When you have been doing this vending machine business for quite a while
,sometimes when you are timing the locations from moving to the next will have some minor setbacks and you would tend to spend more time allotment than the usual calculated time according to your expectations and estimated schedule.
I will enumerate the possible problems that happens when you are doing you’re vending locations.
A. There are occasions when the coin return button doesn’t go back
to its default or original position when you depress it, or when one of your customers depressed it super hard and it got stuck.
I will take a picture on my next visit and update this post. The solution is to get a small piece of cardboard probably from the snack boxes that are plentiful inside your service van, wrap it up and make it into a roll and just place it underneath the L shape metal inside the vending machine that is secured to the spring.
Materials needed : small rolled piece of cardboard, duck tape or scotch tape to full secure the rolled cardboard.
( Picture soon to be uploaded )
B. When you are loading and unloading products for a living on a daily basis sometimes you can hurt yourself,
as i have mentioned this on my previous post. I was hurrying up to get things done when i was in downtown and tripped myself in the loading dock, at that time i didn’t have any first aid kit. Most of the injuries that i have encountered are : pop and snacks cardboard like paper cuts, dolly injuries, hand sprains.
Materials needed : First Aid Kit
C. I never wear gloves whenever i started out the vending business.
My finger gets so dirty after the end of the day and during winter when weather is cold when you are always out on the street doing the loading and unloading, you will eventually get blisters and finger tip cracks and of course if you are servicing vending machines you never know what kind of germs that you might some into contact with, so it would be appropriate that you must mandatory wear latex gloves and will also serve you a good grip on all your products.
Materials needed : Disposable Latex Gloves
D. As i have mentioned on my previous posts
that when you are servicing and fixing some simple misalignment of coin mechanism and some misplaced screws and nuts that have fallen from the normal usage of the vending machine or when some of the trays need some minor adjustments then a multi philips metric set and an adjustable wrench would be imperative.
Materials needed : Multi Philips Metric Set and Adjustable Wrench
Note : It is a plus factor if your multi philips set is magnetic so that it can pick up screws and nuts fallen beyond reach
E. It would be nice to have a small magnetic flashlight
when you are doing some minor repairs that it can be fixed in certain position inside the vending machine so that you can clearly see what you are working on. By all means you can also use the torch feature on your mobile phone.
Materials needed : Magnetic flashlight
F. Right now it is definitely a need to make sure that your mobile phone is absolutely charged
all the time to take pictures for my blog, to take pictures for the problem on my vending machines, to take pictures for immediate sms to technician on how to get minor programming procedures done while you are still on location. So it is wise to invest a fast car charger or a backup mobile phone fast charger on your work van.
Materials needed : Fast car charger for your mobile phone or a Fast Charger Battery for your mobile phone
G. Fluorescent bulbs inside you’re vending machine has a lifespan and will eventually burn out,
i know that the newer combo vending machines comes with LED lightning that doesn’t need maintenance, but a majority of the vending machines that most vendors have are still the ones that uses the conventional fluorescent light bulbs. I learned my lesson that machines that do have proper lighting, customers might think that you’re vending machine is not working or out of order. But there are other locations that you can do away without changing fluorescent light bulbs since they are always the same customers.
It will is a time saver if you equip yourself with the most common fluorescent light bulb and starter. The most commonly configuration is the : 24″ T8 Fluorescent type bulb and 12″ F8 T5 Fluorescent type bulb.
Materials needed : 2 pieces of 24″ T8 and 1 piece of 12″ F8 T5 ( for c series vending machines )
Note : i always have around 4 to 8 pieces of 24″ T8 because im maintaining around hundreds of machines but if you have newer machines, you don’t need to bring that much and also you can do away without the F8 T5
F. Most of the cases on my daily routine, you will be encountering problems that the machine is having
problems with payouts
, problems with some minor electrical issues like prompts on : “select another item for all the selections”, intermittent power outrages on snack machines. I thought maybe the snack motherboard might be the culprit on most occasions but after isolating the problem i found it out to be the coin mechanism to be the problem in most cases.
Since the coin mechanism is fairly expensive, and it doesnt break as often as light bulbs then maybe just 1 coin mechanism as a backup.
Materials needed : 1 piece Coin Mechanism
