New Life Games LLC
**Reel Slots** Gaming Machines => IGT S and S-plus Reel Games => Topic started by: Amg16 on July 15, 2023, 11:50:54 AM
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Hi Everyone,
Apologies if this has been answered in any other forum post, but I've scrolled through everything relating to Code 21 and can't seem to find any threads that cover my specific issue.
I bought two IGT machines yesterday, and while one is working perfectly, the other has Error 21. In the attached pictures, the top comparitor is the one working perfectly, and the bottom one is the one I'm having issues with. As far as I can tell they're basically the same model with some minor differences. What's odd is that neither of these comparitors appear to have a sample coin. Rather, the working one is using a type of rubber stopper for the slider, and the one that isn't working doesn't have anything.
I included it in one of the photos but trying to use a sample coin for the error code comparitor makes the slider move too far over so coins get stuck in the entry slot (im using quarters). I also can't fit a quarter into the slider area where the rubber stopper is. Has anyone seen anything like this and have any suggestions? I assume the easiest thing would be to try and find some type of duplicate of the rubber stopper but I'm not sure where I'd find something like that. Thanks for the help!
EDIT: just to try it I put the working comparitor into the machine giving me problems, and error code 21 is still not going away after using the reset key, opening and closing the door, etc. Although I still find this machine's comparitor to be a problem, I wonder if anything else is going on?
EDIT 2: This is as of end of day 7/15, figured it would be easier to update with a video
https://youtu.be/DJlF1ExfyjA
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Figured I'd add a photo of the inside door of the one giving me issues, comparitor obviously removed but all wiring seems fine
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Error 21 is coming the coin-in optics board under the CC. It needs cleaned, lined up properly, or replaced. It also may have wrong size coin guide. The CC must have a sample coin to compare to, that's why it's called a coin comparitor.
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Hi, thank you for the insight! After typing this I will remove the optics and adept to clean, however I'm kind of confused on your second point. The other CC doesn't have a coin and seems to be working fine, and I'm unable to insert coins through the insert slot when I use the quarter as a sample coin?
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The one with no coin has probably been modified so it can't reject ANY coins. It will probably accept a nickel or token too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r27kTXjEAJ0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r27kTXjEAJ0)
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Hi, it looks like you're right! The working one does accept at least nickels as well. I guess that brings me back to my original post and question with the picture, because I still can't get a coin to go through the slot when the sample coin is set to a quarter? I've tried to loosen the screw on the entry slot so the rubber stopper gives way easier, but that hasn't worked either
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Be sure to get that nickel out of your hopper before it jams it up.
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I'll likely update the main post as well but figured it would be easier to just throw up a video
https://youtu.be/DJlF1ExfyjA
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There is a tiny white button in lower left corner of coin-in optic board. It should ding and give a credit when you press it and the spin button should lite and let you spin the reels. There is also a coin-in optic ABC test. Refer to the flip cards for instructions. Check all the connections on the orange harness, it could be the problem. Sometimes just tucking them back will clear the 21.(open and close the door to clear)
You may need new CC's for both machines and a new optic board. Is that one machine still a barcrest?
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Sorry don't mean to reply exclusively with youtube videos hahaha just finding it easier for all of this
https://youtu.be/eRelZGg75F4
A couple points I didn't bring up in the video worth mentioning:
-For whatever reason, taking the cylinder weight off the comaparitor is making the quarters go through fine. If that weight is mandatory I can put it back on but found that interesting
-I'm not sure what differentiates a barcrest from one that isn't, if there's anything I can check for that I'm happy to do so!
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Yes leave it off. Machine with speaker in tray was s+ barcrest or has s2000 tray.
Optic test:
10 1
11 1
12 1
They will go to 0 if they are blocked by a coin or other object. As as the path is clear they go back to 1.
a 0 showing all the time in test means check for blocks or install a known good set of optics.
It could be as simple as a bad optic or loose wire or connector in the harness.
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Thanks for the continued advice! I should be able to try testing those numbers tomorrow, just to clarify can I test all those numbers with the Test button exclusively or do I need to use the reset key at all?
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Amg16,
What denomination are your games? The comparators you show in your photos have a larger weight and look like CC-33? Those are for larger coins like a $. If someone didn't convert these properly then you may have the wrong size optic spacers too. Lastly, what is the denomination of the hopper?
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You have a more serious problem.
