Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Gumball machines are pretty interesting if you take a minute to think about it.

  • Today, I'll walk you through the whole process of putting a coin in,

  • turning the handle,

  • and watching a gumball come out.

  • No shopping mall would be complete without a gumball machine.

  • The actual mechanism has had many improvements over the last century.

  • The interesting thing here, is that without a coin, you can't turn the handle either way.

  • When you put a coin in, the handle only turns clockwise.

  • One full turn, you can hear some clicking noises inside

  • and then the gumball comes out.

  • Let's take a look inside.

  • The main parts of the mechanism are

  • the dispensing disk,

  • the chute,

  • the coin bin,

  • and the coin mechanism.

  • By far the most complex piece is the coin mechanism.

  • Let's start there.

  • This is the face plate,

  • the back plate,

  • the coin receiving disk,

  • the ratchet gear,

  • the spur gear,

  • and the turn handle.

  • The turn handle goes through all the pieces here.

  • Notice how the rod is not a perfect cylinder. It's mostly flat on top.

  • The coin receiving disc fits perfectly onto the flat part.

  • When the handle turns, the disc turns with it.

  • Let's take a look at how a coin goes in it slides and fits right into the disc.

  • The coin moves with the disc, slides along the edge and falls into the coin bin below.

  • Both gears have similar holes in the center with a flat part on top.

  • When the handle turns, they will turn as well.

  • This gear is called the ratchet gear. It only allows rotation in one direction.

  • This piece is called the pawl; as it rotates the pawl slides over the teeth on the gear.

  • If you try and rotate the other way, no can do.

  • The ratchet gear is also the reason why you hear clicking noises when you turn the handle.

  • So, either way, you'll never be able to turn the handle counterclockwise.

  • We got that part figured out;

  • Turn it clockwise - you can only do that when there is a coin in there.

  • On the back plate, there's a tiny piece screwed in here that prevents us from turning.

  • It ends up hitting a wall where the coin would normally be.

  • Let's get a closer look at that.

  • When a coin is in there, that piece gets bent outward just enough so we can rotate now.

  • Now maybe your gumball machine is in your home or at work and you want to allow anyone to get candy.

  • You can always remove this piece altogether. No coin? No problem.

  • Gumballs for everyone!

  • I will just briefly mention that most machines will have extra guards in place to prevent tampering.

  • We can't make it too easy to get free gumballs.

  • The last piece on the coin mechanism is the spur gear;

  • To show you what it does. We need to look at some of the other pieces first

  • Right below all the gumballs, we have a few different layers.

  • There's kind of a dish that goes on first, it has an opening into the chute.

  • Then the dispenser disc goes on followed by another separator.

  • Interesting part here is the disc; It has gear teeth on the bottom that mesh with the spur gear on the coin mechanism.

  • When the spur gear turns, so does the dispenser disc.

  • One complete revolution of the spur gear means the disc only has one third of a revolution.

  • Now let's put this all together.

  • Turning handle causes the spur gear to turn which then causes the dispensing disc to turn;

  • taking exactly one gumball with it.

  • The disk turns just enough to drop the gumball into the chute and make somebody very happy.

  • Most gumball machines these days you can customize.

  • This piece on top of the disc controls how big the opening is.

  • Maybe you have smaller candies in your machine and you don't want as many to fit through.

  • It just depends on how generous you're feeling to the little kids.

  • The last thing I'll mention here, is that you can't really get to the inside parts unless you have the key

  • to the very top here.

  • Once you open it, then you can disassemble the machine from the top down.

  • Hey Everyone - I'm Jared.

  • If you enjoyed watching this and you'd like to help me out,

  • then please consider sharing this video on social media; post it on your Facebook;

  • Let your friends know you found this guy on YouTube that makes these cool animations. That would really help me out.

  • So thanks for watching. Hope you had fun and I'll see you next time.

Gumball machines are pretty interesting if you take a minute to think about it.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it