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**Reel Slots** Gaming Machines => Bally Electromechanical => Topic started by: cmk8895 on May 03, 2021, 03:49:39 PM
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Question about a part....
I have a Bally slot with a model of 742A, but it seems more like an 809 since it is a 5 line multiplier. But I really just don't know what it is.
It's in a lowboy cabinet, so it doesn't have the 809 topper. But it has this part. What is this? Is it the odds disc? It doesn't match anything in the book that I have found, so I can't tell how it works or what the connections are supposed to be, or how to test it.
Ideas?
Matthew
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Would like to see photos of the other side.
Curious to see what drivers the unit and where red/white wire leads to.
Possibly the red/white is linked to the cherries.
Unit could be used to transfer or random selection.
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742A-342 was a triple bar machine for the International Hotel.
your reel tapes aren't triple bar, so one question is whether the serial plate was put on a completely different machine or the game is a conversion of the 742A to something more like a 956 (lowboy 5 coin multiplier).
the stepper unit is not a bally stepper ... they didn't use contact plates with u-shaped wire lugs.
probably the big question is how the machine handles payout multiplication. If the hopper is mechanically stepped, then the stepper could be an odds follower unit.
on mechanically stepped payout counters, win multiplying was done by paying, then resetting the payout counter and paying again. Repeat until it payed N times, where N = number of coins played. The odds follower unit kept track of how many times the payout was reset and disconnected the circuit when it payed enough times.
however, you'd need another stepper in there that is the odds unit. That controls lighting the appropriate column and works with the odds follower unit for the payout.
if you payout counter is electrically stepped, then the stepper in your picture could just be the odds unit. However, you need more stuff in there to handle win multiplication ... so lots more pictures of what's inside the machine would help.
in any case, it isn't a bally machine anymore. With some luck tho, they stuck to a bally design and you can figure out what the pieces all do.
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Thanks to both of you so far.
I tried to get a pic of the back of the disc thing. It's difficult and I'm hesitant to take it off not knowing how it works. Though the front looks nothing like anything in the books, the back actually looks just like the systems such as on the 'big apple' and others.
I also attached a pic of another "thing" next to the reel 1 wiper board. It is a huge counter box. With one coin it resets to 0. With a 2nd coin it advances to 1, and so forth.
Finally is a picture of the hopper. I don't know how to differentiate between a mechanical and electrically stepped.
One thing I could not get a picture of.... Below the front of the reels beside where the in/out counters mount are several relays.
Thanks!
Matthew
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hopper is probably electrically stepped. Your pic cut off on the right tho.
does the printed circuit plate on the payout counter say:
M-645-96
Modified
Nov. 1st, 1965
Mar. 10, 1966
not that it would help much if it did ... that wouldn't be the payout counter that came with the 742-342.
the oddest thing is the bar with the '0' displayed behind reel 1 and what looks like extra stuff behind reel 2.
there won't be any documentation for the machine, but you can eventually figure it out.
does the game more-or-less work? At least does depositing coins make the odds lights move on the belly glass? If yes, then you can look at the stepper while operating the coin switch and see if it's stepping up ... and if you push down the reset solenoid plunger if the odds reset to the first level.
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how about pics of the inside of machine without the reel and hopper? since this machine looks like a 952 there have to me multiplier units which would be mounted on the cabinet wall OR maybe that special step up mounted on the reel mech is used similar to what 847? used to multiply - would require hopper to reset to zero once payment amount reached
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I will get some more pics after work.
It mostly works, yes. I got it VERY cheap because the reels didn't spin. They were caked up with crud, so I cleaned and lubed the reel mech and it all worked very nicely. There was a small problem that I was trying to fix that started all this....
The 2 coin light wouldn't light on the door. 1 and 3 to 5 worked fine, so I suspected something simple. On that disc thing there was a wire that got pinched in all my in and out with the reels. It was the second in a series of 6, so I thought that might be it. I soldered it back, but still no light. Took it out and found an orange power wire hanging off the back of the disc mech with no clear location it came from, but solder on the end so it was somewhere. I put it in the most likely location on a solenoid.
When put back together the 2nd light still didn't work, but now ANY win empties the hopper. I took the orange wire back off, but still empties the hopper. That disc is obviously supposed to move, but it doesn't, so that's why I was asking about it.
I didn't want to be "that guy" with dumb questions on here, so I was trying to find a resource to learn how that disc was hooked up so I could diagnose myself. I can follow schematics easy enough, but am not good enough to derive how electricals work without a reference.
