Need help bringing an EM Bally 831-ZF back from the dead

[clk71]

UPDATE


OK, last night I came home to find my topper off ebay had arrived (that one hurt to buy even more than the $50 belly glass, it cost me over $70 after a minor bidding war). I figured I would start simply by just installing it and lighting up the machine so I could take a picture of how pretty it is.


Put the marquee on top, changed the reels to a non-payout combination to avoid any other hopper fuse blowing, and replaced the fuse that blew last time the hopper was going. This time the fuse was the 5A, 120v fuse. Turned the game on and wouldn't you know it, the top marquee bulb doesn't light now. It had been working, now no. The bulb up there was going through a period where it was flickering during handle pulls (vibration) but had been working.


I know I have one problem, one of the bulb holders had a partially cracked off casing (see pic) but it was working. I had put a piece of electrical tape over it to avoid any shorting, and it was up in the air working without the metal topper case over it when I was blowing fuses.


The ballasts in the belly were disconnected from the circuit, so no problem there. The ballasts for the top of the coin door and the topper are mounted in the case to the left of the reels (see pic). The bottom one runs the bulb in the top of the coin door and works like a champ. The top ballast runs the topper bulb.


Do ballasts fritz out a little over time, then die completely? I am unaware of how ballasts die. Is it possible that some internal problem with the ballast was killing my 120v fuse? Maybe one of the old dried up insulation ballast wires was causing a short? I don't think the wiring was bad because they were working up until last night.


I will have to sort out the topper bulb before I can continue on to clarify any hopper problems and the blowing of the 8a fuse. I still do not know if my cleaning/aligning of it took care of the problem at that end. I have attached pics of my hopper pivot arm assembly and knife.


The pivot arm pic shows where the torsion spring I am missing goes, and the weird switch set up.


So parts I have to track down:
pivot arm torsion spring
pivot arm switch assembly (maybe?)
fluorescent bulb holder
ballast

[Amechanic]

Wow... That's weird.. I've never seen a switch on a hopper in that location. You are grounding that lower contact to the roller lever. I would remove that contact from its location and figure a way to keep it out of the way, then try your hopper again. The only was for that not to cause a shot would be if there was a card board insulator under that lower contact between it and thee lever. Can you take pictures of the hopper and switch from a different angles and show us where those wires go?

I guess you could just put a piece of black tape under the lower contact as an insulator and see if it blow another fuse. But to me that looks like your problem!!

Gary

PS. I have the spring and socket

[clk71]

Will do. I'll take more pictures tonight and post them tomorrow.


That switch does seem weird! Especially the way the housing is covered in tape to keep it from rubbing against the case of the machine when the hopper is inserted in the cabinet... there is very little clearance when it is in there.

[RiseLikeRa]

This is a great thread!  I am a novice compared to most.  Early on after getting quite confused by all of great advice from the list I went old school.  The advice was right on I simply did not know the names of the parts, and still dont, so I got confused.


I turned off all of the lights and created a completely dark condition. With my little flashing in hand, I created a condition that previously created a short. FLASH!  I saw a spark that caused the short!  When I turned on the lights I was able to go right to the source and correct it in seconds.  Its been many many years so I dont remember what it was but this method did the trick.


Dont give up!


Ra

[OldReno]

Your picture, pivot arm assembly shows a switch touching bare metal.
Your hopper is a mechanically stepped hopper, it does not require a switch to count coins, as that is done by the mechanical linkage that steps up the payboard.
Please, bend or remove that switch out of the way and then try it again.

[Jon]

Chris if you look at page 104 of your manual you will see there is no spring on that step up assembly right there it is only on the electric step up not the mechanical stuff up do not need that spring

[Jon]

and I think old Reno is Right cut the wires to that switch remove it tape the wires off and see what happens I have hundred of hoppers at my house and I don't have any like that

[Amechanic]

I thought he wanted the return spring for the coin kicker.. My bad.. You have a spring in the down link at the back of the coin roller lever. As I said earlier get rid of that contact. It has to be your short to ground. Every time a coin how out its causing a short to ground.

