Justin775 Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 I am just starting out and purchased a refurb. Rowe 4900 jr recently. I assumed a credit card was out of the question. Then I noticed that it has a Greenwick Rowe 4900 Replacement Card that has the MDB and DEX ports installed. This looks very new. I had read a few places that the coin and bill validator still might need to be changed as well.The bill validator is a CoinCo BA30B and the coin acceptor is a 9302-GX. Can anyone tell me how to find out if these are good or needs to be replaced or if I am just wasting my time? The machine I installed is performing very well but I know it could do better with a credit card terminal. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks Justin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Welcome to the forums, Justin775! This is a terrific place to get any and all information about the vending industry. You can read about many topics that will help you better understand this business. You're very fortunate that the machine you have is capable of installing a credit card reader on it, now that it has the Greenwick kit and MDB coin mech and validator installed. The card reader will interface to the machine through the same MDB circuit as the coin mech and validator and you will only need to mount the card reader and any data port on the machine to begin accepting cards. If you are unsure of what card reader provider to use, do a search of this forum for credit card readers and you should find several threads discussing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin775 Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 Wow, I am a fortunate. Thanks for responding. I look forward to checking into this site for answers and discussions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 I am just starting out and purchased a refurb. Rowe 4900 jr recently. I assumed a credit card was out of the question. Then I noticed that it has a Greenwick Rowe 4900 Replacement Card that has the MDB and DEX ports installed. This looks very new. I had read a few places that the coin and bill validator still might need to be changed as well.The bill validator is a CoinCo BA30B and the coin acceptor is a 9302-GX. Can anyone tell me how to find out if these are good or needs to be replaced or if I am just wasting my time? The machine I installed is performing very well but I know it could do better with a credit card terminal. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks Justin If I was doing an acct that justified a CC reader (again this is on the assumption the account justifies it, which you might consider putting some details about the acct here before adding a CC acceptor). I would probably not use a rowe 4900 Even with a 3rd party upgrade board. These are ooooolllld machines, parts are a little scarce for them. Your local vendors repair probably does not carry parts for the 4900. Skimming through my vendors exchange catalogue, it does not look like they even carry motors for the 4900 anymore. At that point you would have to turn to ebay and hope for the best, or buy a spare machine for parts (thats what I have done for my Rowes). I would not use a rowe in any big account, only because I would not want to leave it out of service for long while i scour ebay for parts or leave them out of order for a day or two waiting to get something mail order from vendors exchange. I am not saying you have to buy new either. I have seen a lot of used late model USI machines inexpensively or even older AP machines, at least the parts are more available for them. Also its wise to look at the acct before adding CC acceptance. It is going to cost you money monthly, it is going to affect pricing because of the txn fee. Make sure the projected numbers on the account even make sense before considering adding CC acceptance. Thats what I am saying I am going on that its a foregone conclusion that CC acceptance makes sense. If its a dog acct, keep the rowe and forget about the CC acceptor. my 25 cents worth (inflation) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golfdogs Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 If I was doing an acct that justified a CC reader (again this is on the assumption the account justifies it, which you might consider putting some details about the acct here before adding a CC acceptor). I would probably not use a rowe 4900 Even with a 3rd party upgrade board. These are ooooolllld machines, parts are a little scarce for them. Your local vendors repair probably does not carry parts for the 4900. Skimming through my vendors exchange catalogue, it does not look like they even carry motors for the 4900 anymore. At that point you would have to turn to ebay and hope for the best, or buy a spare machine for parts (thats what I have done for my Rowes). I would not use a rowe in any big account, only because I would not want to leave it out of service for long while i scour ebay for parts or leave them out of order for a day or two waiting to get something mail order from vendors exchange. I am not saying you have to buy new either. I have seen a lot of used late model USI machines inexpensively or even older AP machines, at least the parts are more available for them. Also its wise to look at the acct before adding CC acceptance. It is going to cost you money monthly, it is going to affect pricing because of the txn fee. Make sure the projected numbers on the account even make sense before considering adding CC acceptance. Thats what I am saying I am going on that its