New Life Games Tech Forums

How to fix/check (y)our new machine Part 4

Fixing the coin reject arm and assembly.
Betty's a sweet little gal, unfortunately she's got a wide body (custom 6 reels), and some parts need to be handbuilt.
Today's project is getting the coin acceptor reject arm back in operational capabilities.
Sadly, the left end of the arm is missing its tab which hits onto the reject of the coin acceptor.  Also missing is a left bracket to hold up that looooong reject arm.
Arm shown below

As you know, the right side of the reject lever is pushed down when you push that red coin return button next to the coin head.
Here is where it fits into its bracket.

And here it is in the bracket.

So, looking at the left side of the lever, you see there is no supporting bracket.

Just to the right of my thumb, you can see both the slot in the reject bracket that holds a little arm (missing), and the place in the door where that little arm pokes through to open up the coin acceptor, and wipe the bad coin back into the tray.
The back of the coin acceptor is that brass looking horizontal piece just inside the door.

The space between the inner door, and the outer door is very narrow, so our little bracket must also be thin so that we can screw the door back together.
So, with a little bit of aluminum angle, and a step-drill bit, here is how to make an emergency bracket.  Areas to be cut-off are outlined in black.
Now to get the trusty hacksaw out and start cutting.

Picture of bracket partway finished.

Note that the lower right side of the aluminum has been cut away.  This is to allow the bracket to fit more flush, and narrow the dimensions.
There's a little hump in the door there that we're trying to bypass.

Sizing the bracket to make sure the height is correct.

Note view from the top, how little space there is.

After drilling two holes in the bracket, and marking them onto the door, it's time to drill and tap out for an 8/32 screw.  By the way, I discovered that a thin step-drill works just about perfectly for tapping.  I ran the step drill up to the 5/32 level, and while it may not be quite the correct drill size for an 8/32 tap, with a little work it made some good threads. What is the correct drill size for an 8/32???

Sadly, because the two screwholes are so close together, and the screw head is larger than I thought, the shaft hit on the screw head, and didn't fit.  Now, I could take a moto-tool, and drill away that part of the head later, but I took it apart, and drilled out a hole for the lower screw. I'm thinking the lower screw should be sufficient to hold everything in place, since the thing works with downward pressure.

Come to find out, since we're drilling into very soft pot metal, if you drill a 5/32 hole, you can very carefully and firmly screw an 8'32 directly into the metal without tapping it. When drilling, I cut through the 5/32, and drilled just a bit more with the next step level which is 3/16.  This extra bit of 3/16 allowed me to sucessfully start the screw, and it dug out its own threads. Hopefully there will be no need to take that screw out, which would weaken the threads in the door side.  If that is the case, then we will simply put a nut on the other side.
Next part of this project is to fabricate the working end of the reject lever, the piece that hits the coin acceptor.
Of course, I must try to remember to weld the piece to the reject shaft MAKING SURE that my new bracket is already on the shaft.  Otherwise, I won't be able to put on the bracket....
So, that was my project for the day. No big shakes, but it was fun.
That's it for today.  Last time I posted a lot, I got kicked off of NLG from my server, Charter.  I don't want to chance that again, so will give it a break.  Thanks.

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