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I picked up several I games about a year ago, including this Texas Tea.  When I bought it, the machine only accepted about 10% of the inserted bills.  Now it doesn't accept any bills.  They will go in all the way and then get rejected.  I've tried all four directions/options when inserting bills and none work.  There's only a few hundred credits left on the machine and I'm worried it will become nonoperational when I run out of credits. 

I tried cleaning the bill acceptor with a Lucky Stripe cleaning card, but the machine doesn't accept the card.  It will go in maybe 2 inches before being rejected.  This cleaning card was accepted by the other I games that I have. 

Does anyone have any suggestions or know how I can get this repaired?

Thanks for your help!

Here's the cleaning card that I used....

Open up the bill exceptor head and wipe the optics and clean the rollers

Fear NOT.  Exchange the bad BV with one of the other I Games and see what happens.  If the exchange works, load the Texas Tea up with credits and switch the BVs back. Then we can see about getting the bad one working.

Thank you for the advice.  I apologize if what I’m asking is common knowledge.  To clean the rollers and sensors, I assumed that meant I should flip up this part of the bill acceptor.  I ran an alcohol swab over the entire red area (top and bottom) as well as the four white rollers on top and the two grey rollers on the bottom.  Is that all I was supposed to do?  I gave the area an hour to dry before closing the acceptor and powering up the machine.  To my delight, it accepted the first bill ($10) that I inserted, but then it only accepted one more bill ($20) out of about 25 that I tried.  I took out the two bills that worked and tried to reinsert those hoping they’d be the “magical” bills, but both were rejected a second time as were the rest that I tried a second time.  I’ve noticed that the service light comes on after a number of bills have been rejected.  It also seemed like it took a while for the bill acceptor entry color to change from greenish to yellowish indicating that it was ready to accept bills. 

Your idea to exchange bill validators is a great one, but I'm a little hesistant to try that at this point because I'm not really sure how to remove it and don't want to make the problem worse.  If all else fails and I need a new bill validator, is this everything that I would need to buy?

http://www.slotmachinesltd.com/shop/parts-accessories/mei-bill-acceptor/ (http://www.slotmachinesltd.com/shop/parts-accessories/mei-bill-acceptor/)

Thanks again!

Mark  Wish I could help you but truth is I don't know what kind of BV you have, I've never seen one that was RED on the inside. Someone else will have to jump in.

Could be your bill limits are set to low for the machine to except any more bills. Go into set up and set the bill limits to 3 thousand dollars. That's the max you can set.

Good thought on checking the bill limit, may be set ridiculously low (either intentionally or accidently).

Also, since the validator looks like an older Mars/MEI, it may not accept newer, colored bills. Not sure what age bills were tried? But that doesn't explain why it took the $10 once and wouldn't take it again...BUT, buying a replacement should be the last resort, unless the current unit is proven bad.

I would clean it again, with water only, no alcohol, and see where it gets you. Clean all the optics inside until the Q-tip comes out clean.