Bally 873A - sometimes pays 6 instead of 4

[frenchmarky]

I have only one persnickety problem left I've never been able to lick.  A single cherry on two lines *sometimes* pays 6 coins instead of 4 (i.e. on line 1 or 3 plus the diagonal lines coined up).  When it goofs, it pays the first four, then the hopper hiccups (shuts off and back on in a fraction of a second, then pays another 2 coins.  Does this maybe 10-20% of the time.  All other payouts are okay.

I've adjusted the payout disc and after a 4 coin pay the contact is definitely stopping WAY short of the 7 trace (correct).   I have a good strong spring on the coin kicker. 

If I let a 4-coin payout happen and it is okay, and if I then manually advance the payout arm one step, it does the same thing - pays another 2 coins for total of 6.  So somehow this is sometimes happening by itself but I'm just not quite sure how.  Like perhaps after 4 are paid, maybe coin 5 gets kicked out by the kicker while it's under the roller, but sometimes not before it still manages to push up the roller enough to let the payout stepper advance another step onto the 7 trace and so then I get two more coins (?)  Impossible for me to catch something like this in the act though at that speed.

[kjnuke]

Check to see if you're getting full tooth engagement on the first click from the zero stop by manually actuating with the coil. Sometimes it only moves the wheel part way on that first actuation from the coil. If it sometimes moves all of the way on the first click, and sometimes only half way, you'll have intermittent pays.
The solution is to loosen the 2 screws on the payboard behind the spiral cam and tweak the board one way or the other until it consistently actuates a full click on that first tooth.

[David Walz]

Check to see if you're getting full tooth engagement on the first click from the zero stop by manually actuating with the coil. Sometimes it only moves the wheel part way on that first actuation from the coil. If it sometimes moves all of the way on the first click, and sometimes only half way, you'll have intermittent pays.
The solution is to loosen the 2 screws on the payboard behind the spiral cam and tweak the board one way or the other until it consistently actuates a full click on that first tooth.

Probably needs a good cleaning.   

[frenchmarky]

I've cleaned/lubed all the step & reset levers and cleaned the payout disc, and adjusted the zero stop and it always picks up the first step when stepped manually.  I even replaced the zero stop bumper with a trimmed piece of new rubber yesterday because the old one was hard as a rock and chunks had started breaking off of it.  (Problem did not change with the rubber replacement and readjustment.)  Also did the two adjustments on the stops for the stepper arm and reset pawl according to the manual.  Again, all other payouts are okay, not intermittently miscounting like the 4-coin payout.

It's the hiccup that is weird. Sometimes four coins, hiccups as the motor stops, then quickly starts again and pays 2 more after it gets onto the 7 coins trace.   It's not a typical overpay like it missed catching a tooth and paid 5 instead of 4.  And it's definitely not stepping immediately from the end of the 4 trace to the 7 trace by erroneously catching two teeth or something.  When it fails it's always 4 coins + hiccup + 2 coins.  I've ordered a little $10 kit of springs just to see if the coin kicker spring could use a replacement, will see how that goes.  Maybe it just needs to kick a little bit faster before a coin under the roller can advance the stepper.

[frenchmarky]

The coin roller is oiled and moves smoothly when I manually turn the motor with a coin under the roller, but I noticed that on one side of the roller, there are about a half dozen little crescent-shaped gouges from the coins.  I'm guessing they were from before I owned it and the roller had gone dry or sticky and quarters were digging into it.  Not very large or deep, you have to really look close to even notice them.  They easily catch my fingernail though.  Thought they might hamper coins being kicked out if the coin happened to be resting in one of the gouges.  Are these gouges a problem, or no big deal?

If they are a big problem I suppose I could *slightly* widen the adjustment slot at the upper screw that mounts the whole roller assembly to the frame... just a smidge so I can pivot the roller assembly back a miniscule amount so the coins roll on fresh metal on the roller just outside of those gouges.

[wolftalk]

the 4 trace and the 7 trace on the payout counter are connected together.

what is supposed to happen is the wipers step off the 4 trace and are sitting on the 5 trace, which is one step short of the 7 trace.

if you somehow get the 5th step of the payout counter, then the wipers get onto the energized 7 trace and you get two more coins.

the payout unit is mechanically stepped by a coin lifting the roller pivot arm, right?

possibilities are:

1] somehow the 5 trace is getting energized ... typically slightly misaligned reel wiper wipers bridging rivets.  I'd clip a lead onto the 5 trace and hang it out of the front of the hope so you can use a voltmeter to see if you have 50VAC on it when the problem occurs.  Other meter lead on wire 70. 

