GIII not cold

[Jay Carroll]

I have a Royal Vendor GIII Coke machine in my back yard. It's a novelty for parties. It's set on free vend with soda and some adult beverages. It was a hit. About a year ago, the kids started telling me the soda was warm. Looking into this I found the compressor wasn't kicking on. The condenser runs but no compressor = No cold. I called a service guy that brought a whole compressor unit ($400.00 and said no way) and he replaced the thermostat. In January at below freezing temperature outside. I plugged the compressor into the outlet and it kicks on. What I didn't know was it stayed on. The next morning the soda was popping and it was a mess in there.

Flash forward to today and the same thing. No compressor. I have done some research and the door switch turns the compressor off. I jumped it with a piece of wire but still no compressor. I plug it back in and 3 hours later...... Wallah... Cold drinks. What's the deal with this thing? I suspect it's something with the the black outlet for the compressor plug. Anyone have any suggestions? 

[AngryChris]

Replace the door switch. Replace the temp control.  Make sure there's good contact between the wires plugging into the switch.

[Jay Carroll]

I traced the wire for the switch and it appears to have good contact from the push button switch to the board. I made a connection with a wire and nothing. I'll definitely replace it anyway. What and where is the temp control?

[AZVendor]

Jay, you obviously know NOTHING about this machine or how it works.  Of course if you plug the compressor directly into a power cord it will run without ever turning off because it's running with no temp control to tell it to turn off.  A GIII is far too complicated for a backyard beer machine and for someone who knows nothing about vending machines.  You really just need a simple single price Dixie Narco, but now you're stuck figuring this thing out.  If you had bothered to look at a wiring diagram of your machine you would see that the compressor is controlled by a refrigeration relay that is, in turn, controlled by the logic board based on input from a temperature sensor that's plugged into the board.  In addition, the refrigeration is inhibited by the door switch in the open position and it's inhibited for 3-5 minutes after the door is closed. 

I couldn't say what your real problem is without being in front of the machine but it certainly sounds like a bad door switch or one that doesn't get actuated properly.  If it's intermittent then it may or may not put the machine back into the vend mode and start the compressor when you close the door.  One way to confirm that is to know that when the door is open you are in the service mode and when it's closed you are supposed to be in the vend mode.  Knowing that you can open the door and enter the programming of the machine.  Then close the door and see if the machine immediately switches back to the vend mode taking you out of the programming and displaying the dancing LEDs and then zeros on the display or a price if the entire machine runs at the same price.  If the programming remains on the display when the door is closed then the door switch isn't working.  Conversely, if you open the door and cannot enter the programming then the door switch is bad.

The temperature control is a sensor mounted to the back wall of the cabinet just above the evaporator fans.  It's a solid state sensor that is plugged into the logic board.  You need to know that the drop sensor attached to the bottom of your delivery chute to detect products dropping looks just like the temp sensor as does it's harness, so don't confuse them.  The only difference at the logic board besides where they plug in is that the ground wire on the drop sensor does not get attached to anything but the ground on the temp sensor does.