mojorhino Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 I have 2 different PolyVend PV6640 snack machines with individual motors that are not working. One wasn't working when I bought the machine. It was on a candy bar column so I just removed the spiral & stuck it in the bottom of the machine & haven't thought too much about it since. The second (on the machine pictured above) just started acting up last week. The middle selection on the bottom row stopped working & I am getting a "make another selection message" when I try it. It is in a business that is open on the weekend so I am going to try & figure out what the problem is. Any suggestions on what to look for? I have already tried test vending the selection & it did not work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 I have 2 different PolyVend PV6640 snack machines with individual motors that are not working. One wasn't working when I bought the machine. It was on a candy bar column so I just removed the spiral & stuck it in the bottom of the machine & haven't thought too much about it since. The second (on the machine pictured above) just started acting up last week. The middle selection on the bottom row stopped working & I am getting a "make another selection message" when I try it. It is in a business that is open on the weekend so I am going to try & figure out what the problem is. Any suggestions on what to look for? I have already tried test vending the selection & it did not work. Parts one of them to keep the other one going for awhile - 1991, that's pretty old to get too deep with in terms of your time time and costly repairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walta Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Find a local electronics guy have him replace the larger capacitors on the board. These boards were known for their bad caps and this symptom. Walta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mojorhino Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 I am not quite ready to part out the machines over 1 motor not working. I went to the machine & now the motor to the left wasn't working also, so I pulled out the bottom tray. All of the motors & their connections on the back looked good \ So I looked at the connector where it attaches to the machine & it looked good. So next I looked at the plastic wiring harness & are 2 broken wires So now that I think I have found the problem I took out the top shelf to see if I was correct The the wires on it aren't broken so I think I have figured out the problem & now I know which one goes where. So now my question is do I replace the wiring harness or is there some type of tool that you can use to get the little metal pieces that the wires go in out & if there is such a tool where can I get one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis7s Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 If you can figure out what type of connector it is (see if there is a part number somewhere on the casing) you can order an terminal extractor from Digikey or maybe eBay. They are generally pretty expensive for what they are so I would recommend just winging it. The terminals will have 1 or more small bent 'wings' that are holding it in the plastic, sometimes you can use a small flat head screwdriver to fold them back in, and you can push the terminal out. Even then you *should* put a fresh terminal on, or try to salvage the used one by soldering the wire to it, but you could get sketchy results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Travis is correct with the only way I have repaired this problem before. There are no harnesses available for this unless it's off of a parted out machine. I'm surprised your broken wires are not the very front wire. The front one gets the most bending and is the usual one to break off due to Polyvend's very poor harness design. This would then kill the entire shelf as the front wire is the common to the shelf. I always extract the pin the way Travis described and then re-solder the wire on to the pin, then slightly bend the wing out with a razor blade, then push it in till it snaps in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Another option is to get a small male and female spade connector and reconnect the wires outside of the harness and then wrap in electrical tape. It will make pulling the shelf out a little more complicated in the future but still possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis7s Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 It looks like he posted more pictures in the gallery and he was able to extract them. Those are the easy to extract ones because they have the little side window that has access to the folding tab. At that point he should do a crappy crimp job with pliers and then put a very light solder coating for good electrical connection. ( if you add too much solder it may not insert correctly) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mojorhino Posted January 6, 2014 Author Share Posted January 6, 2014 I was able to extract the initial two metal pin connectors that had the broken wires crimped in them out fairly easily by pressing down on the little metal anti-extraction fins on the back & then push them out with a paperclip. After getting the two used connectors out I quickly realized that they were not reusable due to not having an effective way of un-crimping & re-crimping them, so after thinking about it . . . I decided to try the same paperclip method to get out one of the unused connectors . . . . . . About 30 frustrating minutes later & getting nowhere with paper clip method I was unable to get any of the unused connectors out so I got my miniature screwdriver set out & I was able to use the smallest fathead screwdriver to press down on the anti-removal fin & push the pins out in one easy motion. So now I have two "new" metal connectors that I can use. If you