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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: How to screw up a bill changer
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-02-2012 06:43 AM
I've noticed that unless you insert a crisp, fresh, almost new dollar bill, the chances are that those vending machine changers won't accept it; so much so that I now hoard all the crisp, clean ones I get against the time when not being able to use one of those machines would give me a major problem.
We no longer have pound notes in England (they were phased out in the mid-80s), though Scotland still does (or at least did, the last time I was there a couple of years ago). That's left us with another problem: an epidemic of forged £1 coins, with some estimates being that up to a third of them in circulation are counterfeit. The copies are so good that anyone who hasn't been trained to spot them and had lots of practice never will. You only find out that you've got a forgery when a vending machine spits it back out at you. I once went through seven and a vending machine rejected the lot. When I then queued up at the register, the girl behind it told me that for a while, they'd been under instructions not to accept pound coins that the self-checkout machines had rejected, because this meant that they were almost certainly phoney. But this had attracted so many complaints from customers that they'd relented and started taking them, even though they knew that they were probably helping to circulate false currency.
If it's so easy to forge coins that'll get past 99.9% of the population, I wonder if we should go back to the notes.
In relation to Randy's problem, sabotaging the coin mechanism might not do the job, because they might just change that and leave the semi-knackered note changer in place.
An ex-colleague of mine managed to terminate a photocopier with extreme prejudice. Not being particularly IT literate she didn't do Powerpoint, and still prepared her teaching aids by photocopying onto OHP acetates. She also didn't realise that some OHP acetate sheets (which I suspect are actually polyester) are safe to put through a photocopier, but others are for handwriting on with a Sharpie-type pen only. She put one of the latter through the photocopier, inside of which it melted, coating the drum and the rest of its innards with molten acetate. The smoke that came out of it triggered the detector and an evacuation of an 11-storey office and lecture theatre block, too. Nice knowing you, £3k photocopier...
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-02-2012 09:00 AM
quote: Leo Enticknap
I've noticed that unless you insert a crisp, fresh, almost new dollar bill, the chances are that those vending machine changers won't accept it...
Most of the time, if you hold the bill taut and run it back and forth over a sharp corner like the edge of a counter or a door frame, a corner of the very machine you are trying to use, even, you can flatten the bill out enough that it will work.
Also, be sure there aren't any torn or dog eared corners.
I'd say that works 90% of the time.
I like the coin slot idea. It's a lot easier and faster. You could simply use Super Glue or J.B. Weld to fuse two quarters together into an ingot thin enough to go into the slot but too large to make it round the bend, inside the machine. Any other coins that came behind would simply exacerbate the traffic jam.
Because the two quarters that caused the jam are fused together, the usual "dig it out with a screwdriver" method wouldn't work. At minimum, the coin mechanism would have to be removed and taken back to the shop for disassembly and repair.
If I could only get some plastic explosives, I could make a quarter-sized "cookie" and really have some fun!
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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God
Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 12-02-2012 12:34 PM
Randy, as someone who worked for a company repairing vending machines I can pass on the following info:
For many years, ALL coin mechs have used eddy current detection to determine the size and authenticity of coins. CoinCo and MARS, the two major manufacturers, have coin mechs where the same model is sold worldwide and simply programmed for the coins they are allowed to accept. (In fact, if I recall correctly, both brands can be programmed to accept multiple country's coinage, for example US and Canadian.) I do not believe that magnets for counterfeit detection have been used since the mid 80's or so.
Second, jamming the coin mech will NOT ensure that the tech fixes the bill validator. As a field tech, and knowing other field techs I promise that they will not take the time to test the validator unless the service call was on the validator. (This is the cinema equivalent to getting a service call for a blown diode in the rectifier and not being told about the sound system having a blown speaker.)
Third, do not try to vandalize the validator in any way. (Or the coin mech either..bad idea Scott.) Some areas treat such vandalism the same as attempting to steal money from a cash register and file charges accordingly.
Best course of action is to try to find out which company restocks the machine and report the problem to them. It is lost revenue to them. Better yet, have you ever taped a note to the machine over the validator slot saying it's broken? Most service calls are started with a note by a user. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Finally, since you know that it hasn't worked for "months and months" why don't you stock up on quarters and change so you could get the soda anytime you want? ![[evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-02-2012 06:02 PM
quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
Third, do not try to vandalize the validator in any way.
There's a video cam in the lobby where the machine is. Anybody who actually carried out any thing they read here would have to be stupid.
The eddy current thing is cool. I imagined they would have something like that. Makes sense, actually.
But, the thing with the Tyvek bill in the validator has me thinking. First, if I'm not mistaken, bill validators have similar detectors in them, too. They register the way magnetic fields are altered by the iron bearing inks used to print money.
Am I right?
So, if that is true, trying to put a fake into a bill validator would cause it to be instantly rejected. If there is no iron, the thing might not even activate let alone take in the paper. Even if it did activate, the fake would probably only go in a half an inch then spit it right back out.
That's how I understand it, anyway.
If Canada or other countries are experimenting with (what I assume to be) Tyvek for printing money, there's probably going to be some big issues with bill valitators on vending machines and other things.
I imagine those devices would probably all have to be redesigned.
They do have a little box on the wall by the vending machines where you're supposed to leave notes when they don't work but, most of the time, those slots are all full of candy wrappers.
Most of the time, when I want a drink, I go to the convenience store where I can get the same thing for 99¢ instead of $1.75 from the vending machine. The times when I want to get drinks from the vending machine are on breaks when I don't have time to run to the store.
It doesn't make sense to carry around a pocket full of quarters when you might want a drink.
Sometimes, I keep a few quarters in the center console of my car. But, then, I have to run out to the car, either at night or in snowy weather, and root around looking for loose change.
That's why God invented bill validators. Isn't it?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-03-2012 01:59 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
Every time we're there, which is one or two times a year, it's always the butt-crack of dawn or late at night and there's no "management" types around to tell about it.
I've had that syndrome from bitter experience, too. I was in California when the Iceland volcano blew up in 2010, grounding all transatlantic flights, and was stuck in the US for an extra week. I emailed the airport in England where my car was parked on a pre-paid parking deal (Teesside - a tiny regional airport in the north-east that has about three flights a day coming and going), and got a reply telling me not to worry, and that I wouldn't have to pay an excess parking charges when I eventually made it back.
When I did eventually make it back it was on a heavily delayed short hop from Amsterdam that arrived just before midnight. I suspect that the baggage handler who unloaded the cargo hold was probably the only staff member left on duty. The terminal was completely deserted. So I went to the car park machine, pressed the 'call for assistance' button and got no reply. There were about 20 of us with the same problem, and we walked round the terminal looking for someone without any luck. Eventually I had to pay £78 to get my ticket validated and be able to drive home. I then wrote to the airport's management with the receipt and a copy of the email telling me that I wouldn't have to pay extra, asking for a refund. I never had any reply, and as a result now do my flying out of Manchester.
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