Bally E-2214-38 Error Uncertainty

[zcoop98]

I've been investigating and slowly repairing a Bally E 2214-38 that my family owns and has had for around 30 years at this point.
The machine has sat in a state of minor disrepair for a lot of that period, and before we moved to Texas, we had it professionally repaired at least once or twice (I can share the unique circumstances by which we came to own this another time).

Some background on my progress:
When I first started this project, the machine would power on, but would be dead- nothing would display on the LED out and the game wouldn't play, no game lights or bell, and coins fed in would dump into the lock box instead of the hopper. I tracked this to a PSU issue, which I isolated to the connectivity of the J1 main wafer plug on the board. If the machine doesn't boot when turned on, tugging lightly on the top edge of the connector will start it. I suspect the plug just needs a good cleaning, as I've cleaned the PSU pins and the problem persists every so often.

Since then, when powered on, the LED displays code 71, but the machine is fully playable, and the insert coin lamp lights up. I've played it plenty in this state, all appears completely normal. I'm under the impression it should read code 50 instead, which is the door open code listed in the E Series Manual, but I have yet to see a 50. I've had some one-off tilts here and there with other codes (a 43 at one point where the third reel didn't read, which disappeared after a reset, and today a 54 with a hopper jam, which confused me because the manual references that as a 31), but the 71 persists after every reset. The reel 1 reader that the code refers to functions and indexes just fine, and I've only gotten a tilt with code 71 a single time since I started tinkering a week ago. Are my codes different for some reason? Am I missing something?

Help or advice from any E Series gurus would be greatly appreciated. I'm brand new at this, it's just a hobby project I decided to pick up because it sounded interesting and I like exploring vintage tech. I'm really loving it thus far!   


(Edit: fixed font weirdness)

[Badbaud]

You have SDS software, the 71 is door open in SDS lingo.
see attached

[zcoop98]

That doc is excellent, thanks for info. Could you enlighten me on the differences between SDS and Bally software? (Or maybe a good place to go read on it?) Is there a particular reason a machine would have one over the other?

[Badbaud]

SDS stands for Slot Data System, it was a part of the player tracking system that communicated with a casino central computer.
The sheet also mentions a jumper that was installed for SDS, I assume if you remove that jumper SDS would be turned off??
Let me know.
Alan

[Badbaud]

That doc is excellent, thanks for info. Could you enlighten me on the differences between SDS and Bally software? (Or maybe a good place to go read on it?) Is there a particular reason a machine would have one over the other?

If you don't have there is a free download of a Bally E-Series manual on my website under Helpful PDF's at www.slotmachinerepair.com

[zcoop98]

It appears you got it flipped, the sheet seems to mention that you remove the jumper wire to enable SDS codes, and this is consistent with what I found in my machine- there's a disconnected jumper wire attached to the relevant I/O pin (20 on J3), pic attached.

I do have that manual! Thanks for the link. Also found it amusing, this machine was actually repaired by K-LAR once upon a time, the I/O and MPU boards have KLAR stickers dated 8/20/04 (pic).

[jimmay3]

I just gounded out that cut wire on pin 20 and now SDS off and codes match, easier to work with the manuals...