic parts for amusements. 

[venddoctor]

I would try Mouser or Digikey for the pins and tools they both have a large selection.

[rmorris1953]

S Thomas Associates in Irving Texas makes some harnesses....

[Amigo]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

 

It is good to have a network of people to call upon.

 

I did get my answers, along with part #'s and tool part #'s and I have to give credit to Vendors Exchange in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

I have visited their facility several times and made some good contacts and it paid off.

 

I contacted one of their engineers and he was able to steer me down the right path.

 

Digi Key was who he told me to go to.  I have used them in the past as I had to change the two pin connectors on the cooling units as they were getting black from high amperage draws.

 

Hopefully, this will help me get a few more years out of these machines.

[AZVendor]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

 

It is good to have a network of people to call upon.

 

I did get my answers, along with part #'s and tool part #'s and I have to give credit to Vendors Exchange in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

I have visited their facility several times and made some good contacts and it paid off.

 

I contacted one of their engineers and he was able to steer me down the right path.

 

Digi Key was who he told me to go to.  I have used them in the past as I had to change the two pin connectors on the cooling units as they were getting black from high amperage draws.

 

Hopefully, this will help me get a few more years out of these machines.

Hey, I'm just thrilled to find someone else who had Rowe equipment and I applaud you for continuing to use the Rowe food machines.  Have you converted any cold food accounts over to frozen food or are you pretty big into cold food?

[Amigo]

No frozen...Not really interested in that.  I really don't care for the equipment.

[Amigo]

Yes, I am still using Rowe, slowly converting to Crane 432's.

I have 548 & 648's...never got into 748's.  Had a couple of 448's but junked them out a couple of years ago.

The only thing with Rowe is no MDB and I tried converting a couple and just had too many problems.

We like having our machines to accept $5, and with a 3 tube mech they empty so quick.  I do not like the 4 tube Micromech so I am limited.

[AZVendor]

It's funny, but here in AZ you can't give a cold food machine away.  I am still junking 448s as I clear out my warehouse, but I'm still hanging onto the 548s and one 648 I have just in case someone wants one.  Almost all vendors here have moved to frozen foods.  I can't tell you the last time I walked into an account that had cold food. 

 

We also found out a few years ago that no MDB kits will work on the Rowe 548 on up.  We tried using the 24V from the Executive Coin Mech harness, but there just isn't any reliable enough 24V source in the machine, apparently.  We did get one kit to work on one machine only and could never figure out why.  I seems that it is hit and miss (mostly miss) and there is no way to know which machine will accept MDB, so it's not worth the time to install it just to find out it won't work.  Naturally we all tried to install MDB after Rowe shut down so there was no factory help either.

[Amigo]

I had the kit from VE on a 548 for a long time and it worked well.  But one day it decided it too didn't want to work right.  I think one of the biggest problems with the kits was that they didn't take the time to make a cable to go from the kit to the board.  If they would have by-passed the micromech plug they would have worked better.

 

I put a Greenwick kit on one and it too worked for awhile but it seemed every problem I had was in the coin mech plug.  I looked into having a cable made to go from the computer to the kit but no one wanted to touch it and when I finally got tired of it and should have put in a new female in the machine, I just scrapped it.  I continue to have problems from time to time with those mech plugs.

 

I know it wasn't the Greenwick as I put it in a Royal machine and have never had a problem with it.

 

Now we just use dollar coins in all of our other machines and coin changers and they use those in the sandwich machines.  No one is complaining so we march on.

 

And to think I was leery of MDB when it came out that I didn't get it for the longest time.  When I finally realized the advantages I had to buy cables and changers and validators to update them.  It is so nice to have one changer and one validator that works in most everything.