Alternatively, stick a piece of tape on the 5 trace so it can't cause the payout relay to power when the wipers step off the 4 trace and see if the problem goes away.  The 5 and 7 pays won't work right with the tape on, but you just want to see if the 4 pay becomes reliable.

2] the wipers are barely stepping off the end of the 4 trace on the 4th step, the end of the trace is bulged out, or you have carbon tracks so occasionally the wipers are still  connected to the 4 trace when they should be convincingly off it. 

3] your override solenoid isn't working so a coin is lifting the pivot arm enough to step the payout counter

4] you have a new style hopper and the brake isn't working right.

[3] and [4] aren't likely because you'd see overpays occasionally on other payouts.  Similarly, if the entire payout disk was positioned incorrectly you'd have wrong pays elsewhere.

[frenchmarky]

It is a mechanical stepper, no brake on the hopper.  I'd dialed the reel wipers in as good as I could get them... if I force a 4 pay to continue and pay 3 more by tugging reel 2 down (and it is sitting on the right symbols), I have to tug it down at least halfway to trigger it so it doesn't seem to be contacts being intermittently bridged on reel 2 because of wiper misalignment.  By eyeball they look okay too.  The coin unit contact is definitely landing right between the 4 and 7 trace, not too close to either, looks clear of carbon.

I think *maybe* I stumbled on the cause though.  I had good adjustment of the stepper arm bracket stop inside the coin unit, but there was too much over-travel where the pivot arm presses down on the stepper arm and compression spring.  I got that down from about 1/8" to the desired 1/32" and after about a hundred forced 4 coin payouts in a row (resetting the coin unit with a screwdriver from the front and one cherry on either line 1 or 3) I couldn't get it to foul up.  Can't get it to goof in play anymore either.  I'm sure I never made that adjustment before because it was a *bitch* loosening those screws on the roller/pivot assembly!

I'm surmising it was causing too much backlash as the arm came back up along with that extra compression spring tension, thus causing the wiper contact to 'forward' backlash onto the 7 trace long enough to kick off the 7 payout.  At least long enough to spit out another coin and thus actually advance it onto the 7 trace etc.  I did notice it bouncing briefly onto the 7 trace and back again before... perhaps if it bounces up TOO far, it's on the 7 trace long enough to initiate this glitch? 

Does this theory of why it may have been happening sound plausible? 

When I get the springs I'll test them out and see if the coin kicker can use a stronger one.  If reoccurs I'll poke around some more using your suggestions.  Thanks!

[David Walz]

Tugging down on the reels a lot is moving the wiper onto another spot.

My experience with the payout problem is the contacts on the wiper, when I move the reel just a hair, a payout occurs telling me the wiper needs cleaning. After I clean, adjust the fingers on the wiper then the problem is resolved.

[frenchmarky]

Yeah a couple of weeks ago it did develop a payout problem (unrelated to this 4 coin thing).  I hadn't tightened down the two bolts on reel 1's wiper quite enough the last time I'd adjusted it a long time ago and it had slipped a little.  Glitch happened during play, and if I moved that reel just a tiny bit manually.  I readjusted and tightened the bolts sufficiently.

[wolftalk]

sounds reasonable. 

too much spring force when stepping the payout counter kinda "throws" the ratchet around further than it should rotate in the clockwise direction (looking at the ratchet side of the unit).

this typically only happens at the small pays since the torsion spring winding tighter as the payout counter steps up reduces the momentum.  Adding a little more tension on the torsion spring might have solved the issue as well.

there should be a little over-rotation of the ratchet when stepping up to ensure the reset pawl will clear the tooth tip at high payouts when the torsion spring is getting tight.  If you don't have enough overtravel, low pays will work but high pays can runaway (never end).  To adjust that overtravel, you bend the stop bracket tab slightly with something like an adjustable wrench to ensure the ratchet over-rotates.

the other gotcha is worn pivot points in the step-up arm.  If the holes/pins get too sloppy, then the step-up momentum can over-rotate the ratchet. 

[frenchmarky]

Just dialing in the pivot/roller bracket up or down was a fine line between getting the overtravel to a minimum while still having accurate 100 and 200 coin pays where I wasn't getting like a dozen or so extra coins paid out.  I tested/retested it out manually rolling coins under the roller with the disc really wound up to make sure it was still reliably advancing and then rechecked to make sure big pays were accurate and the glitch was still not reoccurring.  I have good overtravel on the teeth on the wheel regardless though.  There was just way too much overtravel at the top of the stepper arm and the spring before I started.