In your last video when after you closed the door and rebooted the MPU, the 1st reel spun downwards a single symbol and stopped.
Hopefully the problem is just the wrong SP chip and not an MPU failure.
I need to see a clear photo of the chips you have installed in the GAME and REEL sockets.
That reel behavior is telling me that you may have the wrong SP installed in the GAME PROM socket.
Another thing I noticed hich may or may not be important is that the reels are numbered backwards....the 1st reel should be on the left.
But it IS indicative that someone was messing with the reels before you got that machine.
Also, do you have a small blue volume dial on top of the MPU?
If not, then you have a 16Mhz MPU...that only works with certain SP chips.
SInce you have two machines, you need to get at least one set of known working coin-in optics and a good CC.
The CC's you have now can be used but you'd need to remove the weight pawl that's on top.
That weight is much too heavy for quarters.
A single small flat headed screw removed is all you need to to do to take it out.
You don't really need it and the quarters will go thru much easier.
I forget offhand right now which way you turn the coin sensitivity potentiometer dial but using a small Philips screwdriver, and turning the dial fully clockwise or counter-clockwise will allow the comparitor to accept even Canadian quarters.
The correct setting of the coin sensitivity dial on the coin comparitor normally for U.S. quarters is turning the dial all the way fully counter-clockwise, then turning it a quarter turn clockwise....it gets you in the ballpark so that the comparitor ONLY accepts quarters.
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Hi, hope to answer both of your follow ups here!
I tried repeatedly pressing the test button and got to a 10-0 code with the Coins Inserted label showing a 1, camera was having a hard time capturing it but there is a 1 there. As far as I can tell no matter how many times I hit the test button I don't get to an 11 or 12 in Winner Paid at any point.
I have taken the weight off of the CC and quarters are now falling through to the hopper without getting stuck, and a quarter is inserted as the sample coin. For the hoper itself, I'm happy to check if there's a more proper way to look for denominations but the quarters fit into the bottom wheel fine and it appears to be the original IGT hopper.
I have attached photos of the entire MPU and a zoom into the chips for Stayouttadabunker. As far as I can tell there's no dial on the board anywhere?
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To give more contexts on the codes, the sequence as I hit the test button is
-10-0 with 1 for coins played
-10 with 2 for coins played
-50 with nothing showing for coins played
-8888 for both winner paid and credits, 8 for coins played
I also attached a more clear video of the forward jolt before 21 pops back up, this instance was a bit weirder because they're only usually moving about 1/4 of the visible reel with door closed most of the time, they moved much more on this one
https://youtu.be/MNp5AMx6Sr8
Just to cover everything also posted some more photos of the CC and optics now with the weight removed
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okay...you have a 10mHz MPU and your chips might be okay but your reels are NOT supposed to do that after booting up or closing the door.
There's a blue plastic volume dial on top of your MPU....if you look at the radio crystals, you'll also see "10Mhz" imprinted on the silver canisters.
Turn the power switch OFF.
Can you carefully pull up and out the SS Reel chip from it's socket?
Use a small flat screwdriver and try to work the body of the chip upwards as flat as possible.
When you get it out, take a look at the chip legs.
Starighten out any bent leg with a pair of nail tweezers.
Then slowly re-insert all of the legs back into the socket.
There will be an indentation on top of one end of the chips' body.
That indentation should be oriented with the notch imprinted on the MPU circuit at one end of the socket.
That chip ONLY goes back on that way.
Make sure you DO NOT fold any chip legs underneath the chip 's body.
Put the MPU back into the enclosure and turn back ON the power switch.
Closely observe the reels action.
They should spin back to their last positions before you turned off the machine.
If so, you may be back in business, close the door and see if quarters get accepted.
If your display lamps are working and not burned out, the reel glass SHOULD say "Insert Coin"...and when you do, the other lamp should light up that displays"Coin Accepted.
I wish you had another coin-in optics board to try.
That one in your last Reply ( Photo ending with 191550), actually looks burned out.
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Hi everyone, bit of an interesting update:
I decided to move the entire CC and optics bracket to my working machine, and move its bracket to the Code 21 one. Surprisingly, the working machine still works fine, and the CC/optics combo that works fine in the other machine is still not clearing code 21. I will be trying the reel chip idea shortly, but I guess this means we can rule out optics as the issue?