can figure out what type of connector it is (see if there is a part number somewhere on the casing) you can order an terminal extractor from Digikey or maybe eBay. They are generally pretty expensive for what they are so I would recommend just winging it. The terminals will have 1 or more small bent 'wings' that are holding it in the plastic, sometimes you can use a small flat head screwdriver to fold them back in, and you can push the terminal out. Even then you *should* put a fresh terminal on, or try to salvage the used one by soldering the wire to it, but you could get sketchy results. I wish I had read this post & tried the mini flat head screwdriver before spending 30+ minutes trying to get the unused ones out with a paper clip. It would have saved me a lot of time & frustration. Travis is correct with the only way I have repaired this problem before. There are no harnesses available for this unless it's off of a parted out machine. I'm surprised your broken wires are not the very front wire. The front one gets the most bending and is the usual one to break off due to Polyvend's very poor harness design. This would then kill the entire shelf as the front wire is the common to the shelf. I always extract the pin the way Travis described and then re-solder the wire on to the pin, then slightly bend the wing out with a razor blade, then push it in till it snaps in. Good Idea using a razor blade to bend the fin up I got the screw driver to work but a razor would have worked better. I will remember that if I ever have this problem again. Regarding the poor design ... I don't think that was really the problem, to me it looks like whenever the wires were initially inserted into the metal connector, whomever did it (if it was actually done by a person rather than a machine) did not get enough of the wires outer sheath down in the outer part of the metal connection (that you have to crimp) far enough or maybe even not in at all creating a point of failure & over time the metal became brittle & broke right at that point. You can't tell from my pictures but on all of the other wires, the outer sheath area is actually inserted down further into the outer section that you have to crimp & the sheath itself is actually crimped so that the wires don't get bent each time you pull out the shelf. It looks like he posted more pictures in the gallery and he was able to extract them. Those are the easy to extract ones because they have the little side window that has access to the folding tab. At that point he should do a crappy crimp job with pliers and then put a very light solder coating for good electrical connection. ( if you add too much solder it may not insert correctly) I am glad you posted this because after reading it I decided to try my soldering skills on some spare wires & have determined that I have none or my soldering iron just sucks. . . probably a combination of the two. I went on youtube & watched several videos on how to solder & have determined that I at least need a soldering iron with a wider chiseled tip. I currently have a conical one now that doesn't appear to heat the wires up enough to get solder to flow correctly. I am going to swing by Lowes after work & get a new soldering iron with a chiseled tip & attempt to fix this tonight when I get home tonight & post some pictures when have it fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis7s Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 I am glad you posted this because after reading it I decided to try my soldering skills on some spare wires & have determined that I have none or my soldering iron just sucks. . . probably a combination of the two. I went on youtube & watched several videos on how to solder & have determined that I at least need a soldering iron with a wider chiseled tip. I currently have a conical one now that doesn't appear to heat the wires up enough to get solder to flow correctly. I am going to swing by Lowes after work & get a new soldering iron with a chiseled tip & attempt to fix this tonight when I get home tonight & post some pictures when have it fixed. To be honest basic electrical soldering skills are mostly in the equipment (as long as you read up a few techniques). The pencil style irons aren't very good and they often don't come with basic accessories needed to do good work. I'd recommend getting a temperature controlled station, I like the Hakko FX888D, its around $100 but definitely work it. Even with a pencil iron you should be using a wet sponge to wipe the tip off after every solder joint. A flux pen is also extremely handy for tricky spots or tinning wires.. You should also be coating the tip of the iron (tinning) with solder before you shut it off to prevent the tip from corroding in storage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis7s Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Regarding the poor design ... I don't think that was really the problem, to me it looks like whenever the wires were initially inserted into the metal connector, whomever did it (if it was actually done by a person rather than a machine) did not get enough of the wires outer sheath down in the outer part of the metal connection (that you have to crimp) far enough or maybe even not in at all creating a point of failure & over time the metal became brittle & broke right at that point. You can't tell from my pictures but on all of the other wires, the outer sheath area is actually inserted down further into the outer section that you have to crimp & the sheath itself is actually crimped so that the wires don't get bent each time you pull out the shelf. It would almost certainly be done by a person, they stripped the wire too long. You are exactly right on why it broke. I will break it down because I am annoying like that. Red line: the wire should just be poking out the top, if its not sticking out the wire will be significantly easier