Bally 1090 - Converting to Canadian dollar.

[Border01]

I picked up a number of Bally 1088, 1090 and 1091 slot machines that have been in a warehouse for years. I know 0 about how they work exactly. The majority of them are $1 denomination. The coin mechanisms have magnets so they are designed for American coins. Not sure what ones?  I would like to convert them to accept Canadian $1 coins (loonies) is that possible?

[shortrackskater]

I would check other sources but Suzohapp carries a coin mech for the Canadian dollar. The other problems you're going to run into are the hopper and the coin head. Maybe a US half dollar hopper could work? The Kennedy half dollar is about 3.5mm wider in diameter... guessing here but it might handle the Canadian dollar. I'm not sure about width though. I'm going to PM one of our experts on this and hopefully he'll chime in. 

There's another member here that's restoring an EM back to dollars... he may be interested in some of your left over parts! I'll PM him.

https://na.suzohapp.com/products/coin_doors/42-3066-101

[jay]

Loonies and Toonies (our two dollar coin)
Are roughly the size of a US silver SBA dollar.
A CC-33 should work just fine along with a dollar hopper.
(assuming S+)

As I know nothing about Bally.

Here is a link to the sizing of a loonie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loonie

[jay]

I need to correct my post above.
I said silver dollar but it’s the Susan B anthony that is the same size.

https://www.google.com/search?q=diameter+of+a+susan+b+anthony+dollar&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-ca&client=safari

[Border01]

I appreciate the information. I will do some more checking into the reason the hopper is jamming up. I will also try a few other hoppers and hope I get something working

[jay]

On the S+ The hopper has a wheel that lifts the coins and then they roll on a composite plastic arm called a hopper knife. These do wear out, become gummy due to deterioration etc. I run mine on tokens similar to the size of a quarter and have had to replace all three of mine not ping after acquiring the slot.

Someone else will need to jump in here as I have no experience with the ballys and not sure if the hoppers are similar.

[DavidLee]

You’ll need a hopper that takes quarters, a 25 cent coin mechanism and some re-wiring.
But before you do anything, somehow try the small Susan B. coin in a quarter machine to see if will work.

Easiest thing to do would be to use American dollar tokens.

[Border01]

The ones I have that used American nickels were easily converted to Canadian by removing the magnet. I was hoping I was just over looking something on the $1 coin machines.

[wolftalk]

the two things you care about:

1] getting the coin from the drop chute into the hopper

for this, you either need a correct coin acceptor or fiddle the existing one to make it work.  If you don't really care ensuring it's the correct coin, you can hack up an acceptor (or remove it and cobble together a chute) to make the coin come out over the coin switch.

2] getting coins in the hopper to come out and be counted properly.

there's two styles of hopper and each style may have an electrically or mechanically stepped payout counter.

there's a pinwheel where the coins ride on a ledge, get picked off by the coin knife and exits under a roller arm that teeter-totters and either closes switches or a linkage mechanically steps the payout counter.  If you can get the coin to exit the hopper, you can usually adjust the height of the roller arm/linkage to make it work if the diameter of the coin is within a few mm of what the pinwheel was designed for.

if ya post a picture of your hopper showing inside the bowl with your coin sitting on the ledge at the top near the roller arm, that'd help.  If you can't post due to size restrictions, email pic(s) to slotpics@cdyn.com and I'll downsize them and post them here.

[Border01]

I am unable to reduce size to this site from my phone. I sent an email to slotpics@cdyn.com. The first coin popped out over the hopper and than the coins got jammed up in the hopper. Hopefully the jam is recognizable in the photos. Thanks for the help

[jay]

If you email the photos to Yourself you are usually given the option to small medium or large.
Generally speaking the medium and definately small will all you to save then upload as attachments.

[wolftalk]

doom and despair!  Your main problem is the coin is wedging under the "pins" on the larger disc.

on the bright side, you have a new/snow hopper, so in theory you can replace just the shelf wheel - the disc underneath the black plastic star agitator - with one that has a larger diameter.  See the bally 5000 manual in https://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/bally_manuals/ ... pages 16/18 part #15.

you need the top of the coin to more-or-less be around/above the rim of the bigger disk.  Kinda like where the raised up coin is in your first picture below.

the pics you emailed me were sent small ... I assume you didn't send them "actual size".  However, for this purpose they are good enough.

question is, where can you get a different shelf wheel.  If you have a bunch of machines, it may be more cost effective to make them or get them made as it's just a flat metal disc with a few holes in it.   

a hack would be a ring made of metal or plastic that fit around the shelf wheel to increase its diameter. 

do any of your machines have an appropriate disc?  Also, do any have a hopper with plastic ball float in the bowl?  If yes, those are the old style hoppers with more complex one-piece discs that you'd need to replace or do the ring hack.

you may also need something around the coin mech to make sure the coin drops down directly onto the coin switch tripwire, but that can usually be kludged.

[Border01]

Wow that’s amazing information. I have 10 pallets jammed in my garage and it’s difficult to access machines.  So far I found the Summit machines to be the easiest ones so far. They display error codes. I found a few Bally 5000 plus that show errors as well so that helps me out. I’m still digging and learning a little bit more. Will let you know what I find on the hopper issue

[wolftalk]

wrt to the EM slots, there's manuals in the same place as the 5000 manual that kinda describe how the games work.  The basic idea for all of them was the same as the original 742A machine.

fundamentally, they are all the same:
- coin releases the handle
- spin the reels and they mechanically stop in a random position
- the circuits through the reel wiper boards and payout disc cause the payout relay to power if a win is detected
- the powered payout relay turns on the hopper motor and the ejecting coins step-up the payout counter
- when the wipers on the payout counter step off the "win" copper trace, the payout relay loses power and you're done

the early solid state machines like the E1000  and E2000 series replaced almost all the controlling circuity with a computer board, but the reels still spun and stopped mechanically.   The random position they stopped at was read electrically via optical sensors.

in the EM reel games, the maximum number of stops (symbol positions) on a reel is 25, so the number of possible outcomes is 25x25x25.  That's why the payouts can't be enormous as the worst case odds for a jackpot (if there's only one jackpot symbol per reel) is 1/15625. 

after the E2000 machines, everything was done by the computer board and the reels where just computer controlled display devices that have nothing to do with determining the win.   

e.g. when you spin or deposit a coin, a random number is grabbed and used to index into a result table (like a spreadsheet) which instantly determines whether you won/lost.  The computer then stops each reel on the symbol as defined in the table.   Since it's a lookup into a software table, there's no limit to how many rows are in the table.  That lets you have millions of rows and therefore enormous jackpots.

[Border01]

Well I certainly am learning a lot. I see exactly what is required for the hopper. I’m gonna cross my fingers and hope to run into one that is actually correct so I can manufacture a duplicate

[koso]

I've been working on the same project for one of my machines. Have a 3D printed coin shelf that I will send you if you want to try it.

Ken

[Border01]

That would be fantastic Ken. My email is jbrown@borderpaving.com.

[Border01]

I’m curious what dimensions are of the hopper wheel?  I was just going to make some from stock plastic

[koso]

These are printed at 134 mm diameter and 2.5 mm thick. Very easy to change diameter and thickness this is just what I settled on. If anything maybe a couple mm less on diameter.
Will send you a email and get a shipping address as we don't have postal service in Canada what a scam.

[Border01]

Got 2 shelf wheels from Ken today. Gonna try them out tonight. Will post how they work. Thanks so much to the generosity of Ken!!!