988-32 in the house

[pinballgod]

I wanted to introduce my self, just picked up my first slot machine, Bally 988-32, "non working"
I have some experience working on SS and EM pinballs, so some things look familiar.
But I am a complete novice on Slot machines
She is one heavy mother, but I got her in my garage over the weekend.
I have so many questions and apologize in advance for my lack of knowledge.

To start, it does power on so that is a plus, but it does not "coin up."
Does the door need to be closed for operation?
It appears some hacking was done on the door and the coin acceptor, maybe a missing deflector?
pictures attached any thoughts on this?
Thanks in advance, Phil

[DavidLee]

Not real familiar with $1 machines.

Have you tried activating the coin switch manually?
The coin switch activates the coin relay located on the hopper bottom left corner.

The coin relay would be the first thing I would check.
For continuity among the closed contacts.
You’ll notice this switch has a latch mechanism.
The first coin unlatches the stack, thus causing opposing contacts to make connections.

Also, on all components like pinball machines.
Check for broken wires, contacts out of adjustment, burnt coils, and missing springs/parts

It’s possible to pull the handle and spin the reels manually without a coin.
This is accomplished by pulling the handle release lever STOP forward.
The stop lever is located on the top side very close to the front of the handle ratchet mechanism enclosure.
Pulling it forward will allow the handle to be pulled.
This in itself might reset the machine to some degree.

[63mini]

pinballgod,

 It appears that you are missing both the "coin in" switch and the diverter paddle.  Also, your reel glass shows a one-dollar denomination.  It looks like it is for a small coin dollar by the spacer settings.

[pinballgod]

I believe the coin switch has been cut out(?),(the wires directly below the Coin Mech are "capped" off  and the diverter associated with the solenoid behind there is missing, although the solenoid is energized & "warm" when the machine is on.(see picture)
That lower switch that is intact on the door, does trip a solenoid or relay somewhere in the reel assembly from what i can hear, but does not trip the handle release.
(i can trip the handle release solenoid manually to pull the handles and allow the reels to spin, but nothing happens beyond that.)

Do I need to replace/reconnect the removed micro switch, maybe?

The missing switch on the door and some other cut wires on the left side of the reel assembly appear to be the only visible hacks.

Thanks so much for the help!

[pinballgod]

pinballgod,

 It appears that you are missing both the "coin in" switch and the diverter paddle.  Also, your reel glass shows a one-dollar denomination.  It looks like it is for a small coin dollar by the spacer settings.

So much to learn,

Is it job 1 to reinstall a "coin in" switch?

I've dropped a few quarters through the coin mechanism, and they did carry through to the bottom of the machine, but was thinking I'll need dollar size tokens or coins to make this functional?

Does the hopper need coins/tokens in it to function?

Thanks for the information &
Sorry about the dumb questions

[63mini]

pinballgod,

  The capped off wires are for the coin switch.  You will need a new switch and coin whisker.
  The lower switch would be for the coin drop.  The sound you hear is probably the coin drop meter advancing.
   As for the coins. You don't need coins to function.  However, if you hit a winning combination, you would then need to manually trigger the payout, or the hopper will run until it times-out.

[DavidLee]

The machine might of been set up for free play.

Un-cap the wires. With the power on, quickly touch those wires together to see if there’s any response.

[wolftalk]

familiar looking paperwork for what should be a nearly identical machine is in https://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/

look in the 988-7/ dir for paperwork and pics of another game are in 988-29/pics/

I assume you're comfortable with the bally schematics, wire ids, etc. ... it's the same as the EM pinballs.

for the coin switch:
wire 30 - COM
wire 74-1 - NC
wire 23-1 - NO

so ya need a standard 3 terminal coin switch as used in pinball machines.  Looks like someone put a three terminal switch in for the ramp switch 63mini discussed already, so may want to see if they connected it to act as the coin switch instead.

you can simulate coin switch operation by touching 30 -> 23-1 then connecting 30 -> 74-1.  74-1 needs to be connected or handle release and the payout circuit is dead.

your bigger issue is that without the coin diverter armature on the coil, coins dropping out the bottom of the mech will just fall into the overflow chute instead of being sent into the hopper.  For now, you can just make a diverter flap to always send the coins into the hopper (see 988-29 pic of the inside of the door to get an idea of the shape) ... I'm not sure if the dollar diverter is bigger/different or if I have one you can have.
 

[pinballgod]

familiar looking paperwork for what should be a nearly identical machine is in https://bingo.cdyn.com/slots/

look in the 988-7/ dir for paperwork and pics of another game are in 988-29/pics/

I assume you're comfortable with the bally schematics, wire ids, etc. ... it's the same as the EM pinballs.

for the coin switch:
wire 30 - COM
wire 74-1 - NC
wire 23-1 - NO

so ya need a standard 3 terminal coin switch as used in pinball machines.  Looks like someone put a three terminal switch in for the ramp switch 63mini discussed already, so may want to see if they connected it to act as the coin switch instead.

you can simulate coin switch operation by touching 30 -> 23-1 then connecting 30 -> 74-1.  74-1 needs to be connected or handle release and the payout circuit is dead.

your bigger issue is that without the coin diverter armature on the coil, coins dropping out the bottom of the mech will just fall into the overflow chute instead of being sent into the hopper.  For now, you can just make a diverter flap to always send the coins into the hopper (see 988-29 pic of the inside of the door to get an idea of the shape) ... I'm not sure if the dollar diverter is bigger/different or if I have one you can have.