to be yanked out. Green line: this is where the real electrical connection is made, it should be all bare wire Yellow line: this little gap should show half insulation/wire to meet proper industry standards Blue line: insulation only, the metal tabs grab the insulation and act as a strain relief. Like you said, yours were all wire, so every little vibration was putting stress on your wires until they broke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis7s Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 To be honest basic electrical soldering skills are mostly in the equipment (as long as you read up a few techniques). The pencil style irons aren't very good and they often don't come with basic accessories needed to do good work. I'd recommend getting a temperature controlled station, I like the Hakko FX888D, its around $100 but definitely work it. Even with a pencil iron you should be using a wet sponge to wipe the tip off after every solder joint. A flux pen is also extremely handy for tricky spots or tinning wires.. You should also be coating the tip of the iron (tinning) with solder before you shut it off to prevent the tip from corroding in storage. For some reason I can't edit my later posts... Note that a lot of solder kits at hardware store may be lead-free. Lead-free solder is much harder to work with due to the higher melting temperature. I like the 63/37 tin/lead ratio flavour, look for "no-clean" so everything doesn't get as sticky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 For some reason I can't edit my later posts... Note that a lot of solder kits at hardware store may be lead-free. Lead-free solder is much harder to work with due to the higher melting temperature. I like the 63/37 tin/lead ratio flavour, look for "no-clean" so everything doesn't get as sticky. yep, screw RoHS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billnuts Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 If you looking for new connectors like the one pictured they sell them for pinball parts replacement just search pinball parts and you can find them on the net I use them for replacing connectors like that on older pinballs bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mojorhino Posted January 15, 2014 Author Share Posted January 15, 2014 After figuring out that I could not get the wires crimped very easily I went to RadioShack & bought some helping hands to hold the wire Then I pretined the wire & crimped the metal connector to it. After that it was easy to put a light coat of solder on each one & insert them back into the plastic harness Its hard to tell from the picture but I slightly melted the plastic connector & almost ruined it due to watching the soldering iron tip & forgetting about the part that heats it up. So if anyone else has to do this remember to pay attention to the entire soldering iron not just the tip. I took the shelf back to the location last week & it is working fine now. Crimping on the ends was a PITA To be honest basic electrical soldering skills are mostly in the equipment (as long as you read up a few techniques). The pencil style irons aren't very good and they often don't come with basic accessories needed to do good work. I'd recommend getting a temperature controlled station, I like the Hakko FX888D, its around $100 but definitely work it. Even with a pencil iron you should be using a wet sponge to wipe the tip off after every solder joint. A flux pen is also extremely handy for tricky spots or tinning wires.. You should also be coating the tip of the iron (tinning) with solder before you shut it off to prevent the tip from corroding in storage. I was finally able to get my soldering iron to work after watching a lot of youtube videos & researching how to solder. The problem I kept having was that I could not get the soldering iron tip tinned due to having left it in a toolbox in the garage for several years. As a result every time I heated the tip up it got black so I wasn't able to get the wires hot enough to get the solder to stick. I tried cleaning the soldering iron tip with a sponge like you suggested but that did not work. I tried to using steel wool on the tip like several how to solder sites suggested & was able to get only a small portion of the tip tinned. After that I read to use very fine grit sand paper on the tip to clean the oxidation off. After not being able to find any sandpaper in my garage I tried one one of those sponges that had the green scratch pad on one side & was able to get the tip cleaned by fully heating up the soldering iron & then soaking the sponge in water & wrapping it around the heated tip & forcefully scrubbing it. After that I had no problem getting the tip tinned & getting the solder to flow. yep, screw RoHS What is RoHS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis7s Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 RoHS = Restriction of Hazardous Substance, most notably lead in this case. Its bigger in Europe than it is in North America, but everything is kinda going lead free these days. Its not horrible but it can be frustrating if you are not used to soldering with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 Parts one of them to keep the other one going for awhile - 1991, that's pretty old to get too deep with in terms of your time time and costly repairs. Don't mean to gloat but this was exactly what I was talking about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mojorhino Posted January 17, 2014 Author Share Posted January 17, 2014 Don't mean to gloat but this was exactly what I was talking about I hear what you are saying but in this case I still disagree. . . In the grand scheme of things this was a repair that was virtually no out of pocket $ cost to me. I did not have to purchase any parts for the machine to get it working. The only thing that it cost me was a few hours or my time, but that was only