a foregone conclusion that CC acceptance makes sense. If its a dog acct, keep the rowe and forget about the CC acceptor. my 25 cents worth (inflation) I wanted to post something similar but did not have the time. Get a newer and bigger machine if you think the account justifies a cc reader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 I agree with the other posts here. I wouldn't invest any more money into that Rowe snack machine. It may be a huge pain in the butt. I have a polyvend 6632 that has performed almost flawlessly for about 3 years. It has a Maka bill acceptor in it and I have thought about upgrading it on and off for over a year now. The problem is that the Maka works great for taking dollar bills. However, I barely know how to program the machine (and I haven't changed prices because of that) and I don't know if I will be able to get parts for it in the future. I COULD upgrade the validator for probably $150, and the validator could be salvaged later for another machine, but I would only put a validator that accepts $1 bills anyway. The machine averages about $25/week in sales. It looks decent and it is a good size for better locations that need a 4-wide machine, but I am worried that something will break as soon as I move it. So... I have left it on the location without an upgraded validator because... well it works great as is/where is. If you had a location that warranted a credit card reader (based off of a previous research project I did, that location would have to earn at LEAST $125week PER MACHINE), you should probably have some pretty nice equipment in there. If I could get a location that would gross maybe $300/week in snack/soda sales, I would probably consider buying a brand new snack and/or soda machine. I would be paying a premium for the installation, but I would feel confident that I wouldn't have many mechanical failures for years as everything (including the validators and coin mechs) would be brand new. Then, I would install credit card readers in both machines. It might take 1.5 to 2 years to pay for itself, but I would have two 2-year-old machines paid for at WORST if I lost the account after a 2-year contract. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin775 Posted December 15, 2013 Author Share Posted December 15, 2013 Thanks for all of the info and guidance. As I mentioned I am just starting out in this, I have had the Rowe in place for about a month, I am not doing this to make money really, sorta an expensive hobby/clever management. I bought this for my construction crews to be able to get snacks without driving for 20 minutes into town. If I could break even I would be happy and would have crews not leaving the plant site. A hungry crew is not a productive crew. I did give in to their request and bought a Seaga HY-900 ($3150) to sell energy drinks and bigger snacks/meals. This machine is coming with a credit card reader already installed. Energy drinks and credit card reader is what the crews really want.This venture also gives my wife an excuse for the 2 1/2 drive, each way, to Sam's club to restock the machine. A busy house wife is a happy house wife. We are at a power plant with year-round crews on site. We average 25-120 employees working day and night shifts. Night shifts seems to have better sales so far. I was excited about the new machine and emailed Seaga for the operators manual before the machine arrive to find out the slot sizes for product. They sent my info to Healthy You Vending (or something like that) out of Utah. I got a nasty call from them about using the HY-900. He was fairly upset that I did not buy a new one from him. He claims to have a great coaching program for vending machines and would have sold me a computer to go with the machine. I asked him to lose my phone number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Nooooo! You could have gotten a newer cc reader capable us quality made full size snack soda pair for under 3k for both from a refurbishing place and have had a warranty too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Justin, your vending just went sideways. We're not here to beat people up for the decisions they make, but if there is any way you can cancel this transaction you should take it/force it. If you paid with a credit card you should cancel the transaction or dispute it, even if you have to pay to ship the machine back. The Seaga machines are nothing but imported, unsupported and overpriced sheet metal. You will find that they will fail far more frequently than practically any "real" US-made vending machine you can purchase used. For that same $3000 you can find a quality Dixie Narco, Vendo or Royal soda machine and an AP, National, AMS or USI snack machine and have the best of both worlds. Heck, if you buy right you can get two machines and have money left over for cc readers. I can't urge you more strongly to reconsider this transaction. The interaction you had with the scammers (based on your conversation with them) at Healthy You Vending should be a red flag for the quality of company you are dealing with at Seaga. An even more important issue is that the Seaga machine WILL NOT hold up under the stress of a bunch of construction/production workers beating on it. We here have all had machines in rough and tumble accounts such as yours and we know what kind of equipment you should have there that can stand up to the use they will get. You really need to get out of this deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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