Good day, gentlemen. I recently bought a Rowe 4900JR machine from a private party because they said it was broken. Well, I like challenges, and it was cheap, so here I am!

I was able to get it to work by replacing the coin mech and the wiring on the door switch.

The coin mec is a CoinCo 9340-L, and there is a BA30B bill acceptor installed in it. I have everything working except the bill acceptor. I bought a harness for the coin mech and validator, but I am unable to get the validator to work. It was quite a bit of trial and error to find the right dip switches to get the coin mec to work, and I am wondering if I still have some not set right.

I do not have a solid LED on the bill validator, but if I open the stacker, it blinks twice (which a manual I found indicates an open bill box) and the stacker tries to stack (also when I turn power on, the BA also goes through the motion of stacking), so it appears to have power. I am just not sure what to try from here.

Does anyone have any advice for me on where to start? I do have all the coin tubes full.

Thanks in advance.

try making some purchases with coins so the machine will learn that it has coins in the mech.
John

Hi, I have a Royal Vending Merlin IV machine that I bought off craigslist, and was going to set it up for my co-workers as a way-overkill soda/beer fridge.

the front graphic is for a supermarket self-brand soda, in what appears to be 3-color (+white) silkscreen printing on the inside surface of a clear Lexan sheet, which is backlit by two fluorescent tubes in the door. I'd really love to change this to either a more 'typical' graphic, like Coke/Pepsi, or ideally to a custom image with my company logo etc.

The only way I know to do this would be to first source new Lexan from a local plastics wholesaler, then have it custom-cut to fit, then finally locate a print shop able to apply my image to it, either silkscreen or vinyl wrap. My preliminary research suggests this would cost me around $400 Cdn, which makes sense if I charged to vend product, but not if it's a break-even or company-sponsored fridge.

I was hoping that you folks, with your venerable wisdom in the Vending world, would know of a better (read: cheaper) way? Some ideas I had, but don't know if they would work are:

• Contact someone at Coke/Pepsi, and ask them for one, since it's "free" advertising... (but who? a bottler? head office?)
• Get a replacement direct from Royal, but shipping would probably kill me,
• Use some kind of solvent to wash off the old silkscreening, and reuse the old lexan
• use a cheaper plastic, maybe translucent-white, and paint/sticker the outside
• Find a local vending operator with a stable of similar machines, and beg/borrow/trade for a different part

A related question, is what to do for the button placards? they're opaque plastic, edge lit from the door fluorescents, so I was thinking I could just laser-print new ones on normal paper. Should I laminate them too? Do soda manufacturers provide them on request? Should I find a local vending machine company and ask them for their scraps?

Thanks in advance for your help.

http://www.nbsinc.net/ They sell the lexan fronts.
John

hi, went to fill machine, got there and the soda door was stuck open. warm air was blowing out. i didn't have time to investigate. i unpligged unit for about 5 minutes. plugged back in , i heard compressor turn on then kicked off after.
1) should i check for ice build up
2) fans are working. it was blowing hot air and temp was 78degrees!
3) do i check compressor?
4) maybe temperature sensor board?
i have a few of these crane/national combos. they are pretty reliable. only recall 1 problem with the newer combo was that i had to replace the temperature sensor probe. also had to replace ome micro switch on the soda selection doors.
any help or clues would be great thanks gary

I have a 462 that did the same thing.Turned out the location stuck some signs behind the machine that blocked the back of the machine,once I moved them the temp went back down.
John

I swapped out the cion mech from another machine and put the one that i think was bad into the other machine and it works. so i dont think its the mech. whats funny is that when i put a dollar bill in it and select a item it gives me change from the coin mech. Does that mean that the coin mech is working ????. what i did notice is that every now and then it would take a coin but after the first coin it wont take another it would just fall to the return bin and it takes a few minutes before it says i have a credit for the coin it did take.

its a older crane 147

can i tune this mech its a mc5000

the 5000 is not field tunable.I had almost the exact same thing,I put in a refurb 6000 in and haven't had a problem since.the reason the mech will give change is the acceptor portion is out of the loop.
John

do you have another machine to put the mech in?it don't sound like its the machine unless there's a loose connection somewhere.
John