because I did not know what I was doing. The only thing I purchased was a pair of helping hands from RadioShack which were less than $20 & I only soldered the connection because I did not have a specialized tool to crimp the metal wire on the end adequately. What made this take a while for me was having to research what I needed to do to correctly tin my soldering iron's tip due to it having sat in a toolbox in my garage without being used for several years. To put it into perspective replacing the machine would cost me at least $500 . . . probably more if you take into consideration time involved in finding a replacement, fixing up the replacement & picking up & placing the replacement. I am about 1 month shy of being debt free (at least my vending business) & do not want to incur any new major expenses right now. Having said that I get what you are saying & if in the future any major costly repairs are needed for either of my Polyvends such as needing to replace a board or something expensive like that I will definitely part one out like you advised. For now, however, & the foreseeable future I am still going to try & repair any minor non co$tly issues myself rather than replacing the machine because I got into this business to make $ not to spend it on equipment when I don't need to. To be honest basic electrical soldering skills are mostly in the equipment (as long as you read up a few techniques). The pencil style irons aren't very good and they often don't come with basic accessories needed to do good work. I'd recommend getting a temperature controlled station, I like the Hakko FX888D, its around $100 but definitely work it. Even with a pencil iron you should be using a wet sponge to wipe the tip off after every solder joint. A flux pen is also extremely handy for tricky spots or tinning wires.. You should also be coating the tip of the iron (tinning) with solder before you shut it off to prevent the tip from corroding in storage. Thanks for the advice on tinning the soldering iron tip before I put it away so that it will work next time. I am not sure if you can tell from the picture but I put that iron up with a nice shiny coat of solder on the tip so that it will be ready go the next time I need it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golfdogs Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 I hear what you are saying but in this case I still disagree. . . In the grand scheme of things this was a repair that was virtually no out of pocket $ cost to me. I did not have to purchase any parts for the machine to get it working. The only thing that it cost me was a few hours or my time, but that was only because I did not know what I was doing. The only thing I purchased was a pair of helping hands from RadioShack which were less than $20 & I only soldered the connection because I did not have a specialized tool to crimp the metal wire on the end adequately. What made this take a while for me was having to research what I needed to do to correctly tin my soldering iron's tip due to it having sat in a toolbox in my garage without being used for several years. To put it into perspective replacing the machine would cost me at least $500 . . . probably more if you take into consideration time involved in finding a replacement, fixing up the replacement & picking up & placing the replacement. I am about 1 month shy of being debt free (at least my vending business) & do not want to incur any new major expenses right now. Having said that I get what you are saying & if in the future any major costly repairs are needed for either of my Polyvends such as needing to replace a board or something expensive like that I will definitely part one out like you advised. For now, however, & the foreseeable future I am still going to try & repair any minor non co$tly issues myself rather than replacing the machine because I got into this business to make $ not to spend it on equipment when I don't need to. Thanks for the advice on tinning the soldering iron tip before I put it away so that it will work next time. I am not sure if you can tell from the picture but I put that iron up with a nice shiny coat of solder on the tip so that it will be ready go the next time I need it. Well stated... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 I would not have done all of this even if I knew what I was doing. Good work though. That would have probably been a $100 repair for a circuit board repair person to do... if they were willing to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agnt549 Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 I Have a Pv6640 It Needs A Light Bulb in The Door Can Anyone Give Me The Size Of The Lamp And If It,s T12 Or T8 Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Welcome to the forum, agnt549. You're not Agent 99? Ha. The light for that machine is probably a T5 lamp that is 21" long. You can tell if you measure the gap between the sockets. If you are closer to 24" then you will use a 24" T8 lamp. There will be a starter for either with the F5 using an FS4 starter and the F8 using an FS2. If the starter isn't located near the lamp then it's mounted on the power supply box in the bottom of the machine. The F5 can be tough to find but I have them in stock so if you need one you can PM me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 I would not have done all of this even if I knew what I was doing. Good work though. That would have probably been a $100 repair for a circuit board repair person to do... if they were willing to do it. I hear you Chris - I would have had that thing partsed out on ebay in a heartbeat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 I hear you Chris - I would have had that thing partsed out on ebay in a heartbeat Way to reply to a one-year-old post lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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