Why don't vending machines recycle change?

WAG: It’s not cost-effective, but why?

I am under the impression that a vending machine is loaded with change, and once it’s gone, you don’t get change and the “exact change” message lights up.

Would it be so hard to have the coins that are tendered for purchases sent to the “change buckets?”

Yes, it would.
More space would be needed for the hardware,i.e., all the chutes to carry the change from the slot and down to its proper place to come back out as change, and face it, if you’ve got that much more hardware, more is bound to jam up, and instead of the ‘exact change’ light, the ‘out of service’ light would be on. Generally, machines are refilled often enough for the change return chute to be refilled.


Then we’ll turn our tommy guns
on the screaming ravaged nuns
and the peoples voice will be the only sound.
-P. Sky

Many machines do exactly that.

Being insatiably curious, I have watched the vending machine guy when he reloads the machines in the basement of the Pentagon. (This was actually useful; I got him to start stocking Diet Mountain Dew, to which I am addicted, in the machine.) In any event, this machine has hoppers for nickels, dimes, and quarters. Money deposited goes into those hoppers until they’re full, and then it’s shunted to the general change box. Bills go from the reader into a rectanuglar box.

Change is made from the hoppers.

  • Rick

Actually, they do to a point.

One simple vending machine I tended had a nickel bank that held about 40 nickels. If it was less than full, any new nickels would divert into it instead of the collection box. Of course, if it was full, they’d go into the box. More advanced machines have dime and quarter banks that work the same way.

If a lot of people put in big coins and got change, it’d empty out and go into exact change mode. Then I’d have to dig into the box and see if there were nickels I could fill it up with again.

I bought sodas from the vending machine supplier for 52.5 cents and sold them for 55. This inevitably caused a run on nickels. So I lowered my price to 50 and bought some sodas on the side so that it’d still be profitable.

Sometimes (if you’re using coins) when you put your money in, instead of the thunk noise of the coin going into the collection box you’ll hear it click through some then go quiet. Most likely that coins been diverted to the change bank.


What would Brian Boitano do / If he was here right now /
He’d make a plan and he’d follow through / That’s what Brian Boitano would do.

Actually, they do to a point.

One simple vending machine I tended had a nickel bank that held about 40 nickels. If it was less than full, any new nickels would divert into it instead of the collection box. Of course, if it was full, they’d go into the box. More advanced machines have dime and quarter banks that work the same way.

If a lot of people put in big coins and got change, it’d empty out and go into exact change mode. Then I’d have to dig into the box and see if there were nickels I could fill it up with again.

I bought sodas from the vending machine supplier for 52.5 cents and sold them for 55. This inevitably caused a run on nickels. So I lowered my price to 50 and bought some sodas on the side so that it’d still be profitable.

Sometimes (if you’re using coins) when you put your money in, instead of the thunk noise of the coin going into the collection box you’ll hear it click through some then go quiet. Most likely that coins been diverted to the change bank.


What would Brian Boitano do / If he was here right now /
He’d make a plan and he’d follow through / That’s what Brian Boitano would do.

But ,brick, those are special DOD machines ,not available to those of us without security clearances.MJ, next time you don’t have 'exact change" Just stand around waiting for someone to show up who does. Then you can use your bill. If you fell guilty about just standing around ,maybe you can find some one who works for a big government agency who can show you how to do it. That is a great screen name Rick, worth its wait in gold you might say.


“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx

There have been times when the Exact Change light was lit, but then someone used some change, putting the light out, and so i was able to use my quarters, putting the light on again.

I stand corrected.

But AWB, how did you drop your price 2.5 cents (to below wholesale) and still make a profit?

And why does my keyboard have a dollar sign but make no cents? (An exact change keyboard?)

Sorry.


Then we’ll turn our tommy guns
on the screaming ravaged nuns
and the peoples voice will be the only sound.
-P. Sky

The machines I use don’t show the “use exact change” message until you make a selection, so it really means “I don’t have the right change to give you for that amount.”

My solution: if it won’t let me put in 50c to buy a 45c bag of chips, I put in another nickel so it can give me a dime back.

Actually, I always enjoyed the feature of not getting back your original coins. In college, when the front desk was closed I could go to the Pepsi machine, drop in two dimes and a nickel, press the coin return and it’d drop out a quarter. Quick way to get laundry money at 2am.

ALT-0162 gets you the ¢ sign. I assume it’s not on the actual keyboard because it’s not used all that often. (You know, like the | sign is). I’d be willing to trade my retarded “Windows Menu” button for a ¢/£ key though.


“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”

I’m assuming you were in a contract with them to buy them for this outrageous amount, but it seems like you could have done better with a straight lease (or purchase) of the machine. I believe they cost less than .30 each at Sams.

He left out a few things. Although he buys the sodas for 52.5¢ and sells them for 50¢, he also owns the beverage warehouse that buys the sodas from the manufacturer for 49¢ a can and sells them to the vending distrubtor at 51¢ a can. Now, of course, he could elminate the vending distributor and sell the sodas from the warehouse directly to himself for 49¢ a can, but he’s a 20% partner in the vending distributorship as well.

And the best part is, everyone has a share.

Milo, is that you?

Yossarian

A bit of thread hijack…

I got home one day and as I was fishing change out of my pocket I noticed what appeared to be a ‘Twonie’ or two-dollar Canadian coin.

It was silver and bronze coloured, had the same edge (alternating areas of rough and smooth), etc. The differences were that the center area was a bit larger (noticably if you look, but not strikingly so) and that the coin was stamped with what appeared to be chinese characters. It is also (according to a friend of mine, not a scale) a bit heavier than the Canadian coin.

To roughly link this to the vending machine thread… I am pretty sure that the only money I spent that day was breaking a five at the skytrain (think BART) in one of the ticket machines. So, this seems to suggest that I got this coin from the vending machine.

I can’t guarantee that I did, because I don’t always inspect my pocket change…

So, there’s my ‘evidence’ that vending machines do recycle coins (or the rolls they either get from the bank or redistribute after using a coin sorter missed it.) I think the recycle idea is more likely because I can’t imagine a bank missing a different coin (different weight) and I think the vending machine is likely to be less sensitive that the bank machinery. However, I could believe that maybe the transit system sends out rolls of money that it collected from the machines when it restocks them, so perhaps it wasn’t recycled by the machine, but the system as a whole.

Anyways, on the topic of the coin… Does anyone have an idea what it is? If required I could try to render the characters in photoshop and post that. (I don’t have a scanner, unfortunately.)

I’d like to know where it’s from, and how much it’s worth. Not that I want to set up an international smuggling ring, I’m just curious as to the trip this thing made to end up in our vending machines.