I guess I'm going to have to ask a ton of questions now. Sorry about that.
What I find interesting is how original everything looks. All the wires are still cat gut tied. Only a couple of cut wires which have obvious reasons (removed counters), all connectors in the right spots and do not appear to have been tampered with, etc. I guess these machines must have had very interchangeable parts for it to have all different insides, but seemingly original wiring.
I'll get interior case pics and a better hopper pic after work.
Thanks guys!
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The hopper does have the text you mentioned wolf.
Looking in the various tech sheets you have on cdyn, it does match the electrically stepped. There is no spring in the cut off portion of the pic. I'll still get a good pic later.
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mechanically stepped payout counters almost always only have a reset solenoid on the ratchet side - no step-up solenoid. The exception is games that could be switched between coin and credit payout. Some of those have payout counters that were mechanically stepped in coin mode and electrically stepped in credit mode (because no coins were ejecting).
they eventually decided that was daft and later models of those types of machines were electrically stepped in both modes.
pic of the both styles payout counter below.
I guess for the light issue I'd assume they didn't change wire colors at a plug connection, so see what colors are on the lamps and compare to the wire colors on that stepper. The belly of a 742A didn't have controlled lights, so there should be an extra connector/wiring between the cabinet and coin door to handling lighting the appropriate odds assuming that is a 742A cabinet/door.
interesting machine ... please keep posting what ya find.
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@GOS
Here are pics of the inside of the case.
The snipped wires on the block in the upper right are from where someone cut off a candle.
One thing that you can't really see is that there are screw holes right above the shelf where it looks like another terminal block is. When I got it, there is a whole set of numbered wires with metal u ends like would go on a terminal block that were spread out like the block was removed, then duct taped over to keep them out of the way and not shorting. I removed the duct tape, black taped each terminal, then bundled them and stuffed behind the shelf out of the way. I didn't think to undo all that for this pic, but I assume it was some kind of progressive connection or for casino monitoring or something.
The only broken wires in the case are where the counter was removed for the overflow.
On the door there are a few stray wires that I need to track and the coin overflow switch is missing. Otherwise everything is in working order except that you can just keep putting coins in forever.
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I'd like to know what this hopper is actually from so I can check wiring and connections and such. It is the same as wolf posted, but here are a few pics.
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A couple of other clarifying pics....
reel_back - the lower back of the reel cage lookin 'up' Note the nice connector on the back of that black counter box thing. There is a 2nd 'mini' board on reel 2 as wolf pointed out earlier.
reel_relay_block - this is the relay block I couldn't get a pic of before. I took the reels out so you can see them. I have zero idea what these do and how they relate to the disc from the original question. I have done no wire tracing yet.
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tmi below ... grab a beverage before proceeding
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the M-645-96 payout counter disc was used in quite a few machines with different wiring going to it.
there is some hope tho ... as you pointed out, it looks like an 809. The 956 is basically an 809 stuffed into a lowboy cabinet. Whoever did your refurb may have been using an 809 as a reference.
the 8 balls on the tapes were usually on "forty-niner" versions of 742A and 809 machines. Below is the tape definitions most commonly used on those. You can see if your tapes match the sequence of symbols.
also, on each slotted metal index disc is stamped either a p-x84-yyy number or a code. It'd be p-484-yyy (maybe no dashes). The forty-niners had yyy = [239, 240, 241] frequently, with corresponding codes being s-49-[1, 2, 3].
the forty-niner machines also most commonly used payout counter w-923-11 below.
where's all this lead? If your tapes and index discs match the above, then it's probable that any schematic for a forty-niner version of a game will match the reel wiring and maybe the payout counter diagram. My list doesn't have a forty-niner version of a 956, but there are plenty of 809s.
I only have the schematic for one ... the 809-ZZE. It'll take me a couple days to get it cleaned up and posted to http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/ (http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/)
there's a bunch of stuff on it related to jackpot metering (100's meter and 50's meter) that you won't have, which simplifies things a lot. You also don't have the Xn units, which look like small pinball machine score reels (because they were) and their job was to count coins ejected, then send a step up pulse to the payout counter for every n coins.
e.g. if you play 4 coins, then the payout counter steps once for every 4 coins ejected ... that's how they multiplied the payout.
you have that odd box doing the multiplying function somehow.
do the odds light up the correct column, or is the entire belly glass just lit all the time?
