Dixie Narco 501E Dropping 2 bottles or no bottles

[joeman242320]

Hi all, first off I'd like to say please forgive my ignorance.  I'm very new to the vending world and have been trying to learn everything myself. I know this has something to do with the cam settings but I haven't figured it out.  The cam settings and how they are configured seem to get me every time.  I'm trying to add a 16.9oz Fresca bottle to where cans were and a 16.9 oz root beer where a 16.9oz dr. pepper was.  The root beer is a little shorter so it's probably just slightly bigger around.  Do you guys know what cam setting these should be on.  All the other 16.9 bottles are on 5 and that isn't working.  When I do the motor test it drops them and then another motor test it drops two down, another motor test nothing, another test then 2.  Pretty frustrated at this point.  Thanks for any help, I'm sure I will be back often with questions.  Also does anyone have a good way to move that back support beam.  I have big arms and it is super tough trying to move those around. It's pretty much impossible to get my arm clear to the back.  I dread reconfiguring a column.  Anyone have any tricks or tools they know of to make this easier? 

[Vendo Mike]

People with large arms always complain about that.   Use a yard stick or some other "arm extension" to reach the rear spacer. 

Bottles are normally setup as 2 deep.  In narrow columns, that generally means 2 open notches on your cam.  On wide columns, 4 open notches ( the oscillator drops 2 from one side and then 2 from the other ).  16.9 bottles vary greatly in dimensions. 

You will likely need shims (side spacers) to get those right but those should be listed on the inner door of your machine or in the operations manual.  D&S has those on their site.

[AngryChris]

I don't think my arms are that big and I always scrape my arms trying to adjust the back spacer lol.

On a 501e, assuming you have the same shims you had/have for cans or 16.9 oz bottles, I'd check two things.  First, try a different cam setting.  I tell everyone just to count the notches.  Is the column 2 deep?  Then you need 2 notches.  The exception is on wide columns.  For 2 deep,you double it to get 4 notches since it's double the capacity of a narrow column.  There may be another setting that will work.

The other thing to check to see is if you need a rod or rod adjustment.  The rod is like a shim within the rotor itself.  The 501e is pretty reliable even though it's really not meant for 16.9 oz bottles.  You may even need to remove a rod of it's there.  It really depends on if it's the front bottle that's hung up or the rear bottle.  If the front hangs up (barely holding on), then remove the rod if it's there.  If the rear is hanging up then you may need a rod.  I'd suspect that the thicker bottle would cause the front to hang up if anything.

Other than that, you can try a different column too, particularly an adjacent column, but that's worst case scenario.

[AZVendor]

Use a flat blade screwdriver to pry the rear spacer springs out of their hole on one side or the other.  Then free it up from both sides and locate where you want it adjusted to.  Insert the right or left side into the appropriate holes and then work the other side into the same holes on the other side of the column.

[mooner719]

check to see if the cam is in the correct position for dropping the vend out.  i had same situation and i rotated the cam and now it only vends one at a time