Chard Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 Is anyone else becoming frustrated with the lack of manufacturer support for crane equipment? Many of our AP Studio model equipment is completely unsupported by the manufacturer. Drop sensors, Transformers, etc. - I find all these parts difficult to obtain. For a while I was even considering the purchase of the crane media machines for our route and now have no confidence that if we do acquire these machines that we would even be able to buy parts in the next few years. I find parts for the bevmax are the same. What is going on with this company? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 I don't know but it seems as if they expect us to throw away machines every couple years and just buy new like GM was supposedly doing in the 90's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 This is why it's so frustrating that Crane bought AP and DN only to disown and disolve them. The purchase was supposedly to get the Rowe 748 food machine design rights which AP had obtained when they bought Rowe. However it now is obvious that Crane just wanted to kill AP off. The Studio and 130 series were the last ones from AP and at the end of AP prior to the sale to Crane they were simply using all of their supply of service parts for equipment production with no further purchasing of parts in the pipeline. Crane got a company that had no parts in inventory for the later machines and they had no interest in supporting machines they didn't design or invest in. That NAMA never even stood up to what Crane did is a total disservice to every member of NAMA. NAMA won't even chastise the manufacturers that have changed DEX, a NAMA standard, to the point that it is worthless on older machines. I don't really understand what NAMA thinks it's job is when it doesn't stand up and fight for it's members. I would understandably be sceptical that any machine sold by Crane would be supported beyond 3-5 years. USI is probably the only one that I would trust to support machines in the future though with the lack of downloadable manuals on their later machines I don't know if that is even true now. The US is moving toward more micro market type locations while USI sells more and more machines in foreign countries. I don't think the manufacturers have much hope for vending long term in the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc vending Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 The crane business model buy and destroy. Lack of basic parts is the thing that angers me the most, USI and AMS aren't pulling this crap on us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 The 501Es still get decent support parts wise, cause the bottlers would pitch a golpher fit otherwise, and I haven’t really needed the tech support either cause the machines are so damn simple. Also, eBay has a bunch of parts just cause DN made so many of them. As for USI, they support some pretty old products, but the major issues is that they charge an arm and a golpher for their parts, and no one else really has parts cause there are so many different variants of a particular part for a particular machine that only USI really knows which particular part fits that serial number. Whereas I can pull most parts from an early 501E and for them on a later model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 36 minutes ago, orsd said: The 501Es still get decent support parts wise, cause the bottlers would pitch a golpher fit otherwise, and I haven’t really needed the tech support either cause the machines are so damn simple. Also, eBay has a bunch of parts just cause DN made so many of them. As for USI, they support some pretty old products, but the major issues is that they charge an arm and a golpher for their parts, and no one else really has parts cause there are so many different variants of a particular part for a particular machine that only USI really knows which particular part fits that serial number. Whereas I can pull most parts from an early 501E and for them on a later model. Unless it's a single price 501e! Yeah, I have one and I bet it's pretty rare. What's sad is that Vendor gets a bad reputation for some of their machines but they support their machines. My vmax machines work pretty good. At this point though, I'm holding on to all of my vendos, Dixie's, royals, and most usi equipment, as well as anything AP 7000 and newer. I am upgrading national 147/148s and pretty much trying to keep an inventory of common models with plenty part availability. Anything else gets scrapped eventually and anything uncommon gets sold off. If I need new machines, it's USI, AMS, Royal, or Vendo. The only exception is that I would consider a bevmax but I'd like to hear about the new royal glassfront since they have a large 50-select model now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cvending Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 Not sure that Dixie Narco ever made a 501E model. At least I have never seen one. Crane support has really fallen of over the past few years. The worst part is getting through to a tech. Either wait 20 minutes or leave a number for callback. Unfortunately, when you call them from your location, you can't always wait a 1/2 to talk to some one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 1 hour ago, cvending said: Not sure that Dixie Narco ever made a 501E model. At least I have never seen one. Crane support has really fallen of over the past few years. The worst part is getting through to a tech. Either wait 20 minutes or leave a number for callback. Unfortunately, when you call them from your location, you can't always wait a 1/2 to talk to some one. I'm assuming you were referring to my single price 501e. Unless someone converted it, Dixie made it. It's definitely a 501e and definitely single price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 DN most definitely made single price 501Es. I have 2 of them, one of which was converted to multiprice. I discovered this when I called DN to order parts and gave them the S/N, which came back as being a single price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullyfrog Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 I have one also. I wouldn't think it would be worth it to try to convert it though. Never thought of it to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 It came already converted. The only reason I would convert one is if I had a complete multiprice parts donor that had damaged sheet metal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 2 hours ago, orsd said: It came already converted. The only reason I would convert one is if I had a complete multiprice parts donor that had damaged sheet metal. This one looks very nice too! I think it has a bad evaporator fan because it was freezing up before I took it off location. If I recall, everything is there for mounting the board but do you know if I would have to change the motors or anything along those lines? Switches? It's a good cabinet and it's unfortunate because I don't have a location where I can sell bottles without having a card reader added on.. and I have plenty of can machines already so I don't see the point in converting it to cans even if that's the cheapest solution. Maybe I should just fix the evaporator and sell it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 You need a golpher ton of harnesses. Motors should be ok, you'll just use one of the switches and not all 3 (forget which). But the main thing that makes it un viable to convert is the cost of harnesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 22 minutes ago, orsd said: You need a golpher ton of harnesses. Motors should be ok, you'll just use one of the switches and not all 3 (forget which). But the main thing that makes it un viable to convert is the cost of harnesses. I'm referring to having a donor machine. Occasionally some local vendors have machines vandalized and they part them out. It may not be worth it either way but i'm just curious if it would be cost effective if I got all of the harnesses and any other hardware for say... $400? I'm at 22 readers and I may get as high as 40 over the next few years. On top of that, I am strongly considering selling off a large part of my route (as much as 40% of my accounts) to cut my bottom performers and also get rid of older equipment and locations that are too far away. This 501e in question just looks really really nice... I'll probably find a location for it that only sells soda and stick with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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