New Life Games Tech Forums

I pulled my hopper the other day to replace the knife (never done it befire, but it seemed straight forward), and i removed the 2 screwes, put new knife in and coin deflector back on top, screwed in place and then started to recieve a "Coin Out Jam" tilt message.  When trying hopper diagnostic I hear motor engauge for a split second, but it never actually moves the wheel and the diag reports the coin out jam as well.  I have removed all coins from the unit, found no jams, reinserted and rebooted multiple times with no luck.    I also verified the pinwheel moves freely on it's own manually.

Also, I am even more confusted that it still reports the coin out jam with the hopper removed completly from the machine (with a reboot and door closed or open).   I am not very experianced here as of yet, am I missing something?   Is this normal to report it with no hopper installed?  Any suggestions?

why did you take the coin deflector off?  to replace  the knife you should only remove the two screws and knife.  put new knife in place, the knife should rest on the shelf wheel, then push it back as far as the elongated holes will allow and then secure in place.

put two quarters on the shelf wheel just before the tip of the knife, one each between the tips on the pinwheel, then rotate the small plastic knob on the motor, this will cause the pinwheel to rotate( make sure it is pushing the coins toward the knife)  then watch as the coin goes onto the knife, through the optics and roll out of the hopper. If it does this (smoothly) and does the same for the next coin then the hopper is working as it should.

Jim

Thanks for the reply Jim.

Please excuse me if I used the wrong term.  When I said "Coin Deflector" I was referring to the metal plate that guides the coins out of the hopper that is screwed on the outsife of the knife.  In the part catalog I say online it was referred to as a "Coin Deflector", but I was referring to the one that goes on with the knife.

That test works fine.  Quarters route up the knife and out fine when turning the wheel manually at motor.

Again, more of my confusion lies in that the machine still said Coin Out Jam even with the hopper fully removed.  It is making me thing the problem is not in the hopper itself.  Does that make sence?

Any other suggestions / input guys?  Anything else I should try?

Open and close the main door latch 3 or 4 times. No need to open the door just the latch.

Is this an I game? Did you pull and replace the hopper with the machine on? Did you check you chassis IO card?

Yes.   

Definite Possibility.

What is the procedure to test it?

Do you have a different game to try it in? Or if I remember correctly it is the same as one of the door's IO. Do you know what an IO card looks like? Well just in case it about 5"x5" and has a metal handle on it and the ones in the door might have a harness plugged into the top of it.

Oh yeah it might just need to be pushed back in... try to push it in with the power off and giver' a try again.

Don't forget some of the older Game Kings don't have a IO on the door

Thought all of the Igames did that's why I asked... my mistake.

Found the door IO - harness port is there, but nothing has ever been connected to it.  Removed it by handle with machine off and it looks clean pins all good.  Reinserted firmly and got the same "Coin Out Jam" with door open, and "Call Attendant - Coin Out Jam" with door closed.   I repeated this 3 times to check and no change thus far.

Do you have io cards in the door? If there is one might be the same as the one on the chassis. You could try swapping it with the one on the chassis and see if the error goes away. Also you can boot the machine without it in and see if there is a change.

why did you replace the knife?  were you in the middle of a payout and the coins got jammed behind the knife??  I know on a S+ and S-2000 when this occurs, you have to fix the hopper and get the payoff completed, before anything else will work.  I don't know if this applies to an I-game as well.

If you feel the hopper is good, and you can get into the diagnostics and they won't turn on the hopper to do the tests, then the only item between the hopper and the board is the I/O card.  The I-games I have ,have three I/O cards. one handles the coin/bv, the other the door, and the third was the cabinet/hopper/ optics etc.

Jim   

Yes that is the one I was speaking about in the last post that I removed and reinserted.  I also just tried moving and reinserting the chassis IO card and I received the same message.

Next I tried:
Booting Machine with chassis IO card out.  This added "Meter Disconnected" error to the original "Coin Out Jam" error.  After reinserting the chassis IO card the new error was gone, and it left the original message.
Booting Machine with doors IO card out.  This added "Coin In Jam" error to the original "Coin Out Jam" error.  After reinserting the door IO card the new error was gone, and it left the original message.

Those 2 IO cards are not identical.

The knife was bad from previous payouts, but it was not mid payout when I replaced it.   There are coins in the machine, but I never attempted to cash them out by any means as this error as been there since I changed the knife.

I guess I will locate the hopper IO card next and reseat it?

if you've only got one row of buttons on your player panel then you have a GameKing (aka IGame) machine.  if you have two rows of buttons on your player panel then you have a GameKing+ (aka IGame+) machine.  the + model requires a second I/O card on the door to handle the extra inputs and outputs. :89-

you stated that there was no tilt or cashout in progress when you originally pulled the hopper to change the knife so you created the problem somehow during your procedure.

 :105-

just playin Al Jr.  there is only one I/O inside the cabinet of the machine so don't go spend an hour trying to find the "hopper I/O" board.  when you pulled the cabinet I/O did you take it out of it's metal bracket and inspect the circuit board for scorching? :98-  if you reinstalled the hopper with power on you may have sent a surge through the 24V circuit.  the cabinet I/O is a likely place for the surge to let itself be known so check that out for sure.  if you don't find anything on the I/O i would pull the MPU and give it a visual inspection too, look around the edge connectors for fried traces and look around at the area of the board between the chip sockets and the edge connectors; there's a handful of SMT components that can get cooked when a board is hot plugged.  also i've seen motherboards burn when something is hot plugged so it wouldn't hurt to give it a good visual inspection either.

