Nope you sound like the rest of us.

I'd say it doesn't need to be a coffee table. It's probably just a solenoid

Post pics when you start cleaning and troubleshooting.

Everything is fixable. (and you probably overreacted a little too )

$100 is fine.

Easy fix.

Congrats on the find.

Pics please! You only paid $100 so you should be fine. Hopefully you can get it up and running again.

$10,000 by Christmas with a free fire extinguisher!

$100.00 is just fine. Get it running, and when you feel it is time to go, you could sell it for much more. Wish I could find $100.00 EM pins.

Disco Inferno!

That buzzer sound you heard was most like the coil that caught fire locked on. A buzzing sound traditionally means "shut 'er down!" in the EM world. Unless, of course, your game features a buzzer...

Any EM that's been sitting for years will need to get a good going over inside before plugging them in. Good luck with it. It should clean up nicely.

Another reason to always have the manual nearby.

#smokindeal

Fire sale

That's hot! You will probably having up and running for pennies.

I've lucked in to two "free" machines but felt guilty and ended up forcing them to accept some money. $100 is as good as free. If all the parts are there it's probably a stuck switch and that's it. You might have a coil to replace. Cheap fix.

Very cool art. Can't see the layout very well but I bet it's fun.

I'm sure you can get running with a little elbow grease. Check out RyanClaytor EM threads to see his approach to getting his new purchases running

Great Find!

Great story. Thanks for the laugh. Yep, we are all crazy in this hobby I have decided.

You never played a game of Gin on a beach before?!?

great find. should be a nice game when you've got her up and running

oh, and this:

could have spent the whole day without seein that.

There are multiple things that can make a late-model Chicago Coin coil burst into flames. But all generally fixable.

Some broad things to note:
1) Score reels use a plastic wiper assembly with riveted metal fingers. This works fine until the rivets start to loosen, and things start connecting that should not be connected. The reels themselves are connected with an edge connector, which makes it easy to take the reel itself out to inspect and clean.

Note that those edge connectors have a limited lifespan. Try to do your initial cleanup on each reel in one pass, if possible.

2) Bonus units - the games seem to have very little protection if certain steppers will not step down. Rather than firing a coil multiple times via motor, the coil itself will just lock on (and eventually burst into flames). This saved money on cams on the score motor, but makes for some interesting repairs sometimes... good news is that you generally just have to clean the steppers and install a new coil and you're good to go.

For a Gin, I'd do the typical EM cleanup - go through and (at a minimum) test each stepper unit, stepping up and down until it steps crisply from step to step and resets smoothly. Check all the score reels and ensure that all the wipers are present and not shorting, and the reel steps smoothly with very little wiggle in the wiper rivets. Reassemble and see how far you've gotten before doing further deep cleaning. Also, check your fuse values against the schematic. That's not EM specific, but worth repeating.

Again, this is broad advice - not specific to your problem.

(small plug for my show - early episodes deal with general EM tech - http://foramusementonly.libsyn.com - you may wish to listen to certain episodes related to troubleshooting, schematics, stepper rebuilds and score reel care and maintenance - doing a search on the site should bring up related episodes)

sorry, there doesn't appear to "hide" videos, however I didn't hold a gun to your head and make you watch it

dirkdiggler always happy to help.

Note that depending on the area of the fire, you may have a bit of cleanup, new wires to run or just plain learning to do to get it operational, but the late-era Chicago Coin games are actually pretty good games to learn on (in my opinion).