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Hi wolf. I love the detail!!! This is exactly why I come to this site and was a paying member for a while. :)
My reels are definitely 49'ers, though I do not see the numbers you mention. Each reel is marked "49R" 1, 2, and 3. The reel tapes themselves are BF-49-1, 2, and 3. While these numbers are different, they perfectly match all symbols for the first 3 reel tape maps in your image (245, 246, 247).
All of this matches the belly glass symbols and payouts as well.
Regarding the belly glass, I have a fully functional one where the lights move on based on the number of input coins. The only exception being the #2 coin, of course. I need to finish disassembling the belly to check wiring on that.
It seems kind of weird that the various numbers on this machine all are "close" to something else, but not quite the same thing. The reel plates being 49R instead of the typical layout you mention. The reel tapes with BF instead of S. It's weird. :)
I'm hanging on through the work week until I can really dive in to some wire tracing this weekend to get some more info!
Matthew
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From wolf's datasheets....
BF-49-1, 2, 3 reel tapes were for the Flamingo Hotel, model 243 49'er.
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sometimes they left the prefix letter(s) off the codes stamped into the index discs ... if they stamped each letter by hand, they got laz ... efficient.
the H-looking symbol on the belly glass is the Hilton (Flamingo Hilton) logo, so what cmk said looks good!
those tapes are m-220-[791, 792, 793] (below). The symbols and sequence are the same, but your tapes have a "skinny seven" while the earlier ones had a regular seven.
the index discs are still p-484-[239, 240, 241]
"model 243" means 742A-243 ... they got tired of adding the 742A in the listing :-) It's interesting that numbers on your model plate look overstamped ... can you tell if it originally said 243?
my main model list agrees with the above. The w-923-11 payout counter is right.
the 742A-243 schematic would be w-1046-441 and the reel wiper wiring diagram would be w-1041-[287, 288, 289]. I don't have either of those.
if all that is right, then your game left the factory as a 742A-243 and someone converted it to a 809/956.
I do have the reel wiper wiring diagram for the 809-ZZE, which will be available with the schematic on the http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/ (http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/) site when I get them done. There's a kinda ambiguous note on that diagram that says "same as w-1041-287-288-289 except wire colors changed" :dancing_2: Not clear if that note belongs with the one above it on the diagram ... if it does, then almost all the wire colors are the same on the two machines. The difference would just be wires used for tower lights.
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Well well. We're getting closer then! :)
I thought those stylized H's were the International Hilton, so good to know that it's the Flamingo Hilton. It looks like we're closer to identifying where "most" of the parts came from!
I thought the same thing about the rating plate. Unfortunately that is just dirt / ink. When you look at it in person it is very clearly says 342. So I think they just stuffed this Flamingo machine into a different cabinet and attached some non standard crap in there. :)
Too bad you don't have [size=0px]w-1046-441 or [/size][/size][size=0px]w-1041-[287, 288, 289] I might have to do some sleuthing to see if such things exist in the world anymore.[/size]
[/size]
[/size][size=0px]Thanks for the reel wiper when you get it uploaded. No rush. I can't really play until the weekend.[/size]
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One other weird point.... Being from the Flamingo explains the bizarre color scheme on the reel glass. :)
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I thought those stylized H's were the International Hilton, so good to know that it's the Flamingo Hilton. It looks like we're closer to identifying where "most" of the parts came from!
that too! The web is full of niche info :-) - Hilton Hotels & Resorts | Logopedia | Fandom (https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Hilton_Hotels_%26_Resorts)
the paper for non-bally branded machines is harder to come by. The most likely place is the companies who bought the machines from the casinos and resold them into other markets - usually overseas.
there used to be an antique mall in reno ... or was it vegas ... with a booth with bins of paperwork. That was many years ago.
I got my paperwork from Phil Anderson (deceased) at Ace Slots in sparks/reno. Phil at various times was a bally field service guy, designed a few slots, ran bingo pinballs and slots on route, and did refurb/wholesale of machines. A lot of his games and parts inventory wound up at Central Valley Slots, but they've dropped off the map.
the story phil told me was when bally was cleaning house, phil was supposed to get a lot more documentation, but someone else grabbed it off the loading dock. I don't remember who he said got it ... I think someone in southern california.
I'm hoping that once I turn the slots paper site into a real web site, more paper will appear. In truth tho, the differences between versions of a slot model are usually so minor that the specific game paperwork isn't needed. It's easy enough to trace wires thru the reels once you figure out how it works ... unless the game has a lot of diodes.
