Need help limiting snack sales with lock?

wooowooo

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Hey guys and gals,
I need help! I just picked up a school and they have requested that I put some kind of lock on my small machine in the teachers lounge. It is a older AP CT-12 and is 24 volt mech. I have seen computer locks that make and kill electrical connection on a computer, can I do something similar? What about a coke machine, what is the best route for this? The coke machine might have some kind of hour options programmed into it so that might help me there. But what if it don't? Please give me some ideas. Thank you.
 
Thanks Mr. Ken, the problem is that students cant have the candy in the teachers lounge and I'm basically looking for a way to stop students from purchasing from the machine and where teachers can use some sort of key to activate some sort of lock that will enable the machine. Im checking happ controls now. Thanks again.
 
I thought you wanted security locks to keep the machine from being pried open.

So it looks like you want some kind of "lockout" function? Why would you want to restrict sales? You'd go broke or end up with alot of stale product if less product were sold. The idea of vending machines is to increase sales.

If this machine is in the teacher's lounge, then only teachers and staff are permitted in there. When I was a kid, we could never go into a teacher's lounge.
 
Right, I have never heard of it either. The coke machine(another company has) has a lock that you manually turn on/off at the aloted hours the students can use them. My big snack machines for the students have timers set up to run them only at certain times. That is the only way I can have them in the school. The students sneak into the lounge and purchase sugary sodas that they are not allowed to have from an regular machine without any kind of deterrents on it in the lounge. They do not want the students walking in and buying chocolate that they are not allowed to have from the lounge. Kinda weird, but it is my biggest account so I am trying to accommodate them. They just want a way for the teachers to access the small machine in the lounge and not the students the lounge is set up in a bad place away from the office in an old classroom. Kids are not as honest as we were apparently. And the machine is a Automatic products CS-12 not a CT12? Thanks.
 
Suggest asking the folks at Automatic Products if they have anything that would work for your particular machine.
 
Candy Access

I have installed something like this on a pop machine that had several selections of Beer. ]
The contact closure was timed to close for 30 seconds after the code was entered. They would put there money in enter the code the relay would latch, the light would turn Green and then they were given access to the buttons that offered Beer.

You should abe to do the same thing by interupting the power to the electronic coin mech. That way if anyone puts money in and dose not use the keypad first, there money is returned.

I picked one up at the local Security equipment distributor. ADI in my area. I think I paid $45.00 for the key pad. I did not buy the outdoor rated one.

here is a link to an example.

http://www.strongbar.com/product/68.aspx


RJ
 
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This whole thread reminds me of the coke machine in the teacher's lounge at my elementary school back in the late 70's early 80's. It was the only place on campus to get a coke. A cool teacher would buy them for us. We'd wait outside until she went in or out and give her the money. She would come back with a coke in the 8 oz bottle. One time the machine took my money but she gave me money out of her own pocket to make up for it. God bless you Ms. Ford.
 
This is just a bad idea.

You want to sell product, right?
Anything you put on there is going to thwart the less intelligent teachers. Loss of sales.

Just tell them to keep an eye on it. When they see a kid with something from the machine, confiscate it. It'll make them want it all the more and teach them to get good at hiding it. How many damned canned drinks do you have to vend to make up for a $79 sales restriction device?

Tell them 'sure sure' and then bring in the machine without the device. Let them know the part is on backorder and just to keep an eye on the machine until it comes.

You're only going to service the machine every couple of weeks, right? You won't have to listen to them badger you about it very often. If they keep after you, tell them the device is more than you thought and you'll have to bump the price of drinks by 50c after you install it.

How about a sticker that says NO OPERATION BY MINORS ALLOWED

That should be as effective..
 
Haha. That reminds me of the soda/snack machines in the high school I went to. The jackasses had them set up so they would only work when it *wasn't* luch time. The one at the other end of the school was off time a little, so if you RAN down there when the bell rang, you could get a soda for lunch. Then, when they fixed that, we used to beat the shit out of the thing with something heavy, and sometimes you could make it reset and take your money/sell you soda.

And, of course, when that was fixed, we were just all late for the class after lunch, there would be a line of like 20 of us in front of the soda machine waiting for it to work again. And of course, everyone still beat on it, even though it was useless. Made you feel a lot better though. The fronts of the soda machines always had big cracks in them for that reason, and no lunch period was complete without some frustrated swear and a loud slam of a boot againt a soda machine.

One day some kid got so fed up with the diabled snack machine that he kicked the glass out of it. That was pretty cool - tempered glass cubes flew halfway across the cafeteria.


Restricting your vending machines is a BAD idea. Don't piss off high school students, they will happily destroy whatever they can, all they want to do is spend their money on your product. Take that away, and be prepared to suffer.

-Ian
 
Thanks for the help guys, I'm glad it brought back some good ole memories for some of you. I have 2 snack machines for students to access. I tried a regular timer from Walmart to cut both of them off at the same time. It worked fine on the AP 4000, but the 7000 with the vend wizzard wigged out and vended off the entire row A. I ordered a new universal control board for the Ap7000 that has a timer function. The machine in the teachers lounge is a Ap CT-12. I have not put any kind of lock on it yet. I tried the 'sure sure we will figure something out' and after about 3 or 4 days they pretty much said figure out a way to lock them or move them. I need the account because it is my biggest one. I almost have to go there every other day.
 
Call me crazy, but I'd say that the REAL solution here would be to have consequences for entering the teachers lounge. How about putting a hall monitor within sight of the lounge? As a school employee, there are monitors at each hallway corner in our schools, effectively covering almost all of the building. And how many kids can REALLY be buying snacks? You can't possibly tell me they're lining up in the lounge, because it would be really easy to come and give them all detention. It's most likely a handful of kids here and there.

Of course, I'm sure you obviously can't make this argument as the client. :) But it really seems like common sense that discipline and consequences are the better solution here.

There was a Pepsi machine in my high school that was infamous for the alleged subliminal message on it: one of the ice cubes very blatantly looked like a wang. Pretty funny... I'd be damned if that wasn't completely intentional by the artist.
 
Hey guys and gals,
I need help! I just picked up a school and they have requested that I put some kind of lock on my small machine in the teachers lounge. It is a older AP CT-12 and is 24 volt mech. I have seen computer locks that make and kill electrical connection on a computer, can I do something similar? What about a coke machine, what is the best route for this? The coke machine might have some kind of hour options programmed into it so that might help me there. But what if it don't? Please give me some ideas. Thank you.

Here are some switches to check out maybe you could kill the main power or just disable the keypad.

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/category/708/Switches-Key/1.html
 
The school should buy this for the teachers lounge:
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/KABA-Mechanical-Pushbutton-Combination-Lock-1U140?Pid=search
Mechanical-Pushbutton-Combination-Lock-1U140_AS01.JPG



Im sure they have an account with Grainger, and I guarantee it wont cost them list price.
I bought several for the nursing home I work for and it was around $320
 
Seems like they need to get better control of their students.

Yea, but it's gotten very difficult in some places to properly control students. In some districts the lawyers have got the school administration afraid to so much as yell at kids, and the parents are quite often NOT doing a proper job of educating their offspring as to proper behavior.

I know I sound like an old fart (hey, I'm only in my 40's!) when I say it, but back in my day teachers had a lot more leeway with the students, and when we got out of line, our parents backed the teachers, instead of yelling at them.
 
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