snackshop 4000 - giving away change?!

[majormajor42]

I have a snackshop 4000 that I operate in my place of work.  Over the course of the last couple weeks I've noticed some change sitting in the change return every time I go to stock the machine.  At first I thought my customers were forgetting to get their change.  Finally last week I noticed that I was running low on change in my coinmech without necessarily having lots of sales.  My next thought was that someone was playing games with my machine and essentially stealing from me.  After a lot of head scratching and walking away and coming back to my machine ten minutes later to find more change, I realized it was doing this all on its own.  It even returned some change while I was standing there with the door closed and locked and me not touching anything.

So that's the problem.  Every so often it returns one of each coin, a quarter, nickel and dime.  I guess my customers would, on occasion find extra change in the machine and either take it or buy more stuff.  Either way, I'm loosing money.

For those that are familiar with the snackshop 4000, it has a motherboard looking thing with two lights.  When something is wrong, both lights are lit, such as when a dollar bill gets stuck.  When everything is okay, just the left light is lit.  Lately, and perhaps related to my problem, the left light is lit but appears to be flashing vary fast.  It looks dim.  When I press "service", it illuminates solid brightly.

There are also some dip switches on that control board that I never noticed before.  1 and 2 are up, 3 through 8 are down.  I've never touched these.

Unfortunately the manual, which has lots of info about setting prices and stuff, does not have any information about what those two lights mean, or about dip switch settings, or anything else that might help me with my "change" problem.

[Technivend]

The AP4000 never came from the factory with a bill acceptor. This means you have a kit in it which will make diagnostics harder and don't expect factory help on it. Beyond that the 4000's where notorious for jackpotting if the floro light in the machine is blinking. First thing to try is to disconnect the light and see if the problem goes away, cheapest and easiest test. After that you have many components that work with each other. If you have a mech you could try that but I doubt that the mech is your problem. I have found that more often then not it is the kit. The cheap way to test that is to disconnect it from the machine and use coins only. Of course this also depends on whose kit is in your machine.

[majormajor42]

"jackpotting"  nice to know there is a technical term for it.

Well, since the machine has worked successfully for about a year in its current configuration of parts, it makes me wonder.  I do have a spare coin mech so at least it is a start and perhaps the easiest fix.  In the end, I guess I have to figure out what needs to be done to get that light to stay up solid or remove it like you suggest.

thanks again Technivend!

[mxer518]

for me every time is was the filter on the light, I either removed the light, upgraded to LED or replaced the filter if I could get my hands on one. Until I realized what the issue was it was really killing me, I would have never in a million years guessed the light filter was bad..

[mission vending]

Technivend is dead on. disconnect the light ballast first and see what happens. Then disconnect the DBV if that doesn't solve the problem. Try the coin mech after that.

[majormajor42]

OHHH!  now I get it.  Even though he clearly said floro light, I was confused and thought we were talking about the little red LED lights on the motherboard.  Now I understand we are talking about the florescent bulb that is illuminating the candy and snacks.  Up to now I have not noticed any flickering of this light.  IT seems to be on pretty solid.  I'll take a good look at it tomorrow though, for sure.

So does anyone know about the two small red LED lights on the control panel and why the left one isn't up solid like it used to be?

So, I'll check the floro bulb and ballast and then change the coin mech and/or DBV.  Thanks everyone.

[mission vending]

Process of elimination:

1. Even if the bulb is not flickering, disconnect it.

2. Check to see if problem persists

3. If yes, then disconnect DBV kit

4. Check to see if problem persists

5. If yes, replace coin mech.

6. Check to see if problem persists

7. If yes, stick a grenade in the machine and run like H E double hockey sticks!!!! Seriously, at this point though you are probably looking at a motherboard problem.

[Mikey B]

Updates?

[gogo]

Have faced similar problem ... was all about the light.

Happy lighting circuit = Happy machine.

If not, Mission hooked you up with a killer breakdown, God love him!

[majormajor42]

sorry I didn't update.  I did end up changing the coin mech for another one I had on hand from the guy who used to run the machines at work before me.  Trying different things with the light did not help.  The great news, since I was jackpotting, was that one day, a week or two later, a guy from work shows up at my work station with a cup full of change they he collected out of my machine.  what a stand up guy!  I hooked him up with a bunch of stuff.  So I think that old coin mech was the problem.

The coin mech I installed wasn't brand new and it is having it's own problem that I've been dealing with all summer.  It's not a big deal since the machine is not in an air conditioned space so I remove most of the candy during the summer, but once the summer is over sales will pick up.  The problem is that even though it registers the proper amounts for various coins, the coins drop straight down to the big collection box.  The coins do not properly distribute to the three silos for quarters nickels and dimes.  So, every few days to a week, I manually take some coins from the box and drop them into their respective silos to about 2/3rds full.  I think I have a feeling that the problem has something to do with the sensors that determine if each silo is empty or full.  if it thinks it is full, it drops the change straight through to the box.  I never really figures out how the coin mech senses this.  I see some sort of set of sensors behind the silos.  wonder how they work.

of course, sooner or later, the silo might empty and either not give a person the right change, tell people to use exact change, or shut down.

Searching for this problem in other threads, I saw that someone had a different coin mech problem and they resolved it by unplugging and replugging all coin mech cables, even the ones that are within the coin mech.  Technivend had a nice explanation about bad contacts and why this might help.  I'll try that first.

oh, this is on a trc-6000

[NinnJinn]

on your coin mech settings, you have the option of the mech holding 6 coins or 69 coins.  Before it starts dropping the change into the "can" 

[NinnJinn]

Switch number 2, you will want it in the OFF position.  then it will keep the change in the changer until it reaches 69 coins.

http://www.meitechnical.com/mei-files/files/access-public/documentation/technical-documents/trc6xxx_operational_service_guide.pdf