831-ZE "All Jackpot" Repair and Troubleshooting, random payouts.

[markpurc]

Here's the unit I bought, it looked like it was working, but when I took it home, the payouts were not correct. It was also making a horrible buzzing sound.

[markpurc]

Ok that was my first post, I'll make sure to rotate the pics for the future


Anyway, first things first, what's the model number?  Missing!  I had to look all over the thing to find it, luckily someone had written it on the top behind the marquee.

[markpurc]

So on to the interwebs for some research on the buzzing.  Found some stuff on it, apparently this part is called the coin lockout plate--it was vibrating against the electromagnet that holds it. The machine accepts coins when it is on and does not when it is off.  I'm only using the machine at home, so I disabled it by cutting one of the wires.

[DavidLee]

Welcome Mark,


That is a nice looking machine.



The coin diverter coil and armature plate direct the coins into the coin box when the hopper reaches capacity.
Probably needs a little attention, sometimes the plate will get out of position and cause a buzz.
Best to un-solder wires when possible, it makes it easier to replace.

[wolftalk]

831-ZE is a generic bally "1767 ways" machine ... and I have no idea what that means :-)   You can find the paperwork for the 831-ZE on http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/


just to make sure, the coin lockout coil is behind the coin mech and isn't visible in your pics, but your description is right.  Disabling it will allow the game to accept coins when it shouldn't, so you could insert more than 3 coins and it will keep them, or you could drop in a coin when the game isn't ready, but it's unlikely to cause a problem if you do.


the main causes of lockout buzz are wear into the armature plate or wear on the coil top.  Sometimes you can remove and whack the armature plate with a hammer on an anvil to flatten out the dimples, and occasionally filing the coil top a little will help.  Other times you just need to replace the coil.  People have stuck electrical tape on the coil top to absorb the vibrations.


the diverter is the longer piece below the coin switch with your wadded paper holding in a position to always send coins to the hopper.  David covered that already.


incorrect payout would need a little more info.  Underpay is usually cruddy traces on the payout counter disc.  No pay could be that or cruddy rivets on the reel wiper boards or plug connections problems.


no pay on one of the lines would likely be cruddy rivets on the line unit.

[markpurc]

Thanks both for your feedback and help!  So more on the incorrect payout: Here's a picture of the Payout odds unit (I think).  It looks to have seen better days.

[markpurc]

Here's the back with the spring coiled around the plastic gear.  I tried my own 'repair' on it by hooking the spring wire through what looked like the spot it fell off of.  Then I tried to re-wind the  coil by turning the plastic gear.  It just does not feel right.  I put that metal ring on top of the coil to try to stop it from popping off again, but I think something is wrong with it.  Would additional pictures help?  Is there somewhere where I can buy a replacement for this part, or should I look towards fixing it?

[Herbie21]

Hi Mark, there is defenitely something wrong with your payout counter assembly, it looks very dirty but seems to be complete, difficult to say if something is broken, yet. the unit should smoothly step up and reset by manually pressing the coils. I would suggest to take it apart, clean it oil it and put it back together. Then we will move to the next step,


Herbie

[DavidLee]

From viewing the photos a couple of things don’t look right.


I would not take it apart until it is in working order.
Get it working first as to not compound the situation.
Clean the strips, get the contacts in the right position
and give it a try.


Hopefully someone will post photos of a working unit similar to what you have.


Made notes on the photos. Hopefully AI will not turn them 90°.

[wolftalk]

the unit isn't at the reset position and the torsion spring isn't on right.

while you could remove the torsion spring, put the wipers at reset (rotate clockwise when looking at the wiper/trace side), and reinstall the torsion spring correctly, I'd just take the thing apart.  That's the easy way to clean off the traces with alcohol and a green scrub pad - or anything equiv that doesn't scratch the traces like 0000 synthetic steel wool, the brown metal cleaning pads, etc.

to take it apart, you:
- remove the torsion spring wound around the white plastic ratchet/gear
- remove the three C/E clips holding on the outboard carriage .. the plus-shaped thing with the white wire connecting the wipers
- remove the center screw and the spiral plastic piece and wiper arm
- remove the white plastic ratchet ... if the switch stack is in the way, you need to remove the bracket holding on the switch stack (better than removing the stack itself which can fall apart more than you'd like).


clean the ratchet and the hole it goes thru, clean the contacts on the outboard wiper fingers and the main wiper fingers, clean the traces.  If the step-up or reset arms are gummy, you can remove the springs and clips and reset coil and clean those pieces also.

also clean the torsion spring if it's dirty/gummy.  I just drop it in an alcohol bath and wipe it off.  No lube needed on it.

when reassembling, you can use a little lubrication on the metal-on-metal pivot points on the arms and the posts the arms pivot on, but no lube on the white plastic ratchet.  Note regular wd-40 is not a lubricant ... it will gum up.  They make other products that are lubricants.  I use tri-flow super lube in the squeeze bottle.


some people run the traces dry, some like a really thin smear of a lube.  If using a lube, it has to be something not sticky or the wipers won't reset.  I use a contact cleaner that contains a pure mineral oil.  3-in-1 in the blue can works too.

the torsion spring goes on initially with two turns off tension and the result will look like the below picture.  Hopefully someone has a better picture ... all the pics I have are more complex payout counter units. 


to install the torsion spring, you put the wipers at reset, hook the end of the torsion spring in a ratchet hole near where the two pawl springs are, wind the other end of the torsion spring around a couple times counter-clockwise and clip it on the post shown.  If the wipers don't reset from a couple steps up, you can add more tension to the spring.  If you have it on too tight tho, the spring will prevent the unit from stepping on the highest pays.  In general, the ratchet should be able to step a little over 200 times (720 degrees) without the torsion spring getting too tight.