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the 809-ZZE paperwork is on http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots (http://bingo.cdyn.com/slots) now.
I still have some cleanup to do on the schem, but it's mostly readable now.
there's a lot of circuits going thru the odds disc boxes around the N15 area on the schem. You won't have any of that, and possibly won't have the 100, 150 and 200 jackpot lockup relays. Most of that stuff was related to metering the jackpot wins, and most casinos didn't care ... they accounted for hand pays themselves and didn't use the meters.
the odds disc box and X2-X5 units around N7 you also don't have ... your game has the box thing in the reels doing the payout multiplication instead ... somehow.
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the somehow you mention - i referred to in an earlier post - the 847 did not have multipier units - has a stepup sole purpose of tracking number of coins played and would pulse up after a payout finished and reset hopper to zero and restart the next coin payout
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Thank you!!! I'm back to blowing my 50v fuse now, so need to figure that out. Maybe this will help.
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if you start using a lot of fuses, get one of these at the correct amperage:
https://www.amazon.com/Yoiilnz-125-250VAC-Circuit-Overload-Protector/dp/B086J3JS3N (https://www.amazon.com/Yoiilnz-125-250VAC-Circuit-Overload-Protector/dp/B086J3JS3N)
add a couple wires with alligator clips and you can clip it onto the fuse holder ... or permanently install it in the game in place of the fuse.
the somehow you mention - i referred to in an earlier post - the 847 did not have multipier units - has a stepup sole purpose of tracking number of coins played and would pulse up after a payout finished and reset hopper to zero and restart the next coin payout
the odds follower unit was mostly used on mechanically stepped payout counter multiplier machines. Since cmk's machine is electrically stepped, there's more options on how to handle payout multiplication.
in the bally design, the circuits that determined if a payout counter reset was needed were fed from the odds disc and went thru the odds follower disc. cmk's machine doesn't appear to have enough wires attached to the odds disc (presumably) to handle the lamps and use a bally-style odds follower, so I left it as "somehow".
I'd bet you're right tho and the box on his machine does something like the odds follower unit without needing to know the odds unit step position, so it has to keep track of number of coins played itself.
once the game is running, the proof will be whether the payout counter is reset and the pay repeated when 2+ coins are played.
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Weekend updates:
I figured out what is causing the fuses to blow. On the back of "the part" that was the original question in this thread are two coils. The upper, vertical coil has two orange wires on it and one orange wire that looks to have fallen off, the other end of which is one of the tabs on the disc. Whenever I hook up this orange wire, a fuse blows on payout. So I'm leaving it unhooked for now and going to start through troubleshooting more routinely.
In that vein....
Wire tracing did not go well, but I did find out that the 'extra' bit on reel board #2 in previous pictures is actually supposed to be there. It is called out on the reel board wiring diagram for the 809 and is a direct link to several wires on reel board #1. Other than that I didn't get very far on wire tracing. :(
So, where am I at? Machine cleaned and lubed. 1 coin everything plays fine mostly. Once in a while there are off-by-one coin payout issues, but no biggie. After ~50-55 coins, the timer cuts off power, though, so my next task is to get the timer out of there and reset it to a more reasonable timeframe before cutoff.
I'll report back once the timer issue is fixed, at which point I can give specifics on what is / isn't working with 2 coin insertion. Like I said, stepwise. :yes:
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timing out during payout means the safety motor is not getting reset.
there's a microswitch riding on a cam above the payout counter ratchet. That switch opens every few steps of the payout counter and the circuit disconnect causes the safety motor to reset. The goal is to detect if the payout counter is not stepping and shut the machine down before it dumps the hopper contents out to the very happy player.
the usual problem is the delay relay isn't working. If the delay relay isn't powering, the safety motor runs while the hopper motor is running and the shutdown happens in a few seconds.
if the delay relay is powering but the capacitor or diode have problems, the delay relay may unpower while the microswitch is open and the safety motor won't reset all the way. After a few cycles of that the safety motor will reach the shutdown position.
the delay relay should never unpower while the payout relay is powered.
a bad capacitor is most common problem, followed by bad diode. The diode can be replaced with a more common 1N4004 or 1N4007 instead of a 1N2070.
all that stuff is in the 120V circuits, so be careful poking around in it.
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Sometimes you will find 2 orange wires on the same soldered joint.
This is just an continuation of the common orange.
Hooking two oranges together normally shouldn't be a problem as they in theory all lead back to the transformer.
