December 1987
STAR*TECH Journal
(12)
FANTASY ISLAND
Problems/Solutions
By John Coccioletti and Torn Skantar
Jeannette Vending Conpany
Chanpion, Pennsylvania
We have come across, in our opinion, three
major problems with the FANI'ASY ISLAND
merchandiser. Many times, collections were
down and we didn't know why. The location,
as you know, sornetirnes is not as nuch help
as you would like them to be (it's not
their equiprrent).
If you incorporate these changes onto your
FANI'ASY ISLAND, we believe you will have
eliminated the only faults that this big
earner has. The three areas of concern are
as follows:
PROBLEM 1: DISPENSER DOOR
The dispenser door would be bent in half,
opening an area as large as 50% of the
total dispenser door size. This is not as
hard as it sounds, the steel on this door
is of a very light gauge.
With this rather large opening in the
dispenser door, it is quite easy to reach
your arm up inside and errpty the contents
by poking with a piece of cardboard or
ruler.
This is a very easy process to do; once
the door is bent for the first time, the
now rnetal-fatigued steel door is much
easier to bend the next time.
SOLUI'ION 1: DISPENSER DOOR
Pop rivet a 5" piece of 1/16" steel to the
inside of the dispenser door to increase
the strength of the door. (use 1/4" pop
rivets). This added strength will solve
this problem.
PROBLEM 2: TIPPING
'Ihe machine was always being tipped to one
side or the other -causing all the
contents to slide across the srrooth
mirrored surface playfield right to the
dispenser bin, where they were retrieved
without fail.
After several times arriving on location
to collect and dress, only to find an
errpty machine and no money, sornething was
done.
By the way, the machine has an alarm
system.
Note: Alarm was deactivated by sirrply
unplugging the machine.
SOLUTION 2: TIPPING
Concrete anchors with matching bolts were
used to secure the cabinet to the floor.
It is now i~ssible to lift and tip the
machine.
PROBLEM 3: J:Xl.1E SECURITY
'!he locks that secure the dorne cover to
the base of the machine were found to be
very weak and would not, in our opinion,
stop an irate 12 year-old from popping
them open with just use of his hands.
In fact, by placing one hand on the base
of the machine and the other on the
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convenient lip of the dome which is right .,
by the lock, the dorne can be separated forn
the base quite easily -exposing all the
merchandise, of course.
SOLUI'ION 3: J:Xl.1E SECURITY
1/4" holes were drilled right next to the
existing lock. Then, 5" long bolts were
inserted with wing nuts secured inside the
cabinets. This eliminated this particular
problem.
NOI'E:
For those not able to get these parts
readily, we have made a very inexpensive
kit containing all hardware needed.
Kits are available to cure these three
problems From Banner Distributing,
Pittsburgh -See MARKETPLACE advertisernent
in this issue.
Next month - BIG CHOICE Cranes!