New Life Games LLC
**Reel Slots** Gaming Machines => Bally Electromechanical => Topic started by: essmeier on May 03, 2022, 04:01:07 PM
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Solved: Broken wire on on an Odds Unit wiper fixed the first problem. Broken wire on the Payout Counter Step Up Arm switch fixed the second.
Details here: https://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=36082.msg191615#msg191615 (https://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=36082.msg191615#msg191615)
The most troublesome machine that I own, my 891-20 Super Continental, is misbehaving again. Been doing so for awhile, but I got tired of banging my head against the wall and stepped away for a bit to work on other projects.
While doing extensive other work on the game when I first got it, I discovered that a bunch of hopper parts were breaking, broken, or just worn out. So I replaced the cracked spiral cam, the broken microswitch, the cracked 100 tooth gear, and both the advance and reset coils.
With that, my machine that always overpaid in credit mode by a lot started underpaying by a little.
Note: For simplicity's sake, everything described below involves using one coin only.
Problem #1: In coin play mode, all pays from 2-250 coins pay correctly except for the 200 coin payout. That one pays 20 coins, and exactly 20 coins, every time. If I check the payboard, the wipers have stopped as though it were a 20 coin pay.
All other pays are correct.
Problem #2: In credit play mode, most pays usually, but not always, underpay by one coin. A cherry pays one coin, rather than two. Four bells pays 49, rather than 50. It's inconsistent, but I'd say I get a one-coin underpay about 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time it's correct.
It never underpays by more than one coin, and it never overpays.
The 200 coin payout, in credit mode, pays 199, but unlike coin mode, the wipers on the payboard are where they should be for a 200 credit pay.
This has been driving me nuts. Suggestions?
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what symbols pay 200? e.g. the 891-1 paid 200 for 7-7-7-7 and 3bar-3bar-3bar-x.
can you post a pic of the payout glass?
problem 1:
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If you have multiple ways to get 200, none of them work? If none, then a 200 pay is handled by the 200 trace on the payout counter disc. Make sure the outboard wiper fingers are ok and there's no holes burned in the 200 trace.
the circuit also goes thru a replay key switch with wires 53 and 56-8, so make sure that switch is closed. Also goes thru odds unit wipers connecting wires 56-8 to 75 when the odds unit is reset.
since the game pays more-or-less 200 in credit mode, the replay key switch or odds wiper is the likely problem as those two things are bypassed in credit mode.
you can verify the circuit by pulling out the hopper and use an ohmeter to verify you have almost zero ohms between wire 75 on the odds unit and wire 53 on reel 1 wiper board. You are pulling out the hopper so you won't have a circuit path thru the payout disc 200 trace and various coils/transformer when doing the check.
unit diagrams are on https://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/891-1 if you don't have them ... the units are the same on the 891-20 and probably the wire colors.
it pays 20 because 7-7-7 and three mixed bars pays 20, so it's detecting that win also.
problem #2
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check the odds motor cam 5 switches ... especially the one with wire 61-8 and 58-3 on the blades. Ideally, you want that switch closing before the switch with wires 60-3 and 91 ... or at least at the same time with lots of switch travel when the contacts are touching, so make the gap small when the switches are open.
if the switch with wire 60-3 and 91 is barely closing, the payout counter can step and unpower the payout relay (insert) before the register step-up coil has powered enough to pull the plunger all the way into the coil.
usually an underpay is the payout counter wipers stepping off the win trace one step too soon ... but you'd have under pay in coin mode also if that was the problem.
another check is see what happens when 5 coins are played. That uses an odds motor cam 10 switch instead of cam 5 to step up the replay register. if that works reliably, then cam 5 switch with wire 61-8 on it is likely the issue.
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I've added the pay table to the previous post.
For the 200 pay, I had only tested 3Bar-3Bar-3Bar-X, but 7-7-7-7, ✩-✩-✩-✩, and ◎ - ◎ - ◎ - ◎ also pay 200. I've now tested them, and they also pay only 20.
I understand that three 7s, three stars, or three targets pay 20, but 2 3Bar symbols don't pay anything, yet it's paying 20 for 3Bar-3Bar-3Bar-X just the same.
I've put a meter on the hopper for the 200 pay and stepped it 200 times. I've got continuity right up until the carryover takes over, so it's good until 192 or so. It's definitely not dropping out at 20.
I've had this pay combination working in the past, so I'll check the replay key switch and the odds unit wipers. The 17 key switches are all new on this machine, as they were missing when I bought the game.
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but 2 3Bar symbols don't pay anything, yet it's paying 20 for 3Bar-3Bar-3Bar-X just the same.
I assume you mean "3 3bar symbols ..."
those will energize the 3-any-bar circuit as well as the 200 pay circuit, so that's where the 20 pay comes from.