Best to trace the problematic orange back and or check for continuity between the two.
Using high powered magnifying headgear most broken solder connections and loose wires will leave evidence to there placement.
If solder has been applied it disturbs the evidence.
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@DavidLee: Your simple recommendation was exactly what I needed. Sometimes we get so deep into a problem we miss the easy ones. I took the reel unit out and did wire tracing off the disc where the orange wire hooked. There were only two places that the other end of the orange wire would go and they were tied together anyway, so easy enough. I found that a cut wire that I had reconnected actually had to be cut. When attached, at one position of the "wheel" from the original pics, it would feed a relay +50V to both sides of the relay, causing it to short out and blow the fuse. Disconnected that wire, connected the orange wire and we're back in business.
So, where am I now?
I still need to get the timer out of there and clean / adjust it. It's the only part in the whole machine I haven't cleaned because I don't immediately see how it is held in the case. But I'll get there soon since it is cutting off all my payouts after ~50-55 coins.
Multi-coin payout are also working! I can set to 5 coin, single cherry win, and it pays out 9-10 nickels every time. That "wheel" is going CRAZY while that happens. It's not a clean countdown of "this is the 5th coin payout, this is the 4th coin payout," it just jumps all over the place around it's various connections. Once I figure out how to get my phone in there without any beau extension cables I will get a video for you guys.
Now a logic of operation question.... I realize nobody is quite sure how my machine is working with that wheel. But in general, if I play one coin and get a 50 coin win, vs 5 coins with a 10 coin win on each coin, are those the same thing to the electronics? I thought they were different with some kind of hopper reset on the 5x10 payout, but the timer still stops the machine at the same point on either a 1x50 or a 5x10 payout. Can someone teach me if these should behave differently with a timer reset in between each of the 5 10 payouts?
Thank you all for the continued support. I never knew I had a Frankenstein machine and had hoped to simply get some reference material to help myself and not be the multiple question asker. But here we are. :)
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Removal and cleaning the timer isn’t really necessary.
It’s just a motor with an dial indicator on it.
Inspect it for obstructions like coins and or hardware, nuts, bolts, screws, or springs.
Add more time by realigning the indicator, average is 15 to 20 seconds.
But, since the machine has more components to deal with, try 25 to 30 seconds.
In non casino use it doesn’t matter, rarely the hopper will continue to run and empty the machine.
I believe there’s a micro switch that resets safety timer back every few coins.
Wolftalk would know more about that.
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the timer is not really related to the win amount.
ignoring the multiplying, a win will usually power the trace on the payout counter that matches the payout amount. e.g. you are supposed to win 10, then the 10 trace is powered.
the exceptions are:
1] pays >200 usually pay 200 then lock up to hand pay the rest
2] some machines - typically multipliers - use additional units to step the payout counter less frequently than once per coin. They could in theory use those units to use something like a 10 trace to pay 20 coins, but the only time that could be needed is when a game had a large pay table with lots of different pay amounts.
below is a pic of the back side of a payout counter. The microswitch is what is supposed to be resetting the timer, but it doesn't do it directly. The delay relay needs to be working also to get the circuit connected to the microswitch. Most likely your delay relay is not working.
if you don't care about a problem causing the hopper to dump out all the coins, you can just disconnect the timer motor or misadjust the delay relay switches so they never close (put paper between contacts or whatever).
the delay relay is usually on the hopper and has the capacitor soldered to switches on it ... looks like it's in the background in the below picture. On a bally game, the delay relay coil usually has black wire 80 and green wire 40 on the lugs.
bonus tmi below:
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if you want to make sense of the safety timer circuit on the schem, it helps to know that the safety timer works kinda like a stopwatch:
1] the motor mechanism is spring loaded. If it loses power, it resets back to time zero.
2] when the motor is powered, it's slowly rotating an arm. If it rotates far enough, the arm opens the main power circuit and the game completely shuts down except the neon light on the timer case.
the microswitch on the back of the payout counter opens when the switch roller falls in a cam notch, and at payout counter reset the roller is NOT in a notch. If the payout counter is not stepping up, the safety motor doesn't reset and the game shuts down when the timeout period is reached.
if ya compare the microswitch roller cam to the ratchet teeth, the safety motor resets about every 5 steps of the payout counter. On an electrically stepped five coin multiplier game with units stepping the payout counter less often than coins eject, that equates to a safety motor reset every 25 coins ejected when five coins are played, so the timeout needs to be longer than it takes 25 coins to shoot out.