Paintball Vending Machine

[Knuckle Dragger]

Stumbled across this contraption while sifting through eBay. Interesting idea, but poor execution considering its build materials for a machine thats meant to be unattended and stores cash.

Anyone see these at their local fields?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/283870952514

[XEMON]

Never seen one before. Cool idea ...?
I can see the benefit, but 1 ball break in the hopper, you contaminated the entire batch ... Also, make sure its in the shade ...

Do you poor the paint directly into the hopper?

[Knuckle Dragger]

No idea, I’d assume there’s a locked lid similar to old gum ball machines.

[Interl0per]

Says it's a countertop, doesn't look like it's made to set outdoors unattended. Don't see it being the next big thing in paintball.

[SignOfZeta]

Man, that thing is not a great purchase! Obviously the contamination issue pretty much would ruin this design. Also, it looks it like holds about two cases so unless you’re charging 80s prices that $4000 machine will never make its money back because you need a full time employee to stand there and reload it all day.

Looking at the insides...rather than pro quality vending manufacturing you have what looks like some 3D printed crapola. I seriously doubt that it would actually vend enough paintballs to pay for itself before it broke.

To keep things in perspective vending-wise, you can buy an automatic mahjong table for about $1200 and an entire Stern Pinball machine for about $6000. Keeping that in mind and looking at this little $4000 POS...not only is it a bad design badly made it is hugely hugely overpriced. Someone is trying to justify their purchase of a 3D printer by learning how to attach it to a bill feeder.

[smiffington]

That's actually a cool concept I think. Probably a better implementation would be a drink bottle vending machine full of 100 round pods. Then you could even sell different grades of paint or paint grenades or other what have you all from the same machine.

[desertT1]

... an entire Stern Pinball machine for about $6000.

You are speaking my language. Not on the spending side, but it feels good to do it every once in a while.

As for this thing, not at this price.

[Cyberpyr8]

Looking at the other vending machines for sodas, this is twice as much as they are. It says it holds 3 cases. At that rate you are still paying someone to refill it. The whole covid thing for this is a joke. You could easily have someone fill pods ahead of time and have them ready to be picked up or let customers grab them. Not a terrible idea for some fields but realistically more of a $3-400 product where you might be able to justify it.