Hello,
Today, I’m introducing a new topic to the blogs! Recently, I completed a service at a location near me. I’m back on the east coast, after a short visit to the Donastar headquarters in Washington. The service was an installation. In detail, I replaced the locations existing equipment with a new Servend dispenser.
In case you are unfamiliar with the equipment, the Servend unit is a large 8 valve countertop electric fountain dispenser. The draw to this unit, something that makes it unique, is that it has an internal carbonator located on the refrigeration deck inside the unit. This makes the install a bit cleaner by not having another piece of equipment to place underneath or in a back room.
To perform the service, I started by removing the existing equipment at the location. The machine was a countertop mounted tower with a remote chiller carbonator. The removal went very smoothly and the equipment will be recycled appropriately.
Once that was all taken out, it was time for the fun part: unboxing the dispenser. The machine came pretty much ready to go out of the box. All I needed to do was put on the legs and (with the help of someone else) place it on the counter. I removed the bonnet and splash plate by taking out the screws that hold them in place. I already had the BIB pumps, co2 and water line in place from the previous install so that helped in speeding up the process of installation.
Once the machine was on the counter, I could start connecting all the lines. I started with the water and co2 connections first. I was able to use the main water line to fill the water bath inside the unit before connecting to the dispenser. Once filled, I located the 2 water inlets on the front of the unit, one that would be for plain water and one will feed the carbonator for carbonated water. I placed a stainless tee in the water line, which allowed me to split the one water line into two lines for both connections. Next, I ran the water through the carbonator tank and bled it out through the vinyl tube coming from the tank and into the drain. I continued the process until the water ran clear and all air was out of the tank.
Afterward, I turned on the dispenser and connected the co2 line to the carbonator. Then, the carbonator can start. I ran some water through to ensure it was pouring correctly: success!
To designate valves to each water source, the machine has a flex manifold on the top of the unit which makes it elementary to designate valves either plain water or carbonated water (see image). The unit comes with all the valves set to carbonate. As I set up the unit for 8 soda flavors, I did not adjust this. If I needed to, it would be fairly easy to do by turning and pulling out each plunger associated with the valve requesting plain water. Only 5 of the 8 can be set this way, the other 3 can only dispense carbonation.
After, it was time to connect the syrups. This part is pretty straightforward. I connected each one of the eight syrup lines to each barbed fitting in front for every valve. It’s necessary to note which flavor is connected to each one of the eight valves. The next step for me, and this was a bit different, was swapping four of the eight valves over to a pre-set 25:1 ratio valve. I, easily, removed each valve from the dispenser. All I had to do was remove the base plate from the old valve and replace it with new valve body and place back on the dispenser. After completion, I turned on the co2 to the pumps and ran syrup through all eight of the valves. I only needed to calibrate the four original valves to a 5:1 ratio since the four new ones were already preset at 25:1. I checked these anyway to ensure and they were good to go.
The unit was getting cold by this point and drinks were pouring nicely. All in all a successful installation.
For additional questions or concerns, please visit donastar.com for contact information or call us at 833-366-2782. We are happy to help! We have lots of other content on diagnosing and fixing beverage issues, please check those out for a fast/free way to keep your cups full!
