Vending Machines

[MIPS]

I live in Canada, so the sale and distribution of R22 in official supply chains is banned. You can find it from time to time in places like ebay but it ain't cheap.
This is a removable closed-loop unit so you can buy new refrigeration units but they are quite costly so I want to continue to use mine until the compressor finally fails. These loops however can still leak and I've run into newer devices that slowly leak out due to bad pinch seals. I've had to dispose of two cheap AC units myself where after a year or two they had lost their refrigerant.

Anyways the machine has been relatively well behaved over the winter. I installed a disconnect for the compressor so all winter the fan inside ran but otherwise the machine was silent. I also clipped one of those vintage looking 60W squirrel cage lightbulbs inside the door so the machine didn't totally freeze up when we were dropping below -15c and that kept it around 2-5c. Early on I was finding that some of the beers were slushing up and two cans of Pepsi ruptured.
While finding a replacement bottle opener wasn't too hard (I can stock twistless bottles now!) finding the door latch has been. It's a strange mechanism.



I have all the components EXCEPT for that pot metal half-circle which also has a slope on it so that when you lock the door it pulls both the inner and outer doors tightly shut and a bolt slips into a T-slot. I cannot find a substitute part and the only other two I've seen cost around $130 after shipping and I'm not paying that much for a latch. If anyone knows a better source I'd love to hear it because right now my means of holding the door shut is still a tie-down strap. :|

[MIPS]

[post edited Apr 9 2017 (new photos)

I totally remembered last night that there was another vending machine hiding away somewhere nearby.
Back in the 90's one of the smaller ski hills closed down. The place was basically boarded up and left to sit. Over a decade ago I wandered through the outbuildings and in one behind the lodge there was a small automat-like machine. Kinda like those refrigerated ones with the carousel that you spin until you see your selection, then insert the required amount, opened the door and pulled your item out, only this one was much more compact and the carousel was coulmns that spun around on an oval looped chain. The whole thing is slightly wider than the Pepsi machine but seems to be otherwise the same height and depth.








I remembered someone had smashed the front window but it seems in the following years someone though that perhaps 20 years on they might of left money in the machine and did a hell of a job on the door around the latch. This allowed critters in and there was a nest next to the compressor. If the wiring wasn't color coded I'd consider this a total loss but I'm willing to take this as a challenge. Seriously considering my options.