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I have an old E series machine and today, cleaned and lubed the reel mechanism.  In looking at the reels that I had removed to get at the interior parts, I had a thought about the reels. They spin around so must have bearings or bushings so it seems like they should be oiled or greased.  Is this necessary?

Also, the handle mechanism shown in my E series book does not match the one in my machine.  Tomorrow, I am going to just oil and grease almost everything inside and outside mine if it looks like it moves except for the latch pawl pivot if mine has one.

Last question.  My machine gave a number 41 error message before I did this.  I understand that this means a problem with eel reader number one.  After pulling the reel mechanism some time ago, I noticed that the number 1 reel was not spinning.  I released the index lever and after that, the reel spins freely.  Because of this, I am going to try running the machine again before pulling the reel reader to see if lubrication somehow fixed the 41 error message problem. 

In looking the reel readers over, it looks like the two sides of this are wired and I am wondering if there will be any problem in disconnecting the wires or if there is any special technque needed when doing this.  I will send if off to repair if it gives a 42 message when placed in the number two position.

Thanks for all your help.  I was able to get this far only because of help from all of you and in taking it apart, I learned at least a little about the operation of these machines.

Hi again... The reel reader is two boards connected by the wires you see. The right side of the reel reader as your looking at the machine is the side of the light source, either 50 bulb or 5v inferred. The left side is the photo trans that see the light through the holes in the disk. You just need to have the reels out, then loosen the 2 mounting screws holding it in place, then remove the plug on the bottom of the reel reader and it's out...

Hi amachanic

That was easy. 

I swapped reader card number 1 with number 2 and the error message remained as number 41. 

Next, I swapped reader card number 1 again (oriiginally number 2 reader card) with reader card number 3. 

Then, an error message popped up and it was 91 instead of 41. 

I don't know if this is a good thing and when I read about this error message, it says that this is a "tilt" message indicating an inconsistancy in the previous readings in reader number 1 position.  I need to find out how to address this new error message and when I find out, I will do whatever it says and post the results.

Thanks again for all your help.

here is the Bally code list
it might help.

The times I got 41's and 91"s was due to
the reels not spinning the right speed.

Today, I swapped card readers with the results shown above.  After swapping reader 1 with reader 3 and getting that number 91 error, I read the manual again and noticed that the 1/16th inch clearance is on the left board, not the right.  All of the clearances were way more than that so that has probably been the problem all along.  It was that way when I bought it from a man who bought it for his mother 20 years ago and he ended up getting it recently.  It went to his garage and was not being used by him and he said he knew nothing about slot machines.

I reset all three readers to my guess of 1/16th of an inch and none of them rub on anything.

Earlier, I had to go trim some trees so shut the machine off after getting the 91 error message.  I also hit the reset key before shutting down although I did not see that it did anything.

When I came back in, the machine is running perfectly.  I hope it stays this way.  All I did with the machine that might have mattered  was lubricate everything I could see according to the manual and reset those clearances.

This has been a good learning experiece and I also learned how to build a handle to use on the reels when they are out of the machine.  In the next few days I am going to have the handle and pin welded and then put it away for the future.  I also figured out how to build a wrench without welding anything and if I do it again, will do it that way.   In the next few days, I hope to post photos of all of the parts for the wrench that I made before assembling it and will take a photo after welding.  I will also give my idea on how to build an operable wrench with no welding.

Thanks again for all your help.

Proten

Thanks for that chart.  I just saved it and printed it for future reference.