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Just tried to adjust/re-install the slots chip and it seemed to have no effect. Although the brackets were a bit bent in a couple spots and I straightened those out, running Test after rebooting still led to the small jolt forward and code 21 reappearing. Hopefully at least now that I know it's not the machine's optics at fault we can narrow it down a bit?
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Hi, posted a couple of video updates
https://youtu.be/tSVQWIUlKX8
https://youtu.be/5HpAqGY6gFA
The summary is that I've confirmed both comparitor/optics and their white test buttons fully function on the working machine. It appears that SOMETHING in the machine with code 21 is not powering and/or communicating with the optics and CC properly?
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... the other machine is still not clearing code 21. I will be trying the reel chip idea shortly, but I guess this means we can rule out optics as the issue?
No...you NEED the door optics to be working to clear the code 21 error.
You mentioned in the last video that "the main wire" may have a power problem.
That wire on the the back of the door panel next to the fluorescent starter is 115 volts household current for the belly door fluorescent lighting.
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Hi, I should have been more specific with the optics statement, I meant that the coin in optics under my CC seem to be fine since that same component works fine when plugged into the machine, I had thought the coin in optics were the issue for a couple of days
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're trying to say in the second part of your reply, so since the belly door is lit up, we know power is properly flowing? Moreover, my machine does reset the code 21 light when I first close the door, so would that not mean that the door optics are at least somewhat functional?
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Does pressing the Service Credit button add credits to the machine while the door is open?
Try that? Only works when the door is in an "open state".
oh..the power for the fluorescents is NOT the same power for the MPU and the rest of the machine.
The only other place the machine needs 115VAC besides the lighting is the hopper beau plug and hopper.
You may be right in that when closing the door it clears the error temporarily, but it comes right back right?
If so, then the problem could be with that coin-in optics board or a bad ground wire on the harness.
What I'm saying is, if you were to unplug the coin-in optics board harness at the white Molex connector, a [Code 21] would pop up.
That leads me to...>>>
1). Check the harness for continuity...easy thing to try is just unplug, re-plug, unplug, re-plug a few times.
What is going on is you're trying to somewhat clean the oxidized gunk off of the pins, and looking for better electrical contact inside the housings.
2). Swap out the coin-in optics board...maybe it's burned out?
3). Clean the three little holes that the emitter shines infrared light thru....the ABC optics inside need to "see" each other.
Try to shoot some compressed air in there to blow out any obstructions.
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I'll be able to check that button later today to be sure, if service credit is the same as test then I believe the repeated presses raise the credit by 1 each press, but I'll make sure.
As to your advice with the optics, the point I was trying to make in my other post and video yesterday is that the optics work in my other machine, and the other optics that work in my other machine didn't clear code 21 when I added them to this one as a test. Essentially, based on the other machine, both optics sets are working, and something in the machine isn't detecting or using the optics correctly (unless code 21 is stemming from something else entirely). I guess I just don't understand how the optics themselves could be the issue at this point if they work in stride in the other machine, and if the "working" optics from the other machine suddenly don't work in my code 21 machine?
The harness idea makes sense to me but I unplugged/replugged multiple times when I was moving the two CC/optics brackets around between the two machines yesterday, so I'm not sure how much more I'll clean the pins with continued plug attempts
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I'll be able to check that button later today to be sure, if service credit is the same as test then I believe the repeated presses raise the credit by 1 each press, but I'll make sure....
You're misunderstanding the buttons...it's NOT the same as the Test button.
The Test button is the little white button that's next to the power switch or behind it....on older models, it's located on top of the door connector Molex coming out of the MPU enclosure. It's for switching between pages in the Accounting menus or Diagnostic test pages.
The Service Credit button is the small button located on the bottom of the coin-in optics circuit board uder the CC.
Each press adds a credit to the machine, up to max credits the SS chip allows.
The unplugging and re-plugging you've tried...but you haven't yet tested the harnesses themselves that relate to the Coin-In optics circuit board.
You need to test the harness going to that optics board for continuity.
Now's a good time to take it back out and pull out a multimeter on that harness.
The shortcut of course is to just swap the harness from the known good cabinet into this one to see if it works with this one.
Anyways, there's 10 pins coming off of that Coin-In circuit board....follow each wire from there along the harness, and make sure you have continuity at the other end.
You cannot "see" under the vinyl covering if a wire is broken.
That's why we use multimeters.
Below are the wires coming out of an IGT S+ Coin-In optics circuit board...>>>
Top wire is orange w/blue stripe...that goes to location 1 on the 3-pin Molex (pointy side) for the CC.
