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I thought I was going to look at a 1987 S model like my other and it turns out to be an M+.  I probably should have walked away but I made a low ball offer figuring it  will  keep me off the streets for a little while.  While there, the display came up with cmos.  I hit the reset and it came up with something like set up.  Hit it again and I got winner paid lit and a 1 under it.  Over the the right a 0.   At one point it also said battery and the owner told me he had that message before and changed the battery.    I bring it home and plug it in.  It still says winner paid 1  and 0 to the right.  I hit reset and get into some testing mode that shows input, output  etc but couldn't figure out how to make it do any tests.  I get all the way to the end and get the battery message again.  I cycle back through tests and get to the end and the motor either spins or tries to spin, I can't be sure and then pops a motor error.  I cycled back through about 3 times and keep getting the motor error.  Finally it comes back to winner paid 1 and a 0.  Now I can't get it off the winner paid 1 0 screen with the reset.  I did some reading on NLG to get a better understanding of the machine and start looking it over.  There is a wire off one solenoid on a kicker (now fixed).  The cork wheels are all gone.  One has just the little hub left the other 2 are some random plastic wheels that looks like someone got at the hardware,  one seems perfect for the job the other is crap.  I also noticed the optic for the motor is broken which was likely the cause of the motor error.  The previous owner had the 2 wires from the jackpot reset twisted together ( is that switch a normally closed?)  My first concern is why can't I get back into diganositcs?  Isn't it just the little white button?  Should the jackpot switch be opened or closed?  Does anyone have a manual or at least a set up guide for this beast?

I found about $10 in quarters under the mother board and burned off trace maybe caused by a short.   I have repaired the trace but I need to get it installed and retest.

Check your email for a manual.

Thanks for the manual.  I repaired the trace cleaned the board where the battery "repair" had been made and installed a fresh battery.  It no boots up and tries to kick the reels.  I can get into diagnostics with no trouble and can cycle through the tests.  I need to find or fix the motor optic and fix the kicker rollers and figure out why they are not actuating properly.  Oddly the one with the missing wheel kicks.

Sounds like your on your way to having this one fixed.

At this point when you apply power the reel kickers cycle but it won't read locked until you fix the broken/missing guides.
I have used 1/4 X 1/4 X 1/2" ball bearing and they work perfect. If you have an old Bally hopper around they used these bearings. Install them on the shaft and when the motor cycles they will now lock in the kicker solenoids.

Here is a good supplier of bearings at  good prices .

http://www.vxb.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc (http://www.vxb.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc)

I was going to make something on my lathe or see if there was a nylon roller at the hardware that would work but it sounds like bearings are the way to go.  Looking at the ones in there the previous owner "fixed" one with a checker. 

I have determined that some people should not be allowed to own a slot machine,  or at least they should not be given the keys.  I had to solder a jumper in place on one of the kicker solenoids.  I glued the broken motor optic back together and when I went to test the shuttered rolled right past the optic and stopped about a 1/4 turn off.  It seemed consistent so that led me to believe that the optic might actually work.  I started playing around with the motor and see if the brakes were working and they were not.  I started to feel around for the brake pedal (what ever it is called)  it seemed stuck in and wouldn't come out.  For those that own this model they know you are blind behind the motor.  So I dig around some more and feel something back there.  I fish it out and someone has stuck a ball of tin foil back there to hold the brake off.  I take that and the brake now works perfect.  The motor stops with the shutter in the optic every time.  Why would someone disable the brake.  It had to throw an error right away.  

I found the receipt for this thing where the guy paid $1500 for it in 1994 so I can't understand why they would take such poor care of it.  

update:  closed the door and the motor error gone,  no spin error without reels and kicker so I put the kickers back in and watched the function.  The one with no roller at all would not reset but if I set by hand it would spin.  So all solenoids seem to be working at this point.  I got a decel error which I think was from the reel strip dragging.  I need to get some double sided tape and fix that up. At this point I think I need rollers to finish it up.  I am starting to think that this might actually come to life.  My guess is that the rollers crapped out and the previous owner caused all the other issues working on it.

you will find that 90% of the problems with that machine will come from the reel kickers.  look at #1 & 2  they are hard wired, the ribbon cable as on #3 caused alot of intermittent problems.

bearings are the way too go, Barry @Foxsslots1 usually will have them. the kicker providers three functions, it starts the reels movement, it stops the reel movement, and it knows where the reel is in its rotation due to the optics.

there is a test that will test this three times, also there are individual tests to check each one.  another important area on the kicker units, CLEAN and RE LUBE  ALL of the moving parts, take them apart and do each and every linkage, this will provide many hours of troublefree operation.   do one at a time ------   this way you have a sample to compare too.   you can preform the kickoff and stop features outside of the machine using your fingers to fire the solenoids.

Hope this helps.

Jim

Jim,  thanks for the tip on the kickers.  What should they be lubed with?  3 in 1 lithium or what?

I use everyday household vasoline.


Jim

I got it mostly running today.  I had to lube the kickers and re tape reel strips so they didn't drag.  I put about $20 in the thing without a hit.  I played for awhile and finally won then decided to cash out.  It would not count the credits down.  I swapped hoppers with my s model and and it counted down.  I then slid it from bench to lift while powered on and blew the 8 amp fuse.  I blew the fuse 2 more times trying to trouble shoot the hopper but the game will run if it isn't disturbed.  I just need to track down the short.  I decided to test the hopper in my s and had the same trouble.  Found that the rocker that trips the optic was broken.  I installed the rocker from the s and still no go.  Then also moved the optic from the s and the hopper works fine.  So now I need to track down an optic  and the short and I should be good.  It is amazing how much damage a person can do to one of these.

It is now fully alive.  Thanks everyone for the tips on this beast.  The fuses were blowing because there were another 20 quarters behind the transformer.  I took the entire cpu housing out to check it out.  I also think maybe it came from Caesars Atlantic City.  I found 2 $1 tokens back there as well.  The previous owner told me that the last time it worked it paid out the entire hopper so I think the real problem was the dead optic sensor and he just broke everything else trying to fix it.

One tip for anyone working on an M in the future, if you use the bally hopper bearings on the kicker you will need to press them on and the E clips will no longer fit but you should not need them.  Also make sure not to press them on to far or they won't free spin.

 :244- Congratulations, and K+ for keep us posted on your progress getting this M+ slot back up and running.  I'm sure it will help others in the future, nice work, and enjoy playing it!

glad you got it working.  never had that problem with the bearings, the ones I used slipped right on and I was able to use the "C" ring.

if your machine has the display mounted in the center of the reel glass :  if it would ever go out and you can't find a replacement,  there should be connectors in place to use the side mounted display for the S,S+,  the reel glass would have to be replaced with one from a S,S+ with side mount display, then you have to get a light bar for the coin denom, insert coin and coin accepted. and you would be back in business.

Jim

 

It does have the center display.  Is it a common failure?  Do you know the cause of the failure?   Is there something that can be done up front to prevent it from going out?

didn't mean to alarm you,  I was just stating that if it ever did go out, and you couldn't find a replacement , you had options.

those machines are older versions, IGT doesn't make or support those machines, so I just imagine that parts like that would be hard to come by.

Jim
 

ok,  good to know.  I won't worry about it then.  I was just thinking if it was caused by capacitors or voltage regulator or some such thing I could address them.  They are actually a kind on neat machine since it is actually mechanical.

I do have a question,  Does it work like a stepper slot in that the cpu decides the real position before the spins and just spins to the location it determined with the RNG or do the optic just determine where it randomly stopped and determine the pay out?  I am guessing that it is done just like a stepper slot from a logic perspective.