Try Silica Gel Packs. You will need to have some sort of holder attached to the underside of the product cover to keep the packs from getting mixed in the product. They come in different sizes (grams) and many manufacturers use them now. I often see them in beef jerky packages.

Another consideration is to avoid soft candy product and obviously anything chocolate.
Hard pressed candy would be the way to go or if possible, add more toy & novelties.

I'm having a problem with moisture getting into my gumball machines which is making the gumballs all sticky and they jam up the machines. The climate here is very hot and humid (tropical) and I don't have the option of locations in air conditioned buildings. Does anyone have any suggestions that we could try?? We're thinking cornstarch or rice somehow.

Stay away from ANY vending machine sold as a "Business Opportunity"

Here are the main players in the Bulk Vending Industry:

Northwestern
Beaver
A&A Global
Oak
OK Manufacturing
Eagle

Yeah, after speaking with the Vendstar people on the phone, I agree they are not a good machine to spend my money on. I'd hate to buy a machine and a few months down the road have a coin mechanism break or something and not be able to do anything about it. I've seen on this board that Beavers, Oaks, and Northwests all have a good reputation. I'll guess I'll just have to keep my eyes and ears open for some used ones to come up for sale.

Variations of this style machine were made by several different manufactures back in the 90's and primarily sold through the warehouse clubs or biz-ops. Many manufacturers use certain parts of others rather than design and manufacture themselves. An example is the of this is the Bounce-A-Roo's manufactured by OK. They use front plates made by A&A Global and coin Mechs from Beaver.

I owned a pair of these in the early 90's made by Victor. They are not that valuable and would maybe fetch about $100.00 in great condition to a seasoned bulk vendor. The problem with this machine is that when the dispensing wheel jams from broken gumballs you have to empty the all of the gumballs to get access to the wheel. Not something you want to go through at a customers location. To avoid the jams, vendors learned real quick to only fill it about 1/3 full to reduce the amount of weight and volume of product.

just looking for some info on this gumball machine i bought today. The gumball dispenser door says oak so im guessing that is the manufacturer. however i cannot find any info on it anywhere. Also looking for a ball park price range of what this thing is worth. Its about 6ft tall give or take.

Since it is 2 individual heads, the lock is probably a screw lock.
Keep drilling out the cylinder with larger drill bits to widen the hole. After each pass, try turning the inside of the cylinder counter clockwise. Eventually it will give.

This may be a dumb question but the first bulk vending machine I bought they didn't have the key. So I don't know the regular way to open one of these machines. So - how do you normally open it? Do you turn the key a quarter turn then it all lifts off, or do you twist the lid like a screw? I don't want to do any more damage while I try to figure it out.

I don't know what brand it is - it is two separate heads made out of plastic. The lock is destroyed enough that I can see the center section which I tried to twist to the right a bit but I don't know how far or what to do now.

Thanks

Cannot offer an opinion on either mfg's coin mechs, but:

Both ICT and Pyramid DBA's are low quality and have a high fail rate in my personal experience (Amusement Vending Side).

If you can afford them, go with MARS.