Bouncy Balls Not Dispensing From Round Gumball Head

[Dylan]

I’ve been looking for a solution to this madness I’m dealing with and thought maybe one of you would have an answer. I have several double head machines (one head gumballs and the other bouncy balls). Sometimes, and this has only happened with the bouncy balls, I don’t get a bouncy ball when I put in a quarter. After that I’ll keep putting in money but still do not get bouncy balls. But other times these work flawlessly. Sometimes I’ll get 5 bouncy balls in a row but then I won’t get any.  I’m new with machines like these. Am I missing something or is there a beginner error?? As you can see I have the opening of the wheel opened all of the way and the machine isn’t full to the top (top compressing the balls). Thanks so much. 

[PerformaVending]

What you need is a baffle assembly. Essentially, the weight of the bouncy balls is piling up onto the mechanism and locking it up, or forcing more balls through the wheel at a time then it should. The wheel you have looks an awful lot like a capsule wheel to my eye, but it should still work fine for this purpose. 

What sort of brush guard/spring assembly do you have on the machine? A picture of the head with the assembled wheel but no product will tell us everything we need to know.

As for building a cheap baffle, there's a lot of cheap (as in virtually free) ways to get one, and I'm happy to show you some of the crazy things I've come up with over the years. What will work for you really relies on what sort of springs you might have though, thus why that's important.

Looking forward to getting these working for you!

[Dylan]

I figured it could be the weight. Let me get some pictures for you. I don’t think there is a baffle at all 😕

[Dylan]

I’m really glad to hear that there is hope. I was really starting to lose my mind over why the Gumballs dispensed just fine but the bouncy balls wouldn’t. 

[gumball guy]

You may want to take the riser out (sits under the wheel and looks like pacman) and see if that helps as well. Looks like that wheel may have had an agitator on it at one time but broke off so I would definitely follow Performa's  advice about adding a baffle.

[Dylan]

I don’t think it broke off as I bought 13 of these new. 

[Dylan]

I can’t find anything on the internet about baffles. Do you have any links on what they are and how they work?

[gumball guy]

1 minute ago, Dylan said:

I don’t think it broke off as I bought 13 of these new. 

The top of that wheel looked a little jagged (in the center) and I have seen those agitators break off in the past but if you bought them new that must not be the case.

[PerformaVending]

That does look like a 1.1" acorn capsule wheel. It'll work for this purpose, but even with the heaviest toys acorn caps are going to be a fraction as heavy as bouncy balls, thus the problems. There also aren't any stir springs at all- which are usually a centerpiece in keeping bouncy ball machines running smoothly, so we'll have to work around that. Pic below, with a picture of a manufacturer-made baffle on a 2" machine.

Good news, we can fix this one, and there's a number of ways to do it.

My "go-to" method has been getting a little container of margarine or butter, then taking the lid off. Spray paint the plastic lid either black or silver, drill a hole in the middle, and drop it on the center rod- usually the stir springs would hold it up, keeping the weight centered on the main rod and not on the product wheel. As we don't have any stir springs to work with, the first thing to do is to find some sort of replacement support. The cheapest method I've found is to head on down to your hardware store of choice and get some 1/2" metal tubing. It's usually sold in longer lengths, but the stores will usually cut it to size for you granted you buy the tube for the $10-$20, and that one tube will last you for many machines in the future.

From there, it's a matter of finding something presentable that fits down onto the center rod to work as the "umbrella" to take the weight. While I like the butter lid for the size, you might want to find something sturdier (even something made of metal, like a canning jar or the lid from something like jelly) to give you some uniform strength across the width of the head.

From there, it's easy assembly. The tube (cut to between 1.5"-2") feeds over your center rod, resting on the center of the product wheel- feed your lid onto the center rod and it then sets on the wider tube. I've got a graphic around here somewhere from years ago, I'll see if I can find it.

After that, you're out less than $20 for pretty much all of your gear- and seeing as the going-rate for baffles (which vary wildly) sits between $5-$20 a piece, you've got more money in your pocket. If that doesn't work, there's another option but that one involves some more serious modding- and with the aforementioned fix you can always take it out if you decide you want to run something else.

If you need more help, say the word! 

Good luck!

[Dylan]

Wow thank you so much for making my day. I’ll have all 7 of my locations replaced with this tomorrow. Is there a certain diameter of a lid (or something like it )I should be going for? What is too big and what is too small?

[PerformaVending]

You'll want a little wiggle room- I like mine to be able to spin at least, but that's a personal preference. You'd be amazed how much performance can increase once you take even a little weight off of the product wheel so it can do it's thing again without jamming. Let us know how it works for you!

[Dylan]

So I spent all day putting these in both the gum ball heads and bouncy ball heads in all 7 of my locations. I tested and tested and tested and it worked great. At my last location one spin it didn’t give me a bouncy ball but I tried again and it did. I then proceeded to put 30 quarters in after that and got a ball every single time. I consider that a great success. Thank you so much. 

[PerformaVending]

American ingenuity triumphs again! 

[Dylan]

Yes you are the best!!

[Dylan]

So after a week of testing this “new setup” I’m finding that I’ll have a fail rate of 1 out of 50. Is that acceptable? Also I had to switch out a machine head with another because the balls still would not come out quarter after quarter. What are your thoughts on this?

[gumball guy]

Did you remove the riser?

[Dylan]

No I didn’t. Good idea!

[Dylan]

Should I do that with the gumball side too?

[gumball guy]

No. The riser is for the gumballs. When I run bouncy balls (27mm) I always take the riser out. I assume your gumballs are vending fine is that correct?

[Dylan]

Perfectly fine. 

[Dylan]

I took the riser plate out and I gave it a try. I tried the machine 100 times. Around the 50th try I received 2 balls and around the 94th time I didn’t receive a ball. I’m thinking that the balls in the machine didn’t settle around that time. What do you think. Is that good?

[Dylan]

Maybe I can make an arm that pushes the balls each spin?

[gumball guy]

You always want the machine to vend correctly every time but I would say 1 failure to vend out of 100 is fine. If it gives two out once in a while that is far better than none at all. Bouncy balls are a little tacky and occasionally bind up even with the diffuser/baffle in place and riser removed so the occasional misvend will happen. Make sure the wheel is timed correctly (meaning the opening in the wheel is directly over the chute every time after each vend) and I would leave it as is and just monitor it over the next cycle.

[Dylan]

When I get a chance I’m gonna try it again with 100 more quarters. I hear you though. I’m really getting discouraged with these bouncy balls. 

[gumball guy]

Don't get discouraged as these things happen. It's all a part of the learning curve. I really don't think 1 missed vend out of 100 will cause any issues.