Well about all I can say is I'm just a little confused. let's see if I have it right, a Game King with one I/O card is called a Game King, Game King with two I/O cards is called a Game King + (plus)  Then a Game King with NO I/O card must be called a Game King - (minus)  The problem I'm confused about  is, what do we call a Game King that has a 10 button deck but one (1) I/O card ??

For you non believer's,   I can take pictures

1 Year 4 months Later and I have had little progress, I would greatly appreciate more input, suggestions or troubleshooting steps to figure out this issue.

At this point I have:

Visually checked MPU and connections and have seen no problem
Cleaned hopper and tested motor out of machine and it works fine in both directions. 
Checked wires to hopper motor and they have solid connection to the board.   
Tested hopper manually and their is no jam it will spit out coins if I run hopper by hand or direct connected to power out of the machine.
Performed full ram reset and keychip - error went away initially - after inserting coins and attempting cashout it payed 2 quarters and came back same as before.
Wired volt meter in line with motor while running hopper diagnostic - System applies power to motor for less then one second when diag is started
Replaced Door & Chassis IO cards (this took a few months to get parts I have no other machines here or local shops) no change in error

What would you guys recommend I try next?

Try doing a search at the top of the page on Coin Out Jam in the I-Game/GameKing board. Someone had this not too long ago. AZslots I believe.

Well you took a lot longer than I would have.  First just take the hopper out of the machine, Game King and I Game will not give you a error if hopper is removed. Are you sure the door optics and OK and adjusted  ?? Try this with the main door closed, turn the jackpot key 4 or 5 times. This should put you into touch screen calibration, at somepoint on screen it will tell you to open main door to complete calibration, if the machine sees you opened the main door then the door optics are good. If it doesn't see the door opened  :103- :103-

CVslots: I searched coin out jam and I have read about 30 threads tonight, and didn't find any related.  Most are threads I read during my searches last year and pretty much all talk about people that don't actually have a hopper and just have it set wrong in their options.  I also read all 4 posts by Azslot and see nothing even close.  Sorry that I couldn't find the thread you mean, if you see it could you link it to me?  I will definitely try any suggestions.  Thanks.

Buzz:  Glad to see your still around here.  I tried the test with the calibration menu.  Everything went fine including the machine seeing the door opening.

I hate to see an unresolved issue.  Wish I had more expertise here.  It seems to me that it just keeps coming back to the optics of the hopper ... a coin attempts to pass through, works one or two times, and then somehow no longer registers.  I believe the knife that you replaced is what pushes the coin high enough to register through the optic.  I wonder if somehow the knife is not getting the coins to pass through the optic?

No need to reply to this and sorry it's not more to offer.  I really do hope you find a resolution.  Hopefully, a hopper specialist will chime in.

Good luck!
:Dave

Also, this was sorta different ... manually turning the motor while machine was on ...

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=13756.msg118591#msg118591 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=13756.msg118591#msg118591)

OK so here's what you do. make a list and on top line write Optics, then draw a line through it cause we now know the optics are good. On the second line write hopper now pull the hopper out of the machine and let's try to get the error cleared without the hopper. If and when we get the error cleared, reinstall the hopper if the error comes back guess what the hopper is NFG.

S 2000 and Game Kings are known to give coin errors when coins have nothing to do with the error. ( I'm betting it's going to be a IO card )

Are you kidding???? Like ornery ever goes away???


Sorry...giggled when I seen it...had to say something...

Roz

One more thought and then I'll bow out ... I had an issue with an MPU one time that caused a similar symptom.  The MPU looked fine to me.  I posted a hi-def picture and one of the techs actually spotted a burnt eprom that didn't show any burnt traces on the backside.  You could post a good, detailed picture of your board and see if these guys spot anything.  Of course, the best way is to try another board to prove the board, but if you don't have another, then posting a pic might help.

I wanted to post back as I got it fixed!  After cleaning the hopper optics and reinstalling I noticed it worked for a few seconds without a keychip, but it stopped after 3-4 quarters.   At that point I tried cleaning it while it was on and Voilà!  I figured it out!  I had a alchohalic secure coin out optic!  Whoda thought it!  Every time I sprayed it with alcohol it worked until it dried out.   When I sprayed it while it was on it would work for a minute or 2, paying out tons of quarters, but sure enough as soon as it dried out it stopped working.   

I replaced the sensor already and machine is 100%, but I thought you all would like to know about my alcoholic sensor! :)

 :105-

So glad to hear you got it working.
Thanks for posting to let us know.
Great job sticking with it!
 :244- :244- :244-
 :259-

Believe I have seen in posts several years ago that you do not use alcohol on optics as they have a plastic lens and the alcohol basically melts the lens.
Glad to hear it is fixed.

I know it's not good in BVs. Try to use water first, to avoid any problems...but hey, it worked, so must not hurt them too bad!!!