Awesome thank you, will be working on this

[pinballgod]

pinballgod,

  The capped off wires are for the coin switch.  You will need a new switch and coin whisker.
  The lower switch would be for the coin drop.  The sound you hear is probably the coin drop meter advancing.
   As for the coins. You don't need coins to function.  However, if you hit a winning combination, you would then need to manually trigger the payout, or the hopper will run until it times-out.

Thank you!

[wolftalk]

btw, the mirror in the bottom of the door is ... something.

normally the bottom has a backlit "belly" glass and an insert plate with fluorescent tubes on the front, and the starters and ballasts on the back.  You can see the parts in the 988-29 pics.

looking at your pic, you don't have the ballasts or starters and no holes where they could mount.  Is the plate gone and you just have a chunk of mirror installed in the frame at the bottom of the door?

if you're bored, send as many highest possible resolution pictures of your game front and internals to slotpics@cdyn.com and I'll post them on the bingo site. 

If sending from a phone/tablet, send "actual size" (so they are a few MB each).  All sides/top/bottom of hopper. reel mech, inside cabinet and top insert board are ideal since the pics have enough resolution to zoom in to see details and try to include all the wires in the pic.    Ya can also stick files/video on a cloud/sharing site and I'll go fetch them if preferred.

[pinballgod]

btw, the mirror in the bottom of the door is ... something.

normally the bottom has a backlit "belly" glass and an insert plate with fluorescent tubes on the front, and the starters and ballasts on the back.  You can see the parts in the 988-29 pics.

looking at your pic, you don't have the ballasts or starters and no holes where they could mount.  Is the plate gone and you just have a chunk of mirror installed in the frame at the bottom of the door?

if you're bored, send as many highest possible resolution pictures of your game front and internals to slotpics@cdyn.com and I'll post them on the bingo site. 

If sending from a phone/tablet, send "actual size" (so they are a few MB each).  All sides/top/bottom of hopper. reel mech, inside cabinet and top insert board are ideal since the pics have enough resolution to zoom in to see details and try to include all the wires in the pic.    Ya can also stick files/video on a cloud/sharing site and I'll go fetch them if preferred.

Will send pics in the coming days, thanks again!
(I think there are just (2) ballasts and starters in the cabinet, (1 for the upper glass on the door and 1 behind the progressive jackpot reel counters in the upper cabinet.)
there do appear to be 2 (#44?) light bulbs positioned behind the mirrored belly glass, that are lit but serve no purpose since the mirror whoever installed is solid.

[wolftalk]

the #44 lamps are probably for lighting the coin tray.

the bottom glass should be G-359-xxx.  I'm not sure what the dimensions are.  I think I only have G-350-xxx sized belly glasses laying around. 

anyway, below is a pic of the diverter that I found.  It's probably what you need, so email me your mailing address and I'll send it to ya.   

Is there still a spring on the coil you have?  If not, I'll take a guess at stuff I have.  Pretty sure it's a reddish spring with around 7 turns/loops on the body of it.  Key thing is not too strong or the assembly will buzz.

to install the diverter, you need to bend the metal finger above it enough to get the thing on ... even if you remove the coil.  There's probably a limit to number of times the finger can be bent before it breaks off, so may be worth removing the coil to minimize how much you bend and/or try to bend a different spot around the 90 degree area rather than where the finger attaches to the relay frame. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a complete relay/armature assembly to send ya.

[pinballgod]

Hopper pictures with quarters laid in

[pinballgod]

Hopper Left Side and Rear

[pinballgod]

Wires cut on the Reel assembly

[wolftalk]

there's shouldn't be any bare wire splices.

the area around the cutout hole in front of the reel mech is for meters.  You may have meters mounted in there and they connect to wires bally had on the left side of the reel mech.

your hopper looks like a quarter will work, but it may be set up for SBA dollar coins which are pretty close in diameter. 

the coin mech in the door looks like an imonex V9 which is quarters or close-sized tokens.  I've never seen one.

if the game is complete and the imonex works like a typical acceptor, you'd need the power on when inserting the coin.  You can remove the mech and hold it vertical, then drop a coin in the top of it.  If it comes out the left side (looking at the side of the mech you see when it's installed in the door), then it liked the coin.
 

[pinballgod]

Finally able to spend some time this past Sunday, and got the diverter, (thank you again Wolftalk!) installed so coins are dropping in the hopper now. Although I have not found the short between the coin switch and the coin relay, i was able to run a jumper wire to the coin relay and get the coin relay to actuate and everything after appears to be generally "functioning," (the hopper is engaging and counting quarters mostly correctly I believe)
I need to work back wards to find the short, (most likely and unfortunately the reel mech plug/interface will be the problem, since there is evidence of repairs/hacks.)   

[wolftalk]

there's 2 or 3 switches in between the coin switch and the coin relay coil.

you may or may not have a "reel 1 snap switch", which is a microswitch mounted on the top plate of the reel mech to the left of reel 1.

yell if the schematic and a voltmeter or jumper wire isn't finding the problem quickly.  If the paylines are enabling and resetting when you play multiple coins, then the only things left are the reel mech plug connection and the switch on the coin relay itself with the blue/red (21-1) and white/black (58-6) wires on the blades.  Needs to be closed when the coin relay is reset/latched after a spin.

[pinballgod]

Absolutely will be working backwards, (it does have the snap switch on #1 reel), (after checking continuity on several of the switches in general, I went straight to the coin relay with the jumper to see if it would "coin up", because I wanted to drop a few quarters in and pull the arm and watch it spin.)