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Hey guys.

So I have had trouble changing out flavor strips in my Dixie Narco E series machines. There is barely any space to maneuver especially when flavor strips have broken inside the button or cut to exact length. Ive had to remove the selection switches ( and barely any space to remove those nuts) then take out the plastic button to take the flavor strips out. What is the proper way to change out the flavor strips ( that i am failing to see)?

Also, I have a Vendo 720 and those have gauge bar clips for different package sizes. I cannot take the clips off without prying with a screwdriver but I am always afraid that I will break them. How are you supposed to take the clips off without breaking them or deforming( the screwdriver method leaves them way looser when reinstalling them)

I know these questions have common sense answers but I have been scratching my head for a little while on these things. This topic thread can be for anyone who has total noob questions about small things and we can help answer each other.

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It happens especially if they have been baking in the sun for years and basically become Lays chips.

If I’m placing a machine outside I’ll put a strip of packing tape on the back and leave a big tab just for this reason. The only other trick I know of for the really crispy ones is to get an air compressor, engage your safety squints, and blow into the button. The air will hopefully crumble the brittle strip into a million pieces and carry them out.

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Lol, thanks for the quick response @orsd i did the same thing with the tape when i replaced my flavor strips👍. Poor design on DN's part. The Royal stack machines have much better design; in G3 machines you just pop out a small trim piece holding the strips together and replace.

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If your old flavor strips are just broken in half or at least in large pieces with a little bit of them sticking out of the side then you can slide a good flavor strip in front of the old one and pull them out together.  Sometime you will also be able to slide a new strip in front of the old one if you use patience.

On the gage bar clips, some get pried off and the white and tall grey ones get banged off with the shaft of a screwdriver.  Hold the bar away from you and use the screwdriver shaft to strike against the clip away from you to slide them off forcefully.  They will break free and fly across the room when they come off.  

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I purchased some dental picks a few years ago off ebay just for this purpose.  Patience and a steady hand...  Kind of reminds me of the game Operation....  Lol

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The only gripes I have with them are that they have a 50 dollar minimum order and their prices are hit or miss. Some things they are cheaper than anyone else other times they are like 4x the price.

The 4 main suppliers that I check for parts are: the factory (Royal, Dixie Narco /Crane, etc), Suzo Happ, Vendors Exchange, DS, and Capital Vending (more harnesses than anything else). Also Vending Works for refrigeration.

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on the E series Dixie, there is actually a way to remove the whole row of buttons from the back, this will require a bit more work, but will also have a great result as then you can used the air compressor to thoroughly clean the inside of those buttons, this way you wont have any issues later on, aslo a good way to learn about the machine. The v720, on the other hand should have pullouts of the bottles, if we are talking about the same thing, to convert from bottle to can, the plastic pullout pieces pull out, but are not removable. As for the buttons on the 720, if they are the HVV buttons, those are super easy to change, but if they are not, i would get myself a pick, a very small and flexible thin pick, but then again, you can remove all the buttons in one shot to get it nicely done.

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1 hour ago, NYCandyMan said:

The v720, on the other hand should have pullouts of the bottles, if we are talking about the same thing, to convert from bottle to can, the plastic pullout pieces pull out, but are not removable. 

Wrong!  The 720 uses clips, can shims, and cam adjustment to go from bottles to cans, and possibly something else I may have forgotten.   The 721 uses slides and programming settings to convert to cans.

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On 4/23/2020 at 9:41 AM, AZVendor said:

NYCandy must be 65 years old.  He misses the mark constantly.

lol, definitely not 65, and definitely not a noob, since my machines have the slides then they are v721, so then the 720 is the same as the 440, 540, and the 600 models where, yes, you do need clips.

since you're the pro, what you think about the vue 30/40?

Edited by NYCandyMan
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Vendo Vues are problematic mainly because the picker cups and hands in them are easy to vandalize and break to get free products.  There is no one who recommends those machines.  Pepsi used to put a lot of them out until they had too many issues with them, especially with third party vendors that had no clue how the machines even worked.  Pepsi had so many repairs on the picker cups that they took them all out of service.  That's why so many are on the used market and get passed from newbie to newbie when they should just be scrapped.

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The Vues are straight junk.

No one wants them for good reason.

I’ve told this story before, but there was a Vue for sale on my local CL for like 250. It was up for like a year or two, until it got pulled and replaced with an ad for Vendo Vue parts. Take from that what you will.

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  • 2 months later...

*********NEW QUESTION********

When locating/cold calling, do you  ever go in to a location/ call Location between noon and 1pm? I don't want to interrupt someone's lunch and have that affect my chances of getting in. What are your thoughts.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/27/2020 at 11:53 PM, AZVendor said:

Vendo Vues are problematic mainly because the picker cups and hands in them are easy to vandalize and break to get free products.  There is no one who recommends those machines.  Pepsi used to put a lot of them out until they had too many issues with them, especially with third party vendors that had no clue how the machines even worked.  Pepsi had so many repairs on the picker cups that they took them all out of service.  That's why so many are on the used market and get passed from newbie to newbie when they should just be scrapped.

The Vue 30/40 was Vendo's first attempt at Glass Front vendors and there were MANY lessons learned from it.  Many of those issues stemmed from everything being mounted to the door.  This made the door very heavy and would eventually sag which threw off the machine's ability to pick accurately.  It also used fingers to "grip" packages which is fine if everything is within specific size parameters but drinks change shape and size constantly. Another issue was that if/when a drink burst, there was little to protect the electronics in the hand from being saturated with syrup. Once syrup is added to anything with moving parts and allowed to cool, it becomes epoxy.  This caused a great many hands and rails to fail.  Over the years, the IGUS harness which connects the rail to the main board eventually fails causing communication issues between the hand and control board.  This can also happen when the ribbon cable on the rail fails due to constantly flexing left and right to vend.  

All of these lessons were taken to heart by Vendo on the GF9.  It is Vendo's new glass front vendor.  For starters, there is only glass and a t-handle mounted to the door keeping it light. All of the controlling electronics are mounted on a slide-out drawer in a side cabinet. (Kind of like the old AP320 cold food machines) The GF9 lifts drinks from the bottom (almost like a forklift) so the shape and size of the package is irrelevant.

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Dixie (Crane) has it's own problems just like any glass front machine.  If the first BevMax was a good machine, they wouldn't have come out with the 2, 3 or 4.  Glass front vendors are complex and take more PM than a stack vendor which very few people understand and fewer follow through with.  To your point though, it will take a long time for to wash the taste of the Vue out of everyone's mouth. 

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