Crane 141 selections completely vending when button held down

[LuckyV]

I have an account with a Crane 141 that I've been looking after. Recently, certain selections on the machine have started to completely vend out when they have been selected. The spirals will just keep turning and dispensing product as long as the button is held down after putting in enough money for one purchase of said selection. One of the selections that used to do this no longer vends.

I've been looking to replace the machine anyways. But I'm wondering what might be causing the issue, and if there's anything I can do to try and fix it?

[AZVendor]

Your motor followers are broken.  Replace the machine because you can't get parts for it any longer.  You're lucky it lasted this long.  It's a late 70s machine.  Back in 1978 Canteen still used these and I worked in a retail store that had one which would free vend a selection when one of the motor followers broke.  I learned what the cause was after I got into vending in 1985.  After 2000 I was only doing service work and had to repair some of those models, some of which still had the old ACER coin mechs in them.  By that time the conversion kits to go to normal coin mechs were practically impossible to get.  

[AngryChris]

I have never heard of a 141.  Could it be a 147?  I'm not saying it doesn't exist but if it's an old model then you may have some rare specimen that needs to get scrapped.  It probably predates the 145/146 which are already dinosaurs lol.  I'm scrapping all 145/146!

[AZVendor]

It does predate the 145 and even though they are both in the 140 series they are different machines.  These are the ones that candy products laid down on shelves with only the top 1/2 of the candy spirals exposed to push the candy bars off the shelves.  I think it was National's first glassfront machine after decades of selling the drop shelf candy machines with pull knobs which were redesigned cigarette machines.  This was back when they were part of Universal Match Company.

Edited December 7, 2020 by AZVendor

[AngryChris]

2 minutes ago, AZVendor said:

It does predate the 145 and even though they are both in the 140 series they are different machines.  These are the ones that candy products laid down on shelves with only the top 1/2 of the candy spirals exposed to push the candy bars off the shelves.

Are these like the knob ones I've heard about?  I think my friend has a couple he's keeping as well as some old 70's coke branded machines (Dixie's I think).  They are all 4 or 5 feet tall.  I think he's keeping them because he wants something to remember his early days in vending.

[AZVendor]

No, they were glassfront machines with a push button for each selection.  I still have real old Vendors Exchange catalogs that show parts for them.  You are way too young to remember them.

[AngryChris]

16 minutes ago, AZVendor said:

No, they were glassfront machines with a push button for each selection.  I still have real old Vendors Exchange catalogs that show parts for them.  You are way too young to remember them.

So I guess they were the national version of the AP 400/500. I did have a few of those momentarily.  There's a huge era of vending that I've heard about from people such as yourself but yeah, I'm sure the era of the first control board models absolutely exploded and made push buttons obsolete.  I'm sure a lot of vendors held onto the old ones because they didn't see a real reason to upgrade but I'm just surprised that I have never heard of the 141.  It makes me assume they just couldn't hold up like the 400/500.  Then again, he did say "crane.". I'm unaware if crane owned national that far back but I'd assume they would easily have something to do with it being so rare.

[AZVendor]

Crane is simply the owner of the legacy company that was National Vendors.  AP's 400 series machine came after the National 140 series but not by much.  They are both representative of the earliest multiprice machines.  They didn't have control boards.  The 141 was priced inside the ACER coin mech and the 400 used a pricing board - first a 4 price then later a 10 price.  All were state of the art back then.  Rowe also had their 490 series that came a little after that which also had individual selection buttons and also 4 price or 10 price.

[AngryChris]

3 hours ago, AZVendor said:

Crane is simply the owner of the legacy company that was National Vendors.  AP's 400 series machine came after the National 140 series but not by much.  They are both representative of the earliest multiprice machines.  They didn't have control boards.  The 141 was priced inside the ACER coin mech and the 400 used a pricing board - first a 4 price then later a 10 price.  All were state of the art back then.  Rowe also had their 490 series that came a little after that which also had individual selection buttons and also 4 price or 10 price.

I know those older machines didn't have control boards but I was trying to ask if the AP 4000/5000 and National 145/146 pretty much made the older models obsolete real quick.  There are plenty of vendors out there (including me) that are only getting rid of the 145/146 and the ap 4000/5000 because they arent' worth putting much money into, despite being solid machines.  Did the era of the control boards (ap 4000/5000 and national 145/146) just kill the older machines off overnight?  Like I said in a previous post, I am sure that some vendors held onto their older models for a long time but I am assuming that the control boards offered enough advantages over the "multi price" switch-models that larger vendors just replaced them quickly.  I also wonder if the 147/148 and 7000/6000 just boomed too because they were designed with bill acceptors in mind.  I'm definitely too young to know the history there.

[LuckyV]

20 hours ago, AZVendor said:

Your motor followers are broken.  Replace the machine because you can't get parts for it any longer.  You're lucky it lasted this long.  It's a late 70s machine.  Back in 1978 Canteen still used these and I worked in a retail store that had one which would free vend a selection when one of the motor followers broke.  I learned what the cause was after I got into vending in 1985.  After 2000 I was only doing service work and had to repair some of those models, some of which still had the old ACER coin mechs in them.  By that time the conversion kits to go to normal coin mechs were practically impossible to get.  

Makes sense, I really appreciate the response. Your experiences in the business are also fascinating to read about as well.

 

Thanks for this