on variety the game must be cycled for the EB #1/#2 trip relays to trip, so that behavior is normal.

since your EB unit is not stepping at all, the switches you probably want to check are:
- EB trip #2 L1
- CU cam 5B

once you get the EB unit wipers stepped off the reset position, stepping it further is mostly different circuits. But getting off reset is only the above two switches and the wipers pointing at 1:00 and 11:00 on the diagram on manual page 9 (wires 21-1 and 61-2).

if you're bored sometime, pictures of the reflex unit showing the wipers and wiring would be great...or just verify it's the same as this:
https://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/gay_time/resources/reflex-gay_time-main.png

If you ever take apart the mixer shaft to clean it/lube the clutches, yell. The blueprints can be easily made from pictures (see https://bingo.cdyn.com/techno/howto/diagram_mixer/). Only mixer #2 has a significant amount of wires on the contact plate.

even pictures into the mixers without taking the shaft apart would help if you can get angles to see the wiring.

it's likely the mixers and reflex unit are pretty close or the same as those used on Gay Time.

as an example of the mixers, below is a variety mixer picture and a gay time diagram for mixer 1. You can see the wiring is not the same (mixer 1 is on the right) - note lug 7 has two wires going to rivets on variety and gay time only has one rivet connected to lug 7....looks like gay time removed the wire to rivet at position 5, but can't tell for sure at this angle.

DSCN0598 (resized).JPG
mixer-gay_time-1 (resized).png

the 61-2 to 21-1 circuit steps the unit:
- from reset to first step. Nothing lights up
- from 2nd ball -> 3rd panels

oddly, going from 1st ball -> 2nd has to be done thru the 78-1 -> 25-4 -> CU 7A path or the "run to" circuits. On most games that's a guaranteed step, but not on variety/gay time.

variety is like most games...you can't single step your way to getting an extra ball. You must complete the circuit thru the "run to" paths onto wire 75-6. Lighting the "extra" panels via wire 78-1 is a bit of a scam.

anyway, except the 21-1 circuit above, you need switches on EB trip #2 and EB trip #1 to connect the circuit for both the single stepping and the run to. Since you aren't getting single steps or running, but I assume the scores are stepping and the features are enabling, the most likely thing is one of those EB trip relay switches is no good. On both trip relays, it's switch L3.

if you want to use a meter, you can use one probe on wire 70, other probe on wires 74-6 (schem G27), 65-4, 80-3 and 78-1. If you don't see 50V on wire 74-6, carefully turn the mixer 2 rotor backwards until you do. Carefully means make sure the tips of the wiper fingers don't snag on rivet edges and bend the wipers.

if you get 50V on 65-4 and lose it on 80-3, turn mixer 3 rotor backwards.

or use a jumper if you prefer.

thanks for the pics. The reflex is good enough, tho I'm not sure on the number of rivets. Any chance you can take another at the highest resolution you camera can take (biggest picture). It's not a huge deal since the extra rivets aren't used, but I like to make the diagrams look like what's in the game.

good job! A wire broken at that location is pretty rare. Usually those wires break off at the wiper fingers. Was it making intermittent contact? With wire 75-10 disconnected, you wouldn't get features.

thanks for the reflex unit pic. It's almost the same contact plate as Surf Club, except no wire lugs attached to the two rivets on the outer ring at 11:00.

if you're in there again, can you peek at the wiring side of the contact plate and see if there's wires attached to the outer ring rivets at 10:00 and 11:00? If the wires are there, I know where they go. Dunno why they would have the wires tho, since the game doesn't use them. Maybe they were using up inventory of assembled contact plates and wipers or Variety had a design change.

below is the tentative diagram. Let me know if you want your full name on it.

reflex-variety-main (resized).png

the picture's good enough! Looks like they took a reflex unit contact plate from a previous game like surf club, broke off a couple wire lugs and didn't wire the back side of those rivets, then kept the other two wire lugs and didn't use them.

your name goes on the drawing...I just make the diagrams, the hard part is getting the info to put on them.

the only way is seems possible for feature advance to work when wire 75-10 is disconnected is for someone to have added a wire to the game. Assuming the features don't change when playing for extra balls, I'd look for a wire connecting onto 81-6 or 14-8 from some place that disconnects when the EB trip relays trip. See any extra wires added to the machine?