2nd wire is red w/black stripe...that goes to location 1 on the 12 pin Molex.
( You may need a magnifying glass to see the pin location numbers molded on the back of the housings.)
3rd wire is solid green...that goes to location 10 on the 12 pin Molex.
4th wire is orange w/green stripe...that goes to the flat side or pin 2 location on the 2-pin Molex for the Gate solenoid.
5th wire is orange w/red stripe...that goes to location 4 on the 12-pin Molex.
6th wire is orange w/yellow stripe...that goes to location 6 on the 12-pin Molex.
7th wire is orange w/brown stripe...that goes to location 3 on the 12-pin Molex.
8th wire is orange w/black stripe...that goes to location 2 on the 12-pin Molex.
You don't need to worry about the other wires coming FROM the 12-pin Molex to the Gate solenoid or the CC.
If any one or both of those two smaller connectors are taken apart, neither one will make the MPU shoot out the [Code 21].
You only get a [Code 21] if there's a problem with the Coin-In optics board, and/or the wiring going to it.
Good luck! :)
Below is a photo of an IGT S+ Coin harness and a Coin-In circuit board on the coin mech frame.
You can see on this particular board version, the little white Service Credit button on the bottom of the Coin-In board.
Click on it to enlarge if needed...>>>
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Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in response, I've been on vacation and just now getting to work on the machine again.
Stayouttathebunker, I realize now reading back that I think I've created some confusion because I've referred to both the Test and Service Credit buttons as the Test button. To clarify, I've installed the code 21 machine's bracket with the comparitor and optics into my working machine, and when I did so the service credit button worked normally. However, both brackets and their respective service credit buttons do NOT work when plugged into the Code 21 machine. I believe it's shown in one of the videos I posted but neither button even makes a noise when the brackets are installed on the code 21 machine.
Being able to test the comparitor/optics on the working machine like this is what has made me confident that it's not an issue with those individual components, since the ones from the code 21 machine are working as intended on my other one. With that in mind, I agree with you that at this point the machine giving me code 21 must have an issue with either the wiring going to the circuit board or the MPU itself. I will definitely at the least be using a multimeter later today, and am considering trying the harness swap depending on how arduous I think it'll be to get the working machine's one reinstalled as it was. Thanks for the continued advice and I hope to have a more positive update soon!
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I repeat...lol...>>>
"The shortcut of course is to just swap the harness from the known good cabinet into this one to see if it works with this one."
You can unplug it right behind the CC and Coin-In optics board.
Just remove the 2 screws holding the coin mech bracket and you'll see the huge Molex hanging there.
Try the known good harness from the good cabinet into the problem cabinet.
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Hi everyone, I'll type out the update here as well but posted a video explaining it:
https://youtu.be/997_30oKBl0
Essentially what I've found is that any combination of harness/comparitor/optics is working on my "good" machine, and no combination is working on the one that has code 21. No matter the combination, the machine still has code 21 and the Service credit button doesn't respond. Based on these tests, I feel comfortable saying that none of these can be the cause for the code:
-Harness
-coin comparitor
-coin in optics
With that in mind, I'm kind of just lost as it seems the vast majority of code 21 posts on here are resolved by replacing one or a combination of those three components. I would think the easiest place to look would be the main door harness and if it's properly powering the comparitor harness, but I'm not sure. I also know that some people in this forum have mentioned the MPU board, but the earlier pictures of the code 21 machine's board didn't seem to raise any red flags.
Overall, I'm all ears for next step suggestions. It turns out the multimeter I was going to use is broken, but I'm not against getting another one if testing the door harness or any other wires is the next best step. Thank you for any suggestions!
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Try the MPU on machine with the 21 code on the other machine and or vise versa. Do both have same SP chip?
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Hi everyone, sorry for the back to back posts but I found an interesting difference in the wiring of the door harness by the slots between the two machines. It might be absolutely nothing and/or irrelevant to my code 21 issue but I wanted to make note of it just in case. I threw up a video as it's very difficult to explain over text
https://youtu.be/WzoAQK2hc4g
One thing I didn't notice when filming the video is my working machine seems ro have an extra screwed in wire compared to the not working one. Again, might be irrelevant, but wanted to hone in on any major door harness discrepancies
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Those black wires to that switch is NOT standard. It may be door optics bypass switch someone has added. The other two wires go to BV entry light I believe.