Bally E2240-59 3rd reel does not show up in diagnostics

[LDM]

I have a Bally E2240-59 that I have been trying to get running.  I have managed to fix most of the issues but this one has me stumped.  This machine uses the 5V infrared reel readers.  I had to replace my reel board in order to get the reels readers to start changing states in the #5 diagnostic test, the old board would only show (1 7 7 . . .) and the states would never change off the 7 no matter the position of the 1 and 2 reels.  This is a 3 reel single line machine, so it should show (1 7 7 7 . .), although I thought this would be what showed up once I replaced the reel board.  After replacing the reel board I am still getting the (1 # # . . .) but now moving reels 1 and 2 will get the state to change.  Still no 3rd reel.  I've tried swapping the known good 1 and 2 reel readers to the 3rd position, still doesn't change.  Moving the 3rd reel reader to the 1 or 2 position shows it working just like the other reel readers.


Before I swapped out the reel board, my machine would accept nickles (it takes max 5 nickles) and the reels would mostly just spin and never stop.  Sometimes it would work for a while but it would never pay out when it would hit the appropriate spots on the reels.  No error codes would happen either, it would play just like a normal machine but never pay out.  Once I swapped to the new reel board that would change state in the #5 test, after putting in 1-5 nickles and pull the handle, the wheels would start spinning and the machine would immediately TILT.  All 5 coin lights would flash with the TILT.  I assume this is due to the fact that the 3rd reel does not appear to be working.  No error codes when the machine TILTs either.



I've noticed that the 3rd reel reader plug has fewer wires than the 1 and 2 plugs.  I do not see any extra wires pulled out hanging loose in the wiring harness, so I assume this is normal but if anyone has a picture of a similar machine that might help me confirm this.  I wasn't able to find any similar issues to this with a search of this forum or google, but I am leaning toward a bad connection in the harness to the reel board, from the reel assembly Molex connectors to the IO board, or the IO board itself.  I've stopped working on it tonight to try to think about the issue and watch the football game but I have another IO board I will probably swap out tomorrow after work to see what happens.  But if anyone has had a similar experience and knows a likely fix it would be much appreciated.

[LDM]

Well after spending a significant amount of time tracing down connections in the reel assembly, I didn't find much.  All the connections on the reel readers and the reel board were all good.  I did find one that might have been a little loose in the connector on #2 but it did not help solve the issue.  So I started tracing down the connections on the IO board and the MPU board.
Turned out to be the ribbon connector from the LED display to the MPU board.  One of the pins was bent and not connecting to its hole in the socket on the MPU board due to this.  So after fixing that, I was able to get the 3rd reel to display on the LED board in test 5.  Sure would have been nice had I started there and saved myself a lot of time consuming testing but at least I know how everything works on this E2000 machine now.  Turned out I did have a bad reel reader, which was causing my TILT condition.  After fixing the connection issue the machine was nice enough to give me an error 41 code to tell me reader #1 wasn't reading properly, even though it seemed to test out fine in diagnostics.  Swapped it with a known good one and no more TILT.
Course, now I have to wait for another hopper control board because the one I had installed to fix my earlier no payout condition on the hopper decided it was time to die and almost caught on fire.  So I went with one of the new style board that FOXSLOTS sells on Ebay, hopefully I will finally be able to fully play this machine once I get it.