nothing says ‘I love You’ like an old vending machine, and if it is a restored and working vintage Vendo V-80 cola dispenser then you have yourself a winner. [Jan Cumps] from Belgium was assigned the repair of the device in question by a friend. He started off with just a working refrigerator and no electronics. In a series of repairs, he began with replacing the mechanical coin detector’s switches with optical and magnetic sensors to discover the movement of the coin. These sensors are in turn connected to an Arduino which drives the dispensing motor. The motor itself had to be rewound as part of the repair. because the project is on a deadline, the whole thing is finished using protoboards and through-hole parts. The final system works by dispensing one frosty bottle each time a coin is inserted.
In contrast to many vending device repairs, this project was a easy one. instead of using an off-the-shelf coin detector, a easy LED and photodiode pair brought the hack to life. This could easily be adapted to any device and even be used to create a diy vending device on the cheap.
In his blog, [Jan Cumps] demonstrates each working step in a video and share the Arduino code and schematic as well as other interesting details. You can see the final working version in the video below.
It has been a long time because a Vending device Prototyping project was commissioned and we would love to see what this project inspires.