Expert: Rodger Knutson - 1/26/2010

Question
When the coin receiver gets quite a few coins in it , the machine quits accepting coins and they fall inside the machine case. I discovered that when I empty some of the coins out  and reset the machine it starts accepting coins again.First I tried just resetting the machine and the solenoid would not energize directing the coins but when I emptied out some of the coins the solenoid would re-energize with the reset. Is there an adjustment on the tray or something that needs to be adjusted?

Answer
Hi Lee,

Interesting, but a little hard to understand for me. The coin receiver or coin acceptor (as it's called) does not hold coins, so I have to assume you mean the coin hopper located inside the machine and located at the bottom. Let me try to explain this as short as possible. The inserted coins pass through the coin accepter, once it is accepted as a good coin it passes the acceptor and triggers or togles a coin switch wire as it passes, that coins up the game. Now after this, it can go two different ways. If the coin hopper is full of coins, (and this is adjustable) a coil and diverter plate, located right under the coin switch wire will Not be energized, the coil will be relaxed, allowing the coin diverter plate swing free and out, moving it out away from the coins path, which will then allow the coins to go to the drop shoot, (funnel with hole through the base of the machine) and from there, they were intended to fall through the machine and into the base cabinet where they landed in a bucket, called the drop bucket. If the coin hopper is low on coins, this coil will be energized, pulling in this coin diverted plate and diverting the coins into the hopper scoop and hopper to be used for payouts. OK, we have that down on paper now, this is important, when you first turn on a Bally E Series machine (powering the machine on) this coin deflector will always be in a de'energized state, until right after the first play. At that time the machine will check it's status and if the hopper is low it will pull in the coin diverter plate directing incoming coins into the coin hopper, so after turning the power on to a Bally "E" series slot machine, the coins for the first play will always be diverted to the drop bucket slide until the machine finishes the first play and checks its input status, and at that time it will decide what position it wants the coin diverter plate to be in. As for adjusting the hopper for the amount of coins you want in it, there is a way and it is adjusted by the weight of the coins in the hopper scoop. But first!, you do not want to allow your coin hopper to hold a ton of coins, if you do, you will have hopper jams! As that many coins in the hopper will jam the hopper up under use. You will find a micro switch at the bottom of the hopper, if you press down on the hopper scoop you will notice that the scoop depresses a little, and you can move the hopper scoop down a little and springs will return it. If you do this and look at the base of the coin hopper at the same time you will see this micro switch being pushed in and out, this is your adjustment for the hoppers coin weight amount. This information is all in the Bally E Series manuals, do you have a Bally E-Series manual? If not, you really need to have one for this machine, I have to refer to it all the time to know what the error codes are, and what needs to be done to reset the machine after a tilt. you can get one here:

http://jackpot7.freeyellow.com/page21.html

There are about 5 different E series manuals listed there.

I hope this has answered your questions and helps you find the problem with your Bally Series E Slot Machine.

Thank You
Sincerely

Rodger Knutson
http://www.coinslots.com