(Topic ID: 187735)

Grounding an older EM?

By mrbanjo

6 years ago

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40 posts
18 Pinsiders participating
Latest reply 1 year ago by ThePinScientist
Topic is favorited by 8 Pinsiders

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Quoted from FlimFlamMan:
Mine is not on freeplay and instead uses quarters. What does the coin lockout relay do and when/how is it activated?

It allows the acceptance of coins. Back in the day (especially pre-1967, 1968 era) it was not easy to tell when a machine was turned on but hadn't been played yet, as before the 120V hold relay was eliminated, the machine would turn on FULLY DARK. Entirely no sign of life. Later around 1967 Gottlieb removed the 120V hold relay, leaving behind only the 30V hold relay. Machines after this (EMs) powered on in "TILT", as that is actually the default state of the machine and it is "powering itself away from tilt" 100% of the time it is not tilt rather than "powering itself into tilt" the small amount of time it is tilted. Interesting way to do it, but it is how they did it. Fun fact: If you powered on a pre-1967/1968 Gottlieb and manually pressed in the 120V hold relay but NOT the 30v hold relay, it would just be in "TILT", much like how they started up later down the road. It shows the "stepping stones" of the two relays and how they function (a little).

Anyways, the coin lockout relay is ON when the machine is ON, and obviously vice-versa, they are both off at the same time. So when the machine is off, the door automatically rejects ALL quarters - and when it is on with a properly functioning coin lockout relay, it will accept them.

It sounds like yours is not working right, is stuck on, or has been partially removed. Except, you are on the "good side" of the flaw whereas you can leave it as is and be thankful that it is still accepting quarters for you and doing what you want it to do.

Quoted from Chrisbee:
Not sure this is totally correct. The coin lockout will be in operation while the machine is resetting. But will accept coins once the machine has finished the reset process. Depending on the machine, as a rule it will return any coin that is added while the score motor is mid cycle but accept coins when at zero position . And yes it also returns coins if the machine is off.

I was actually just using that as a basis for on/off and didn't go far enough in to talk about score motor cycles, but yes, that is also very true. Did not mean to infer there are not little points when it is off when the machine is on, I was mostly focused on the part of when the machine is off/the coin lockout is disabled and just comparing and contrasting. Good point to make, though. I'd simply just book it under "not covered" rather than "incorrect".

Quoted from FlimFlamMan:
Thank you both and that explains a lot. When I got this machine it had a single coin mech in it, but it was non-operational and a short on the replay reel had been purposely done in order to set the game to freeplay.
Last week I decided I wanted the coin mechs to work, so I ordered in the missing one and set out to fix the one that came with the pin.
A few YT videos and a good cleaning later the original mech was working like new. The next day the mech I ordered arrived and it too was working perfectly.
So I installed both into the pin. After running dozens of quarters through each successfully - in my hand and on a table - suddenly as soon as I put the mechs into the machine they were both rejecting quarters. Every quarter. Every single time.
So I took the mechs back out and sure enough they both worked flawlessly out of the machine 100% of the time.
After much trial and error I was finally able to replicate the rejection issue by holding the mech angled towards it's reject slot while I inserted the quarter. This caused both mechs to reject the quarter every time.
So naturally I put a level on the pin and sure enough the cabinet was way off level. Not only that, it was leaning in the direction of the reject slot. Aha I thought I had found the culprit.
This started a troubleshooting session that lasted for hours and hours.
But after leveling this machine over and over again every quarter was still rejected.
Finally I had given up on the coin mechs for the night and decided to focus on trying to fix a buzz coming from the machine. I traced the buzz to what you have since told me was the coin lockout relay.
I desoldered the leads from the coil on the relay, which did away with the buzz.
I also noticed a "spring finger" tied to the relay that seemed to extend into a small slot in the back of the coin mech. I put a piece of tape over the slot in the mech since I had just disabled the lockout relay, thereby keeping the spring finger out of the mech.
When I put the mechs back in the pin Viola! Coins were being accepted 100% of the time.
Now after your explanation of the lockout relay I realize that this was the problem with the coin mechs all along. Evidently the coil for the lockout was stuck in the reject position, thereby causing every coin to be rejected as if the machine were powered off.
Well at least I learned how to disassemble and clean a coin mech. And my pin is now level.

There ya go! Yes, I was a bit stumped on how the relay/coil was still in place, disabled (just now), but still took quarters.

Also, in the future, make sure you don't hit the credit limit when troubleshooting as I would assume should shut the lockout off (turn the "lockout" on... to be specific. But coil off) as well through the maximum credit switch (there is one of those on the credit unit), so putting two and two together I can only make a very reasonable assumption but honestly never tested it out with a game that still had one hooked up or took the time to look at that with the credits maxed. If it's a normally-closed switch too that probably makes it even more likely...

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