Bally S5500 MPU, Glass & Reels

[rvalkenburg]

So here is my dilemma... I picked up this unit up for basically nothing and trying to figure out what to do and have struggled with a few "Slot Experts" in my area. And should fill you in, I have restored mechanical Mills and Jennings slots for 20 years, along with Japanese Pachislo machines, so I do have a fair amount of knowledge around slots, just not casino units like this.

The first issue is the confusion around the model of this machine, be it a Bally S5500 or Bally 5500. It seems the confusion comes from it being a converted unit. A company called PAR-4 Inc (Atlantic Gaming) would buy up the older slots from Atlantic City and customize them to make them "Legal" to use at the NJ boardwalks and arcades. So the MPU is not a standard Bally MPU but a Pluto 5 board with a custom game... Skill Stop style. Everything else int he machine is true Bally product, from the hopper, power unit and transformer to the cabinet itself, just the MPU, Glass & reel strips are not Bally (although Bally did have a Sevens game).


So since PAR-4 Inc is no longer around, trying to find out information as to how the 2 DIP banks should be configured is impossible. I have the unit working (somewhat) but it basically pay's out on every spin (not cool). I wanted to restore this back to a Bally unit but have run into many roadblocks mostly around the glass (Marquee & Belly). A local company stated they had a MPU kit , reel strips and glass kit for a Bally 5500 but the glass is about 2" to long to fit in my cabinet. All of the glass I have seen for these online are listed as 19"+ wide and mine unit would only allow 17 3/16" for the marquee and 17 1/4" for the belly glass. This asks the question what is the difference between the Bally S5500 & 5500 and/or how many iterations of this 5500 model are there.

At the end of the day, I have other restorations I need to finish, jukeboxes and video games, and want to put this one to bed. Would anyone have a MPU & game chips (u18 & u20) for a S5500, matching reel strips and a glass kit (all 3 pieces) that would fit these measurements...

Glass Dimensions:
Marquee Glass - 17 3/16" width x 9 1/2" height x 3/16" thickness
Reel Glass - 13 5/8" width x 8 1/4" height x 3/16" thickness
Belly Glass - 17 1/4" width x 9" height x 3/16" thickness
The reels strips are 3 5/16" width and they are approximately 28" in diameter.

Or does anyone here know anything about the custom Pluto 5 boards that PAR-4 Inc used for these conversion units?

Thank you for any advice
Ron

[rvalkenburg]

Anyone have a Bally s5500 MPU, game chips, with matching glass (marquee & belly) & reel strips they want to sell?