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Ok I've been working on a project machine for the past week or two and I have made some great progress, now I'm stuck on this stupid hopper and I don't know what to do.

A little backstory... I bought this machine for $40. Guy said he couldn't figure out how to plug it in and that it was completely non working. I got it home and plugged it in (he was trying to plug the male end of the plug into the service outlet and didn't know what to do with teh female end of the plug after that). Got a reel unplugged error which was fixed by plugging in the reel that was unplugged. Then I had to switch out the coin comparitor since it was a canadian machine with an IDX acceptor that was locked. Once I switched comparitors, I was able to play the game and it was playing fine. Then being the smart guy that I am, I decided to get the hopper in and move on with the restoration. I plugged in the hopper and saw a green light so I went ahead and pushed the cash out button. Immediately got a 3200 error.

I took the hopper completely apart and cleaned everything since it was covered in about a half inch of dirt (the machine was supposedly in a flooded warehouse at one point and it was full of sediment after the water went away). I tried turning the hopper motor by hand and it wouldn't turn at all. I pulled the hopper out of my slant top and took the motor off of it and replaced the hopper motor. Tried it and still got a 3200 error. It would make a buzzing noise for about a second and then nothing. So I took it apart again and realized that someone had removed the little wheels that sit in the plastic behind the coin plate and it wasn't spinning correctly. I pulled the little wheels off the other hopper as well and installed those. Put everything back together again and tried it again. Now its making the buzzing noise and then sounds like the wheel is spinning but still fails. I've even gotten a coin to come out if I open and shut the door enough times. So at this point I'm stuck and don't know what else to do. Should I just buy another hopper and scrap this one or should I try to troubleshoot this one? I've gotten it from just a buzzing with nothing else to hearing it turn but I don't know where to go from here.

I'm still pretty new to the working on them side so I'm learning new things every day. So far I'm enjoying it, but I'll definitely enjoy it more when I get past this issue  :25-

bring the hopper over to my shop some weekend and I'll get it running for you.

Jim


Midwest Slots
Cincinnati, Ohio
513- 984-2201

I wonder if the hopper from my old VLC would work? Its just sitting on the garage floor...

It sounds like maybe the brake is not releasing. Might try manually holding it unlocked and see what happens. If it works you will probably get extra coin out errors, but at least you will be on the right track.

K+ to Jim for a very nice offer.  I hope that crgadyk takes you up on it.  :3-

I will definitely take him up on his offer if I can't get it figured out. I'm enjoying troubleshooting my first project machine so the learning process has been great so far. I'll keep tinkering with it and see if I can figure it out but will gladly take the help if I can't get it working on my own.

Thank you for the offer. Its great that people on this forum are so helpful, its like one big family. Other hobbies I have been into in the past didn't have people remotely as nice or helpful as what I have seen in this forum.

Updated: Hopper is now working. I completely dissasembled the hopper and cleaned every part. The ball bearings in the wheel part of it were all gunked up, cleaned them with a little WD-40 and everything started working. I played it for an hour or so and kept cashing out to make sure things were good and it is purring like a kitten now.

Time to move on to the WBA bill validator. Thats next on my learning adventure  :200- :91-

The day Vegas went coinless,,, How many dump trucks did it take to get all the coins to the bank  :200- :208- :103- :103- :103-

Glad you got it going !! :3- :3- :3- :3-

'Back in the day' I worked for a vending machine company in Chicago. I was just a dumb teenager back then and we used to drive the bags of money to the bank in a convoy of vans. Only one had the money, the rest were 'decoys'. I never realized at the time that we were prime candidates for a getting robbed. :5-

Several years later, I found out one of the owners was taken out.


http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-3758731.html (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-3758731.html)

Should have used dump trucks!