Gary

[Jon]

Gary he wanted the spring on page 108 part number 57 of which is the return spring for the new style electric count up

[Jon]

excuse me tension spring

[Amechanic]

Yea I figured that out. I just wanted him to realize there is a spring on the link connecting to the coin lever.

[clk71]

This is a pic of the cracked marquee socket

[clk71]

UPDATE


The mystery switch may indeed be my problem...


I didn't have time to do much yesterday other than some quick metering and picture taking. I was off trying to find a single bulb ballast for the marquee light with no success (tried Home Depot and and a local electric/lighting supplier)- they only had the much larger double bulb ballast for this size bulb, and even then I would have to take apart an existing fixture to get it. Then got home ready to fix the switch only to find a 100 ft tall, 150 year old beech tree had came down from high winds/storm and went through the roof of my house. What a nightmare...


I though about your posts and that switch could be causing all my troubles. I would blow either the 50v or 120v fuse during hopper operation, after seemingly random numbers of coins were paid out, but always only a few. I though the fuses would blow the second that a short occurred, but maybe they lasted a little longer than usual because the switch was only shorting things for the briefest of seconds, when a coin went under that roller.


After it would blow a fuse, I would find that the OldReno coin door shorts tests came up positive (coils/switch/bulb). When I pulled the hopper out, no short. When I pulled the hopper out and pulled the coin out from under that pivot arm roller, replaced the fuse, and tested again, no short. So last night I checked for shorts if that switch was manually activated without power and sure enough, it shorts.


Here are the pictures of the switch and the wiring trail. The switches two orange wires loop under the pivot arm assemble, behind/under the coin bucket assembly, and connect to the payout relay. One of the wires looks like it was added to the top right relay switch. The other cloth-insulated orange wire is spliced into an orange wire that connects to one of the leads of the payout relay coil.


Now that I see it, this switch was definitely an aftermarket addition! I have no idea what the purpose of it would have been, unless there is a defective switch under the hopper that the pivot arm is supposed to throw but is defective. Maybe it was too much work to take everything apart and fix it the right way (remember the string of Christmas lights in my coin door?). Is there a switch down under there that has an orange wire going to the payout relay coil and another wire going to the right side of the payout relay switches? Looks like those switches are all chained together. I will cut it out the mystery switch later and see what happens.


And thanks for the clarification, I was looking at the electrically stepped hopper diagram. I do have the mechanical one, so no pivot arm torsion spring.

[Amechanic]

One other thing I would do is to remove that cover over the payout relay. It looks like the coins power lead wire could be grounding to the cover, (look at lower pic above)..
You can run the machine without that cover.

[clk71]

UPDATE: Serious Progress!!!!


Turns out that mystery switch was causing the fuse blowing problem. I removed it, put in my LAST OF THE 14 8A FUSES I BOUGHT

[clk71]

<not sure why an incomplete message got posted...>


Put in my last 8A fuse (I bought out the entire supplies of two local electrical distributors here), said a prayer, put some coins in, and


VOILA!  [size=78%]No more blown fuses from the hopper! My daughters tested it for about 30 minutes and the short problem appears to be solved. The previous owner must have removed the fuse protection because of this switch, and because it must not have been causing a problem. Until a real serious short appeared and cooked the transformer! Great catch, guys!!![/size]


No we just need to do a little refining to get it going 100%. Here is the list of existing problems as I see them:


Minor problems:
Marquee bulb holder needs replacing
Marquee ballast appears bad (was working but flickering with vibration, wiring checks out, bulb is new, tried with the old and a new starter). Amechanic is looking to see if he has the parts for me.


Bigger problems:
Random payouts  - When the first reel stops, at random times (not on every spin), always with a blank on the first reel center line, the hopper pays out a small, random amount of coins. This process starts when the other two reels are still spinning. I will take a picture of my reel wipers when it is in one of the error payout positions so we can see what needs to be adjusted.


Over pay - Bar Bar Bar combo is supposed to pay out 20 coins. I hit it once and it paid me 25. My girls hit it a couple times, but scooped the coins out before I could count them.


Handle lock up - After the girls played for 30 minutes, the handle started acting weird. They put a coin in, handle released fine, pulled down, but it seemed to get stuck once it got all the way down. Takes pushing down/jiggling to get it back up to start the spin. What needs adjusting? This condition is still present.


