Bally 931 Circus (Australian)

[wolftalk]

was the washer made of brass? 


usually the screw and the washer between the coil and the frame are brass to reduce magnetizing the frame and armature.  Residual magnetism can cause the armature to stick down on the coil top ... rarely,


I wouldn't worry about it, but if you have the problem in the future with the armature sticking and it's not crud on the parts, see if the metal has magnetized

[Rod71]

Yeah screw and washer weren't brass.  There's like old crusty packing tape around the armature that you can see in the pic as well.  Is that factory?

[wolftalk]

I'm used to seeing a metal sleeve around the armature plate.  Possibly a non-magnetic metal sleeve. 


the tape should be harmless.

[Rod71]

Alrighty then.  Moving on to the Hold and Draw feature.  All wires are cut from the dashpot switch.


It's Friday night, I've had a few drinks and got a little cocky.  Here's what I have found.


We have 3 cut wires left on the switch. 2 x 91's and a and 53. Then there are 2 bare lugs.


On the other side after removing the electrical tape. we have the 2 x 91 wires wrapped with the 53


Then the 51 taped up with the 25


So, with the 2 x 91 wires, does it matter which wire they are connected to on the dashpot switch?.  Then I'm taking a guess and saying the 51 and 25 connect to the bare lugs.  Which one goes where.  Hmmm

[wolftalk]

can't tell from the angle, but sounds like you have it right.


the dashpot looks like it has two switches....is a blade broken off?


1] 25-1 to 51-1.  This one is on the schem in the handle release and hold coil circuits.  Switch is NC - closed when handle up.


2] 91 to 53.  Not on my schem.  Can you figure out where the 53 wire is going?   Don't know if the switch is NC or NO.


the 25-1 tied to 51-1 is ok and shouldn't stop the hold from working.  The dash pot switch is only there to disable some stuff if someone is holding the handle down. 


the 53 wire may stop your hold if it's feeding the hold coil circuit instead of something attached to wire 51-1.

[Rod71]

can't tell from the angle, but sounds like you have it right.


the dashpot looks like it has two switches....is a blade broken off?

Right.  There's 3 switches.  First 2 switches originally had 53 and 91 x 2 attached.  3rd switch has broken blades and Probably had 25-1 and 51-1 attached at some stage.

1] 25-1 to 51-1.  This one is on the schem in the handle release and hold coil circuits.  Switch is NC - closed when handle up.


2] 91 to 53.  Not on my schem.  Can you figure out where the 53 wire is going?   Don't know if the switch is NC or NO.

Couldn't figure out where they are going as yet.  But 25-1 goes to C2 and 51-1 goes to the coin relay as per schematic.

the 25-1 tied to 51-1 is ok and shouldn't stop the hold from working.  The dash pot switch is only there to disable some stuff if someone is holding the handle down. 


the 53 wire may stop your hold if it's feeding the hold coil circuit instead of something attached to wire 51-1.

That makes sense.  So now I've discovered a tiny 70 wire with resistor attached on the draw relay.  One side is broken from a lug.  Which one I'm not sure.

[wolftalk]

the resistor is 8200 ohm, 1/2 watt.  Not on the schematic I have. 


I'll take a look at some other hold and draw games tomorrow and see if they show a resistor on draw relay bits.


got a picture of the top or side of the relay that shows the part number and diagram?


the orange sleeves are just insulating the bare metal resistor legs.  The color isn't significant, so don't associate the resistor with wire 70.

[Rod71]

OK strange times indeed


So I followed the schematic and noticed 25-1 goes to C2.  When C2 opens it transfers to 57-4 which leads to the payout relay via pin 4 on the left side reel mech plug.  Everything buzzed out OK to this pin, but the pin was a little sunken compared to the ones around it. So I straightened it out and put everything back together.  I didn't give it a second thought until this morning and figured I'd change out the #63 "Hold" lamp behind the reel glass.  I doubt that had anything to do with it, but it started working.
https://youtu.be/MJCpIz2mJss


So it was working great for a little while, and now I can hear the hold relay disengaging mid way through the spin cycle.
https://youtu.be/Owt7Img2zDc


Probably not related, but the 1st reel hold button light appears to have a bad ground or something, as it's coming on during the spin cycle, and also if you push on the door.


OK, further observation which I will have to come back and add to this post if it does it again.  After leaving the game switched off for say an hour.  The hold and draw feature works great for 5 to 10 minutes and then starts acting up.  I'm thinking heat related, but it's got me scratching my head lol.


OK, so it wasn't heat related lol


Turns out it was the top "home" switch on the payout disc.  Without the hold and draw feature working it was operating just fine. But with the hold and draw feature working, the switch needed a little tweaking to close just a fraction earlier when the payout disc resets after a win. 
Now to stop that 1st reel hold light from flickering during play, and we're all set

[wolftalk]

if the brown/blue 62 wire is one of the draw relay coil lugs ... and it probably is ... then typically the other end of the resistor would go on yellow wire 30.


none of the hold-n-draw schems I have show a resistor there.  Maybe someone added it because they didn't figure out the payout counter close-at-zero switch needed tweaking and they thought partially powering the draw relay coil all the time would help.


if the close-at-zero switch isn't working, the draw relay won't hold itself powered (it should be powered if previous spin was loser) and hold-n-draw won't work.   I think fixing that switch was the fix for your problem.


there's only one switch causing the held light on reel 1 to light.  It's called the "#1 reel switch" and has yellow wire 30 and orange/red wire 71-2 on it's blades.  I'd guess the switch is on the reel mech someplace.


if the flickering held light just started, you may have created the problem when replacing the #63 lamp.  Check the lamp socket and look for a problem with the 71-2 wire from the socket to the door plug.

[Rod71]

if the brown/blue 62 wire is one of the draw relay coil lugs ... and it probably is ... then typically the other end of the resistor would go on yellow wire 30.


none of the hold-n-draw schems I have show a resistor there.  Maybe someone added it because they didn't figure out the payout counter close-at-zero switch needed tweaking and they thought partially powering the draw relay coil all the time would help.


if the close-at-zero switch isn't working, the draw relay won't hold itself powered (it should be powered if previous spin was loser) and hold-n-draw won't work.   I think fixing that switch was the fix for your problem.

Makes sense.  I'll leave it disconnected as it's working as it should.  Goes to show how important the schematics are

there's only one switch causing the held light on reel 1 to light.  It's called the "#1 reel switch" and has yellow wire 30 and orange/red wire 71-2 on it's blades.  I'd guess the switch is on the reel mech someplace.

Right.  There's switches next to or under the hold coils on every reel.  I'll check it out.


So of course once everything was working great, it didn't take long for another issue to pop up lol.  the 2nd reel started randomly sticking
https://youtu.be/kQXVDn9aYJw
It wasn't related to the hold and draw, as you could play it 5 times without holding and it would suddenly stick.  Didn't really matter what symbol it was either.  So very random.


I put some light oil on the wiper rivets, and also cleaned up some pivot points on the 2nd reel mech from underneath.  It's working fine now, so I guess I was on the right track

[wolftalk]

you probably have more things that can go wrong due to the hold-n-draw, but if the first reel is spinning fine and one of the others latches too fast sometimes, usually the problem is the latch pawl.


latch pawl (red arrow in pic below) needs to pivot easily on the shaft.  The long spring should snap it back when you let go.   The ledge on the pawl is what's holding the wiper arm back after the kick-off and allowing the reel to spin. 


when the timer link (green arrow) slides rearward, it rotates the pawl and the wiper arm snaps forward as soon as the ledge disengages to stop the reel.

[Rod71]

Great explanation, thank you!