Also when I finally got the two super-tight outer screws on the roller/pivot bracket loose I found I could already slide it up and down - the two inner screws were loose!  So the pivot/roller action should be just a little bit 'tighter' now with all the screws tight.

[Pinballwizard55]

Just to satisfy my curiosity, does your machine have an original 25 cent hopper disc, or was it turned down to fit a different coin ? The wizard .

[frenchmarky]

How do I determine if it was 'turned down' to use quarters?  The disc uses quarters and doesn't appear to have had anything done to it but I don't know what to look for.

[Pinballwizard55]

IT should be marked 25 or 25 cents. another way to tell is if there are several grooves going around the edge of the inner raised part of the disc, that is where the cutting blade trimmed the metal down to a lower level to accomodate a larger coin. For example : converting a nickle hopper to a quarter.This process can sometimes lead to high and low spots on the disc which would encourage an occasional coin to slip through causing an overpay or double pay. The wizard.

[David Walz]

IT should be marked 25 or 25 cents. another way to tell is if there are several grooves going around the edge of the inner raised part of the disc, that is where the cutting blade trimmed the metal down to a lower level to accomodate a larger coin. For example : converting a nickle hopper to a quarter.This process can sometimes lead to high and low spots on the disc which would encourage an occasional coin to slip through causing an overpay or double pay. The wizard.

Using a caliper will determine if it's has any issues. 

[frenchmarky]

I don't see 25c marking anywhere and not sure where that would be, but there is a band of fine grooves about 1/4" wide going all the way around at the bottom of where the coins sit so I guess it must have been turned down.  Anyway the problem has yet to reoccur so the disc is apparently not a problem.

[DavidLee]

If I understand correctly, you have a machine that pays on the diagonal.

For example.
This could be what’s going on.
A single cherry on a play line pays 2.
If a cherry lands in the middle second pay line and there’s a cherry in either left corner.
 You now have a 2 cherry payout of 4.
Resulting in a total 6 coin payment.
Providing the required coins were inserted.

[frenchmarky]

For two cherries diagonally is should pay seven with all five lines lit - - two for cherry on line 1 or line 3, plus five for another cherry at center (diagonal), and that was working fine, but I was occasionally getting 6 (sometimes 7) with only the one corner cherry.

For good measure I put a stronger spring on the coin kicker, found that it could handle a stronger one than the one that was in there, it had seen better days). 
And I slightly widened the upper slot hole of the pivot roller assembly so I could pivot the assembly back just slightly, enough so the quarters now roll just beyond the old track in the roller that had the little divots gouged into it.  So quarters now ride maybe 1/32" or less further up the roller, no big deal.  Placed a very thin piece of shim between the case and the assembly just above where the one inner screw bolts it down on the inside to compensate, so everything is still mounted solid.  Should make the coin kicker more effective (edge of quarter under the roller not being snagged by the divots as the kicker tries to push it out) and make the coin counter arm move more precisely without any variance caused by the divots.

**After a lot more playing & testing I've come to the conclusion that the gouges in the coin roller wheel, insufficient coin kicker spring and the misadjusted stepper travel putting too much pressure on the roller+coin were the final culprits, preventing some coins from being kicked out.  Was likely getting occasional 1-coin overpays on other payouts too but they wouldn't have caused the same kind of noticeable hiccup like the 4-coin pay glitch, and of course I wasn't counting every single payout.  I suspect the forward lash of the contacts as they stepped wasn't a real issue, the torsion spring tension was correct and the lash seemed like 'normal' operation of the counter wheel even when at lowest torsion spring tension.  Problem has not reoccurred in a week of playing.

[frenchmarky]

Fixed another glitch.  After playing the hell out of it for the last few months, a couple of days ago it started randomly shutting completely down (looking/acting the same as if it was unplugged, coin diverter not coming on, no lights, zippo.)  It could blink off and back on for a couple of seconds or might stay shut off for minutes at a time.  The fuses were not blowing and it didn't seem to be related to the jackpot timer auto-shutdown stuff (no red light, and pushing the jackpot timer reset bar didn't do anything).  Cord looked fine, didn't act up if you pushed/pulled on it.

Wiggling the wires around down near the fuses I could see *very* faint sparks on one transformer lug as the game went on & off.  Turned out one wire connected to that lug had developed a loose solder joint.  Easy fix!