Feature lights - When are the feature lights around the payline lights in the top unit supposed to flash? At any payout (like the lowest payout, 20 coins for barbarbar)? My lights are not flashing.


Feature lights - Beau plug connection in the top is loose. The paylines light up, but the bulbs are bright or dim depending on if I am pushing in/ lifting up on the feature unit. Is there a "right way" to correct this?


Thanks again!!!!! I will post whole machine pics once I get the topper light up and running.

[Amechanic]

Glad to hear we are finally making progress..  Now lets try to address a few smaller problems..

First... I need to get my  outside and find those ballast and light socket..

Second your handle problem, I think it's one of two problems.. 1st oil your gearbox that your handles is attached to, the main cross shaft could be dry. Remove the reels and try the handle.. Hold the lever on the top of the gearbox and pull the handle, is it stiff? To release the handle, push down on the flat release lever sticking out the back of the gearbox. Have a hold of the handle so it doesn't slam back up and possibly hit your in the head.     Next I would remove the white air cylinder on the right side of the reels.. Inside you will find whats left on a rubber seal.. They turn sticky or tar like after 40 years of use.. Clean up all sticky rubber/tar from the plunger and inside the cylinder.. Now what I do is to apply just a very small amount of a light grease to the piston and inside the cylinder, and I meen a small amount... If you use too much it will squirt out of the air hole in the bottom of the air cylinder and all over the back wall of your machine, I learned the hard way... There is no original seal for the piston, but someone has found one that can be modified to work by cutting out the center of a wheel cylinder. You can find that post here on NLG.. If you do use just grease, remember to hold on to the handle after you spin the reels, because if you let go it will slam back to the upright position. I hold on to the handle till it's back into the upright position.. If you go with buying and modifying the wheel cylinder, the handle will return slowly as new.. In all my machines I've repaired, I've just used grease..

Your outer ring of lights on your feature unit should only light on your machines largest jackpot..

Last is the feature unit dimming light.. Your going to need to try cleaning the beau plugs contacts on the male plug. A small wire brush or a scotch bright pad works.. I have taken a very worn out emery-board for filing nails, and cut it down to fit into the female beau plugs sockets to clean them.. I spray the WD40 on the female plug then slide the cut down emery-board in and out of each connector 3-4 time.. When your finished I do one of two thing next.. If I have contact cleaner I will now spray down the female beau plug and the male plug, then use compressed air to blow it dry.. I have done the same with rubbing alcohol, I have a spray bottle with with rubbing alcohol in it, spray down the plug and dry.. If you use the rubbing alcohol make sure everything is dry before putting it back together.. cleaning the beau plugs should fix this problem, if not you can try giving the male plugs a small twist, but not too much and be careful, you can break one or crack the beau plug.. 

Gary

[clk71]

UPDATE


While the cleaning progresses and I wait for parts, I did a little more research into the random payouts when reel 1 stops on a blank.


I played the game until the machine had a random payout, then pulled the reel assembly out and marked on the first reel's disk where the contacts were when it paid. I put the reels assembly back in, played until I got another random pay, and sure enough, the position on reel one was the same.


Here are pictures of the wiper arms on reel one in the pay-on-blank position. Do you guys see anything here that I don't?  It can't be coincidence that the random paying starts as soon as this first reel indexes in this position. Where should I be looking?


Thanks!

[OldReno]

Some ballys have a feature where the hopper mixes itself to ensure it does not jam up from coins getting clumped together.  This is especially true on machines with infrequent pays....
Does it payout then, or just does the hopper start turning to mix coins in the bowl?
Generally this only works about as long as the fan is spinning and one of your C switches closes (or opens)
You can push back on the variator above the clock to test it again with it on the pay.


Have you checked this troubleshooting guide -- http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=19336.0
It may give you help with your reel wipers alignment...?

[Amechanic]

OK... I went back and looked at the pictures of this machine.. It looks to be a JPO, jack pot only machine.. This would explain your first reel question.. As OldReno said these try of machines will stir the hopper but do not pay out at that time.. This happens when the first reel stops in a certain position, the hopper cycles for a couple seconds then shuts off, BUT it should payout any coins..

Gary