Seaga VC630 not accepting $2 Canadian coins

[Kevin C]

I am a newbie with vending machines and recently inherited looking after a Seaga VC630 vending machine for a charity organization that was purchased used a couple of years ago. It includes a Coinco 9302-CGX coin changer (Canadian version of the 9302-GX). There had always been complaints that it was keeping some coins $1 and $2 Canadian coins without giving credit. I did some troubleshooting and found the coin changer was broken (physical damage to the acceptor unit) such that it keeps all coins (including rejected ones).

I purchased a used replacement coin changer unit online (same model), installed it, and it worked fine, other than it didn't accept $1 and $2 coins dated after 2011. I made some inquiries and it turns out this is because both coins were redesigned in 2012 and now contain a different metal content and the coin changer needed a firmware update in order to recognize them. Although the replacement coin changer unit is old (manufactured 2009), it appears new, so I suspect it was a spare unit at a vending company that had never bothered to update it.

I had Coin Acceptors make the update, and the changer now accepts all $1 coins, but no $2 coins (before it accepted pre-2012 $2 coins). The positioning of the $2 coin accept switch on the coin changer makes no difference. Neither does the amount of coins in the coin tubes. I checked with Coin Acceptors and they indicated they tested the unit after the update and everything checked out.

To add to this, in the meantime I was able to repair the physical damage to the original coin changer, and am finding it behaves exactly the same as the replacement unit (i.e. accepts all $1 coins, but no $2 coins). This coin changer has a sticker indicating that it had also been previously updated to accept the new $1 and $2 coins.

Any ideas as to why neither coin changer will accept $2 coins? It doesn't make sense to me as to why prior to the firmware update, the replacement coin changer accepted pre-2011 $2 coins, but after the update it won't accept any. Could there be an incompatibility between firmware levels on the coin changer and the VMC? Does anyone have that combination of VC630 and 9302-CGX hardware that accepts all $2 Canadian coins - if so was anything required to make it work?

Unfortunately I don't have access to any other vending machines that I could try the coin changers to verify that they accept $2 coins to help isolate the problem, but my gut feeling is they will.

Any ideas would be welcome.

[AZVendor]

It is distinctly possible that it is a machine issue and not a coin mech issue because your machine is from Seaga.  They are notorious for building crappy machines.  If this is the case there will be no remedy from Seaga's poor technical and parts support because they never have updates to boards they put in machines.  They won't even repair a board for you, only sell you a new board.

On the other hand, you need to go back to Coinco and have them demonstrate that the coin mech takes the $2 coin on their test bench to prove that fact.  If they prove it then you know the issue is in the machine.