If you use one of Steve Young's cords note that if your machine still has the retaining metal band for the cord under the head, it will need to be removed, or you will have to remove all the sheath to the point where your wires go under the metal part. They are made to hold flat cord with 2 conductors, not rounded with 3. You may also be able to take a circular file to the wood under the metal.

You can certainly ground the game if you want... but a two prong cord should be similarly safe. Woodrail vs. metal rail. EM vs. SS. If you have a lineup of DMD machines with the ground cut off or not - there's no exposed metal that can shock you on a bingo (at least that I can think of). And if there were, the maximum is 50V. Also, the doors are wooden - just less possibility of shock.

Bingos are great to work on as a result.

I usually use one of the cords that Steve Young sells and cut off the green wire inside the sheathing. Most of my games don't have the metal retaining plate any longer.

Hey Steve, you can hook the ground to the transformer plate - assuming that it's not rusty or otherwise a poor conductor. But what's the point? It's certainly possible I have a fundamental misunderstanding.

But if the transformer is grounded and nothing else is... what are you protecting? The transformer will be grounded, but everything else in the game will float.

The metal retaining plate is a very small oval-shaped thick piece of metal that goes across the power cord channel cut into the bottom of the head (on a Bally). It's frequently missing. I don't have any pics, but I'll see if I can snap one next time I'm under a game. It's really small and basically is nailed to either side of the power cord channel.

Agreed - with the exposed wiring inside of a game, and using a ground braid as Vid recommends in the linked post above, it will be trivial to shock yourself quite badly. Touch the exposed braid and the exposed power side of the relay bank. OUCH! Now you have 50V flowing nicely to ground. Through your body. Hope you didn't touch the motor wiring! That's 120V. Without grounding, you'd have to touch both lugs.

Metal rails can be a problem. Coin doors too. But we're not talking about metal rails.

I may just misunderstand.

Truly, I would like to know how, in a woodrail bingo, with their much higher quality of insulation between the buttons and the player... how you'd get shocked. I would also love to know how you suggest 120V would get to you. No, 50V is not safe, but it's a heck of a lot better than the 120V on the coin door of Gottlieb woodrails.

My point is that the same approach does not work for everything. I consider safety a high priority. That includes my safety as a technician. You're not preventing damage to people, nor equipment by grounding a bingo... at least as I understand it.

Wooden legs, wooden rails, wooden coin door, no more than 50V exposed even through a short (and there is very little wiring that could even reach the components that matter in the coin door (buttons).

There's no coin slot on the front door, etc. There's no exposed metal that can possibly come into contact with any wiring whatsoever inside a bingo except for the buttons on the front. And it would be a very dark day indeed (fuse blown) if that did happen.

If I'm putting myself or others in danger with that line of thinking I'd be happy to understand it so that I can keep others safe.

While I agree with grounding solid state and some other games, in this particular case I think it overkill and you're likely to get hurt doing it or cause damage to the game. Or if just grounding the transformer, not really doing much to help.

Agreed, test your outlets.

We're talking about swapping the cord. Hard to buy a non-polarized plug these days.

Then you'll have a different problem. You'll likely notice the game smoking at that point... and the smell of wax burning! Line fuse will blow.

Look over your game. Again, unless someone ran a bunch of wires to somewhere they shouldn't be and left them uncapped (will be very obvious).

It's a nice idea. But, again, if I ground my leg bolts, what is that really gaining me?

Fuses. This is the same protection that has existed for this for decades. It's cheap, & pretty darn reliable.

When the transformer shorts from wax melting it will either catch fire or blow the line fuse. Maybe both!

Sure they did. In games with circuit boards.

If only because of ul requirements or to protect the safety of their boards.

Laziness is possible sure. Using a ground braid is still dangerous.

Better to use a ground strap. But again, you're gonna need to ground every stepper, every motor mount, every everything. You're much more likely to screw up that hack than to replace the cord correctly.

But that's both sides of the argument.

Think about this: my 90% metal toaster purchased in the last two years is not grounded.

Except mine is not class II. I did learn about appliance classes, so thanks for that! Mine does not have the double square symbol printed anywhere on the sticker, impressed into the body, etc. (I should probably get a new toaster...) I won't cut the power cord open to verify, but the other indicators are missing.

Man, you're absolutely right - I made a blunder up there (duh! Sorry, gonna chalk that up to the crummy week I've had.) - you cannot be shocked by touching both ground and hot (that's the whole thing it protects you from...) - if the ground is properly isolated/connected throughout. That was my fault. If there's tingles, no, it's not properly connected somewhere. You're right that you will not be injured, however, you will be tripping the breaker if the braid comes into contact with something odd.

Here's the thing, the inside of a bingo door contains two stacks of switches. There's also a coin mech. The outside of a bingo door contains two buttons - red and yellow. Depending on the year, they were either plastic or metal. The metal ones have a non-metal covering/end that actually presses the switches (I don't know what kind of covering it is - it is black and feels like rubber). There are also heavy-duty switch insulators there, too. It does depend on the vintage.

What can short? The switches could short if the insulator fails. The switches could short maybe somehow if the button was destroyed inside the coin door... what would happen? Well, if the insulator fails, then you will get a quicker press of the start relay, or your 50V fuse pops.

If the button insulation fails, then it's theoretically possible you could be shocked.

Ditto for the coin return button. There's a coin lockout relay which sits under the mech. If someone clipped a lead and didn't tape it, then the coin return could shock you.

If the ground braid/strap is installed inside the coin door and attached to the button inside (that'll be a trick, [the inside of the button mostly sits in a small routed channel] but doable) then yes, you would be prevented from a risk of a shock.

So to recap, a ground will prevent risk of shock. On a woodrail bingo with three metal components... I find any scenario to be highly unlikely that would cause a shock. I realize that it is protection against the outliers.

P.S. sorry for the delay in responding - I was playing my deathtraps.