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[frank1128]

Hi everyone!

First off, I'm really glad I found this community online! I've looked around, & I'm looking forward to learning from all of you.

I just bought a Pepsi Univendor 2 (Model V480P) soda machine used on Craigslist. I've been wanting to start vending, and wasn't planning on the soda machine first...but the oppurtunity arose, so I went for it. I work within my family's business, and we have heavy foot traffic/waiting room patterns because part of our business is providing music lessons to around 500 students/week. There is already a pop machine down there that's owned by Coke locally (if I understand correctly). They're coming to pick it up next week. The new machine was in good working order/operation up to the moment we moved it two days ago, and it's already plugged in and humming away in it's new home.

My thoughts before had been something to the effect of "Certainly I can figure this out...how hard can it be? I can Google it. I will put pop in the machine, there you have it."

I'm now just hoping I haven't made a terrible mistake - I called Vendo and got the information about the model, which led to the manual...and now after reading all morning, I'm just overwhelmed. If you show me once, I will never forget...but I'm not the most mechanical person and the diagrams new vocabulary, etc. are (again, for lack of a better word) overwhelming. Here's the manual, if you're interested: http://www.vendoco.c...nual_WHOLE.pdf. I printed out, in particular, page 7 (loading instructions). I also came across set-up guides (http://www.vendoco.c...PEPSI_10-09.pdf), but the confusing thing there is that there are different set ups for, say, Aquafina, and for Pepsi bottles. On top of that, some of the set-up guides are understandably for older products. What's going to happen when I put today's 20 oz. in there?

Right now, the machine is set up for (8) cans, and (2) 24 oz. bottles (btw, I think this machine is only supposed to take 20 oz. bottles, right? Is that weird?). The selections are terrible. In an ideal world, I'd like to go to Sam's, buy all bottles of what I want, and stock that baby up tonight! I'd prefer to do all bottles because it's a lot easier when you've got kids around. But, do I need different "kits" for each brand/selection? Should I just go buy 8 types of cans, two types of bottles, and figure out how to just change the labels?

I am more than willing to read, research, etc. if anyone knows more about this machine and can point me in a useful direction. I wish there was a quick-start guide, like when you buy a new camera, lol. I mean well but, as you can see, am completely lost!

Thank you all, in advance, for your advice -
Frank1128

[frank1128]

Update: A friend helped me out last night, and we took the basic parts of the machine apart, put it back together, etc. I feel light years ahead of where I was yesterday at this time, but there's still so much to learn. Since most of the gage bar clips are already set up for cans, and cans seem to make more profit anyway, I think we're going to go with that. One slot has a broken clip I'll need to replace, and there are two #1 gage tall clips for bottles. I am worried about having the correct parts and set-up on an "obsolete" machine - the original set-up guides are from 2002 and I don't know how different the bottles are today. Of course, I would still love to know your thoughts on anything above...thanks!