(Topic ID: 178167)

Gottlieb Add-A-Ball Count Unit ?

By Playdium

7 years ago



Topic Stats

  • 7 posts
  • 4 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 1 year ago by dmarston
  • Topic is favorited by 3 Pinsiders

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#1 7 years ago

For this "AAB" game, I have attached several photos of the add ball unit. I am trying to understand the circuit, and would like to know the home position of the wiper disc.
The 5 lamp leads are shown on the right of the unit, BL, OR, BR, GR, and SL. 6 volts is being supplied through the chassis, as well as 6 volts at the leaf switch shown on the left.

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#2 7 years ago

You didn't say which game this is, but that looks to me like a lightbox advance unit, not a ball count unit. On Italian GTB games, and later year (around 1976) domestic GTB AAB games, the WOW function was on a separate stepper unit from the ball count unit.

On these games, the ball count unit starts at 5 and counts down toward zero (game over) as each ball is played. During the game, the ball count unit never goes up. Instead, when a WOW (add-a-ball) is scored, the lightbox advance unit lights from one to five WOW indicators on the backglass. Each WOW indicates one add-a-ball. So, for each ball in play, you can win up to five add-a-balls, but no more.

It is the lightbox advance unit that steps up and down as WOWs are made, and then played off. When the ball drains, if one or more WOWs are lit, then the lightbox advance unit steps down, and the ball count unit doesn't move. In other words, the ball count unit will only step down when the ball drains and there are no WOWs on the lightbox advance unit.

The reason that the lightbox advance unit is so complicated is because the later GTB AAB games could be adjusted to be played in NOVELTY mode rather than AAB mode. In NOVELTY mode, it is not possible to win any add-a-balls. This setting was provided for those locations where even winning an extra ball was considered a gambling winning. When in NOVELTY mode, a WOW scores some very large amount of points. That means that the player may score several hundred thousand points during the game. Since the score units only go to 99,990, there needs to be some way to keep track of the 100,000 score level when the game is in NOVELTY mode.

So - when the game is in NOVELTY mode, the lightbox advance unit serves a completely different function. Instead of counting add-a-balls, it keeps track of 100,000 score levels. It works just like an old bulb-scoring woodrail in this regard. Each time there is a carry from the 10K score unit, the lightbox advance unit steps up one step. At each step, it lights the next higher 100,000 point score on the backglass - 100,000; 200,000; 300,000; and so on.

The rather complicated circuitry on the lightbox advance unit is there to provide functionality for either AAB or NOVELTY mode. The adjustment plugs in the game that switch between the two modes cause a fairly significant wiring change in the game. So it's somewhat non-trivial to fully understand the circuitry of this unit.

- TimMe

#3 7 years ago

Thank you very much for the in depth description. This is the "lightbox advance unit" for a Team One. Someone previously had their hands into it so I am unsure as to the home position of the wiper disc. I did look at the schematic for this stepper and was dizzy trying to follow it. Positioning the disc should be all I need for this. I already cleaned and lubed the ratchet arm so it moves freely.
So the other contacts on the left of the main disc are probably the 100,000's score lights.

#4 7 years ago

When the switch that rides the edge of the disc is in the detent, the unit is at the 5-WOW position. So you can reset the unit all the way, then step it up exactly 5 times, and put the disc on so that the switch is in the detent. That will put the disc in the correct position.

- TimMe

5 years later
#5 1 year ago
Quoted from TimMe:

So - when the game is in NOVELTY mode, the lightbox advance unit serves a completely different function. Instead of counting add-a-balls, it keeps track of 100,000 score levels. It works just like an old bulb-scoring woodrail in this regard. Each time there is a carry from the 10K score unit, the lightbox advance unit steps up one step. At each step, it lights the next higher 100,000 point score on the backglass - 100,000; 200,000; 300,000; and so on.

This dual nature of Lightbox Advance will be the subject of a deep-dive technical seminar at Pintastic New England 2022.
.................David Marston

4 months later
#6 1 year ago

This was a fantastic post and helped me understand some problems with a Lucky Hand not giving out any extra balls (neither WOW nor point thresholds). I discovered that they're two distinct paths.

WOW:
1. The WOW feature relay had to be enabled and all switches making good contact
2. When activating the bonus it goes thru another relay (in this case V) which was the WOW relay that advanced the Lightbox

Points:
1. Configure points properly in the backbox
2. On the 10,000 reel, both the board and switch underneath the coil must be clean and making good contact which directly advances the Lightbox

It's pretty slick - the fact that there are 2 paths to advancing it was different than earlier AAB games which simply increased ball count

4 weeks later
#7 1 year ago

The technical seminar from Pintastic 2022 has now been put up on YouTube.


It was hard to get good audio for the whole seminar because of the way we were moving around, but you can get the idea of Add-A-Ball Mode vs. Novelty Mode, and what it would take to combine the two.
.................David Marston

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