Restoring a Three Reel 831-ZH... hopper wiring woes!

[Braden L]

Hello all!

I recently picked up a Bally 831-ZH and was told it came from the now rebranded Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. The prior owners periodically used it and said the more they used it the worse the issues got... well I got it for $50 after it completely siezed up and have been working from the top unit down to fully restore it. I will eventually make another post asking about purchasing a bunch of replacement parts, but for now, I need to work through the hopper electrical and finish up my parts list before moving on. (Not sure when but someone obviously spilled coffee in the unit... wonderful light brown creamy colored sludge all over the left side of the reel mechanism, gummed up all of the counters (coins out stuck at 959231 and coins in stuck at 221376, bypass hopper counter at 1900) and sludged the living daylights out of the hopper.

Where it stands now:

• It is working completely with some quirks (hopper never stirs, coin accepted light only sometimes comes on, and insert coin sometimes comes on, sometimes not)
• jackpot/high pay bell rings, but lights in the candle do not blink and are VERY dim, blinking bulb on the inside of the upper unit does not ever come on
• bell does not ring when the door is open (likely casino or previous owners cut those wires off the door switch
• everything appears original with 831-ZH markered on them EXCEPT the hopper, which says 809-2T and appears to be electrically stepped instead of mechanically

When disassembling and cleaning the hopper, I located a white wire with blue stripes that has about 1 inch of the wire pulled from the casing and broken. Appears to have arced against the hopper case many times in the past. On a solenoid switch under the coin side of the hopper (manual says it is either the A: alternate position of the hopper relay mixer or B: jackpot, cherry, or plum win relay) there is a red wire with an orange stripe cut off. I don't see anywhere in the harness or on any other point where that would have been connected and the whole length of wire is gone from the harness. The solenoid has solid orange wires coming off the contact that is still connected, and the switches have those white with blue striped wires (that were shorting) and white wires connected (wonder if they cut this whole function out because of that short at one point?)

Seeing that the jackpots pay out and the bell rings, I am lead to believe this is the hopper relay mixer that has been cut out. Does anyone know where this would have been connected to so I can repair it?

Second... on the back of the payout counter unit there is a step up coil that indexes the ratchet and there is a double contact reed switch above it that senses when the step up coil fires. The side that is closed when the solenoid is not active has grey with yellow stripes and grey with black striped wires connected, but the other side that closes WHEN the solenoid is active has two wires completely unsoldered from it that clearly once had something there (few strands from the prior wires stuck in the hole/solder. What would have connected here? Perhaps the wire to the stir solenoid and one other? They are completely missing from the loom so I have no educated guess.

I would greatly appreciate any help with sorting through this wiring to get things back to original!

Thank you so much for any help at all!

[Pinballwizard55]

Not that this will be much help but as far  as i can remember your hopper should be in a one line multiplier, possibly five coins. your nachine i think should be a three line pay. you will find all kinds of mis wiring and anal chicanery with mismatched components. Good luck, The wizard.

[Braden L]

Thanks for the info! I'm not sure what they did to this hopper... Almost everything seems untouched except for those two electrical changes I noted so honestly I'm not sure if I trust the sharpie 809 on it.... I haven't been able to find a wiring diagram anywhere that has the 24 pin connector and the wiper PCB fully populated for the hopper. They all seem to be missing wires (POS 23 and 24 on the connector and various ones on the payout mech PCB. I'm starting to think maybe this isn't a common machine. I also haven't been able to find anything on the 831-ZH machine either after digging through various troves of Bally data and build sheets.at this point I'll take anything I can get!

This is a single line machine with 3x coin multiplier and the top unit has the lit rows vertically instead of horizontally like almost every other machine I have seen of this type where it shows payouts.

[Pinballwizard55]

Now it is obvious to me why nothing makes sense. What you have there is what we in new york call a rebuild or conversion machine. Most likely it could have been a one line , five coin one directional pay and was converted to pay left to right and vice a versa. might not be the correct hopper also !