to check, make sure the unit steps up easily and the wipers whizz back to reset position when the reset solenoid plunger is pushed in.  Wipers should not slow or stall from 1 step, 5 steps, and 50+ steps of the payout counter.


also make sure the zero switch opens at reset, and closes on the first step (zero switch is the one the triangular gray piece on the outboard carriage is operating).


no point in doing anything else to the game before you have the payout counter working. 


oh, and the second pic below is what the wiper side should look like at reset.  The pic is a different contact plate, but the rest is the same.  Note the main wipers at 6:00, the position of the outboard wipers and the zero switch.  When manually stepping the unit, the main wiper contacts should step off the end of the trace on the step indicated on the trace.  A good check is step the unit 9 times and verify the wipers are still on the 10 trace, step once more and the wipers should be off the end of the 10 trace.  When that's wrong, payouts are off by +/- 1


don't worry about the wipers on the outboard carriage, those are usually fine as they just get the payout close to the right amount and the main wipers finish to produce the exact pay.

I think the stuff david marked up is ok ... the curse of the picture size limits on the forum - makes it harder than it should be to post high resolution pictures so things are more visible.   If you're using an older iphone/ipad to take pics, ya probably need extra lighting. 

[DavidLee]

Right Wolf,

It was hard to see everything in the photos.

[markpurc]

So much good information here, thanks to you all for so much good feedback!  Hopefully this thread will help others who are trying to get their machines running, too.
I'm going to spend some time on this payout assembly based on all this new information and report back.   

[Herbie21]

Mark, get the manual, page 54 will help you Wolf will tell you where to find the manual, good luck Herbie

[markpurc]

I pressed the arm towards the top of the payout mechanism to release the gear, and yes, it sticks and needs to be cleaned, so based on all of your feedback (thanks!!!!!) I decided to disassemble the thing and clean the parts.
[/size]
I'm new to the parts cleaning thing.  I already ordered some Tri-Flo, steel wol and have some alcohol--  I have some alcohol for cleaning too, so I think I'm set. 
See the picture:  This is pre-cleaning.  I'm going to steel wool the contacts (lightly), on the other side I'm going to clean the springs and plastic stepping gear while noting that this little thing is an amazing piece of engineering.


Before I could get the plastic gear off, I did need to move the bracket holding on the switch stack.  Those screws did not want to give way, needed to use a needle-nose pliers to get them to give.  Do you think it would be ok to lubricate the inside of that hole where the plastic meets the metal?

I'll keep working on it and keep you all posted.

[Amechanic]

Make sure that you are taking many pictures from many angles. This helps keep track of where thing go if you happen to forget.

[wolftalk]

no lube in the hole.  Plastic on metal doesn't really need lubricant, and it can make things worse by getting sticky or catching particles that act like abrasives.


alcohol will take the stuff off the plastic. It doesn't need to be pretty, just get the dried/sticky stuff off and leave the stains if they don't wipe off easily.


if you are using steel steel wool rather than synthetic steel wool, make sure you don't shed any fibers anywhere.  Finding a short caused by a single strand of steel wool tends to create new entries in the dictionary of profanity after you've used all the existing ones.


manuals can be found at http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/bally_manuals/


if you poke around in http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/, there's other stuff too.  Eventually I'll make a real web site out of it all.

[DavidLee]

Great work Mark,


Maybe post a few photos of the cleaned pieces in the reassembling order.

[markpurc]

After much ado, they payout mech is working much better-- I click the arm on the payout mechanism and now it advances exactly like Wolf says in his instructions.   I push the reset arm down and it slides back to the start, again, where Wolf points out it should be.  See pic   I put the remaining screws in and voila the damn things is now paying out jackpots, just like it should!  It's great!


but for remaining mysterious flaw (feature?)...  Sometimes, and without any reason I can see, it spits out 2-4-6 quarters.  Also, it starts spitting them out before the third reel stops moving.


The jackpots are all working now, so if BAR BAR BAR comes up, the machine will wait for the final BAR before ringing the bell and spitting out $5 in Q's.  But in-between jackpots, the machine will, seemingly at random, trigger these bonus quarters just as the second reel stops.  Why?!!?!?

Wolf, I took your instructions step by step and thank you! DavidLee, thanks for the picture uploads, info and all!  I started to take pics of the repair in-progress, but it just looks like a bunch of springs and screws, so instead I'll give my big takeaways:


1.. There's a screw on the "T-Bar" (in the pic, the Horizonal Positioner") that fits in the coil to move the T-bar right/left.  This thing needs to be able to slide right/left freely if it is allowed to.
2.  You only need to remove these 3 c clamps to take it off
3.  The tension in the spring should be enough that it easily springs back to exactly the position it is at in the picture (I think).


Mark

[DavidLee]

Okay great its paying out.

Now it randomly pays 2-4 or 6 coins.


The next time that happens, remove the reels and check for any continuity from the gray
wire to the first reel wiper board. Also take note of what on the pay lines.
Best to just photograph for comparison.
The machine should not pay unless the wiper boards have continuity all the way across.
Also check the 2 pay and all the other small pays on the step up unit.
They should be blank, those are for cherries, oranges, plumbs and bells.


No worries about the reassembling photos, sometimes it’s more pain and doesn’t translate well.

[markpurc]

Thanks DavidLee,


Ok, I put a few quarters in until it payed back 2,  here's a look at the reels:  the payline is between the first reel's two BARs.