MEI Bill Validator just quit working

[Tommyj]

IGT S2000 Triple Diamonds has been running great.  Pulled the cash box and then reinstalled.  The validator never initialized after reinstalling and the three leds are lit.  It functioned fine before. Any ideas?

[Stayouttadabunker]

Clean the bill box emitter & receiver sensors under the BV, as well as the dust from the ends of the optics in the cashbox.

[Tommyj]

Thanks for the info. I’ll give that a try!

[Stayouttadabunker]

What BV do you have in there?
There's a few different models. JCM, MEI, etc.

[Tommyj]

It’s a MEI SC6602.

[Stayouttadabunker]

Those yellow BV's have the gray CashFlow billboxes.
Throw it in a dishwasher and let dry completely.
The ends of the optics are hard to get at on the stacker mechanism way down inside...there's a tiny "prism" of optic plastic that gets dust on it, and doesn't let the infrared light beam go thru from the BV.
Throwing it in a dishwasher gets it clean, and working good again by allowing the light to go thru and around and back to the BV receiver sensor - telling the MPU that there's a billbox in there.

[Tommyj]

Thanks! I also noticed that there is a rocker switch mounted on the interface board. I’m assuming that’s another indicator that the cash box is installed?

[Stayouttadabunker]

yep...the rocker switches are the mechanical way of the sensing the biilbox in there.
Sometimes there's also an antennae piggyback board attached with 3 tiny screws to the interface board and a white round sticker (RFID Tag) stuck inside the cashbox.
The Easitrax antennae board picks up the RFID tag sticker being in there...if not, the BV won't accept bills.

Below are pictures of the anttena piggyback board & RFID stickers...>>>

[Tommyj]

Looks like the dishwasher tip worked! I also cleaned the optics in the reader. Has to run the auto configure Netplex to identify the BV and have it initialize. This machine does not have the antenna board. Appreciate the photos. Thanks for your help!

[Tommyj]

Looks liked I jumped the gun with the fix. Worked for a while and back to green, yellow, red lit leds. After I looked closer at your photos on the antenna and circuit card, this machine does have that option. The electronics are mounted bottom side of the interface card and the antenna is stuck to the top of the cash box.

[Tommyj]

Will removing the antenna board disable that feature?

[Stayouttadabunker]

Will removing the antenna board disable that feature?

No, because it is an enabled Easitrax security feature in the BV settings.
The only way to disable it, is to have the CD with the MEI BV program installed on a laptop, and a printer harness connected to the BV.
Only then, when re-flashed with new settings in the options, you can remove the anntennae board.
Leave it installed.

Underneath the BV, you can see where there's two small optics that match up with the two optics on top of the CashFlow billbox.
With power OFF, pull up on the locking bar, release the BV from the mounting unit and turn upside down.
Clean the optics under the BV with a Q-tip.
It could be just a little dusty.

[Tommyj]

Great information, learned a lot! Thanks!  Pulled it and cleaned all the optics. It started working again, let’s see it that’s the fix. Thanks again!