reflex-variety-main (resized).png

just to make sure, you're getting ALL the features affected by the coils between schem A27 and A33, and you're checking for 50V on wire 14-8 on a cycle when a feature enabled (trip relay tripped and/or the magic line/super card unit stepped)?

the way it should work is you leave the meter connected on wires 70 and 14-8 and cycle the machine - typically by manually closing the start relay since the meter is probably back there. You should see 50V at the end of the cycle most of the time to begin with, then less frequently as scores increase.

if you don't see 50V on a cycle that something happened with a feature coil, take a look at how the slip ring wipers are connecting on the spotting wiper hub. For example, wire 14-8 should connect to the spotting wiper running around the third ring of rivets from the outside.

unfortunately, the slip ring wiring is not in the manual. It's on a piece of paper on the game, but the resolution/focus point of my picture below isn't good enough to read it.

the only thing I can think of is the slip ring wipers are in the wrong grooves. If it's not that, then some rewiring must have been done someplace.

for the scores reaching max, the odds may be very small. Check:
- manually step up the unit and make sure it will physically reach the top stop. Sometimes the operators wound the return spring too tight so it can't.
- look for misadjusted open-at-top switch on side of score unit and make sure it's not opening on the penultimate step

if it's neither of those, you need to prove the circuit can work.

short answer:
1] reset game
2] manually step the score unit to step 7 (48/100/192 level)
3] jumper wire 30 to wire 65-3 on the spotting unit (or turn the mixer 3 rotor backwards until you see 50V between wires 80-3 and 70).
4] turn the spotting wipers backwards to a position where the wiper finger on the outer ring is sitting on a 91-3 rivet (manual page 27)
5] manually lift up the CU 7 switch stack (yeah, remove backglass and flip down the panel for access).

the score unit should step to the top step.

if you want to just bypass all the feature proportioning for testing, you can jumper wire 65-4 to 80-3 on mixer 3 and reset the reflex unit wipers all the way....then score advance is only determined by where the spotting wipers stop.

where is wire 65-4 and 80-3 on mixer 3? well, there's not many wires so hopefully you can tell the colors. If not, it's probably the same as gay time....attached below. This is one reason we want to make the diagrams for the mixers. The other reason is calculating the odds so you know if 100+ cycles and not getting something is reasonable

confusing tmi explanation below:
-------------------------------------

first, look at the score unit and note at step 7, the score unit single step wiper 45-6 is connected to rivet 91-3. 91-3 is coming from the spotting disc, so on the spotting disc diagram find that rivet(s). There's 4 of them on the outer ring, and possibly two more if the B rivets are jumpered to 91-3 on the wire lugs.

ignoring score-extra-step, that gives you a chance for score advance to top step of 4/50 (or 6/50 with B rivets connected) from the spotting disc part of the circuit.

that just leaves whether the spotting wiper is eventually connected to wire 30. You need a circuit path thru all that stuff around schem I20. The more features enabled, the less likely there's a complete circuit. And you're at the mercy of the mixer 3 rotor position....affect unknown since we don't have a blueprint for that assembly (yeah, nag, nag again ), but if it's like gay time, it's somewhere around 6/24 to 10/24, depending on enabled features.

worst case, multiply 4/50 * 6/24 and you get 24/1200 = 2% ... not counting the reflex unit and mixer 1. If the reflex unit is not reset enough to bypass mixer 1, and if mixer 1 was about the same as gay time diagram in post 7 above (wire 75-10 on variety = wire 75-5 on gay time), then mixer 1 cuts the odds in half again.

so for worst case, statistically it would take 100 cycles on average to get the odds to jump from step 7 to the top step.

if it costs you 100 coins/credits to get the scores from 48/100/192 to 64/200/300, that's a terrible return on investment. 'course, if the reflex is hooking up more circuits or there's not many features enabled, it should take maybe 30-40 coins/credits to get the score jump....still a profit generator for the operator if you only get 3-in-line.

int-variety-7 (resized).jpg
mixer-gay_time-3 (resized).png

I dunno why I kept talking about/posting diagrams for Gay Time. Variety is probably close to Big Time....except mixer #4 - that is quite a bit different.

only way to know for sure is someone with a variety or variety parts head will need to take apart the mixers and get pictures and/or make diagrams.