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Actually, I meant "2 3Bar symbols," as I figured it must be paying that combination for some reason if 3 3Bar symbols wasn't paying. I forgot about the Anybar-Anybar-Anybar payout, which explains why it was paying 20.
OK. As of ten minutes ago, I've fixed problem #1; 200 coin payouts for coin play are now working properly. Hooray! Thank you.
Problem? Broken solder joint on the odds unit. Making matters worse is that it was a brown wire that was disconnected. Kind of hard to see with a brown wire, a brown circuit board and brown-ish wipers.
That's the third broken solder joint I've found this week in trying to fix these payout issues. The other two were buried deep within the hopper.
Now it's on to the credit pay problem #2. I've had this machine for nearly three years and I've yet to get (and keep) credit pay working reliably.
I'll have a look at that tomorrow. Right now I've got a Martini waiting for me.
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the wires on the wiper fingers are good candidates for the "tug test". Grab each one and pull. If it pops off, it was getting close to breaking off anyway and needed a resolder.
the main thing to watch for on the credit pay is the cadence it is paying out. If the incrementing of the register has hiccups, that points to a particular circuit or a mechanical issue with the register.
you should be able to easily push in the solenoid plungers with one finger to step up/down the register.
If the pay is regular but stops one credit short, then you want to look at the position of the wipers on the payout counter. There's two main reasons for a -1 short pay:
1] the ends of the traces are burnt or the wiper fingers are barely off the end of the trace when it should pay one more. You loosen the contact plate and twist it to reposition the wipers back on the trace.
2] the first step of the unit is sometimes grabbing two ratchet teeth instead of one. You'd usually adjust the zero stop bumper to make sure the first step where the pawls are flopping down on the ratchet teeth for the first step is ok.
your game electrically steps the payout counter in credit mode and mechanically steps it in coin mode. The amount the step-up arm moves can be slightly different since the coin is moving the arm when in coin mode, so the adjust of the roller pivot and the coin diameter determines the arm stroke vs. the solenoid plunger length and coil stop in credit mode.
since the game pays correctly in coin mode, suggest comparing the arm travel and the pawls between coin and credit mode. The solenoid will yank in the plunger harder that you can operate it manually, so if when doing it manually the step-up pawl is pretty close to grabbing an extra tooth, that may be too much.
you do want the maybe 1/32" of overtravel when the pawl moves back to grab the next tooth tho ... if it's barely grabbing a tooth, it's prone to not grabbing one as the torsion spring gets tighter during higher pays and you get runaway payout since the counter stops stepping up.
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With the forum down for a week, I was left to solve this on my own, as I never even got a chance to see Wolftalk's last reply.
This one's fixed, but solving it was tricky.
I played with those odds motor switches for a couple of days and it was consistently underpaying by one (or one times the number of coins played.)
No amount of tweaking those switches would change that, and I came to the conclusion that the problem was elsewhere, except that there are only so many places the problem could be, as the signal paths for payouts just aren't that complicated.
I took a look at the switch on the Payout Counter Step Up Arm, which steps with every coin paid and which powers the Payout Relay (Hopper) and the Payout Relay (Insert.)
I found nothing wrong with that switch, but I decided to adjust and clean it. While doing that, the 93 wire on one of the blades simply fell off.
There's a lot of action going on in the hopper, and I think over time, the constant vibration induced some metal fatigue into the solder joint. The end result was a solder joint that appeared to be soldered securely, but which probably only had one or two strands of wire attached, with the others broken.
That resulted in a switch that would pass voltage, but current? Not so much.
I stripped the wire, resoldered the joint, reassembled the hopper and just like that, everything was paying correctly except for three coins played. I made a slight adjustment to the Cam #6 switch on the Odds Motor and it's been paying correctly for any number of coins ever since.
During the course of trying to solve this, I found one broken solder joint on the Odds Unit and three broken solder joints in the hopper, with two of them appearing to be connected when they were really just barely attached.
Lesson: As mentioned above, give those wires a good tug when checking your switches.
All working now. Thanks!
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wouldn't have guessed an electrical issue that resulted in a consistent underpay of 1.
when switches or wiring is flaky, the results are usually more random.
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Agreed, and it's particularly strange since that switch is necessary for both coin and credit play, and coin play has been paying correctly all along.
Of course, the Payout Relay (Hopper) is near that switch and the Payout Relay (Insert) is some distance away. The end result is that the Payout Relay (Insert) was releasing just a bit prematurely every payout.
I had been testing with three plums (14 payout) over and over and over, and I'd get 13, 13, 13, 13, 13. Every now and again I'd get 12. After resoldering that joint, I'm getting 14 every time.
Owning this machine has been an adventure, to say the least. I've learned far more than I thought I'd ever need to know about EM slot machines from this thing.
Fun machine, now that it's working. Pays less often than my 873, but as a tradeoff, a lot of the payouts are huge.