New Life Games Tech Forums

Not sure if this is in the right section or not but I throw myself to the mercy of the slot repair gods  :131-
I bought a used slot last weekend that was in non working order. Didn't know anything about it but the price was right regardless. Now the project begins to get her up and running. From what I can see I think it is a Bally 5000 Series. The sticker on the inside with all of the error codes says Series 5000 on it and the metal piece on the outside says it was made in 1992.

When I got it home and plugged it in I was getting an 83 error. I tested the Lithium battery and it was dead, so I replaced it. Now I'm not longer getting the 83 error but I'm not getting anything on the screen. I left the machine plugged in for 2 days and for a while I was getting strange things happening. It seemed like it was cycling on and off, you could hear a click and then things would power up and then a minute later it would click again and those same pieces would act like it had no power (I was testing the hopper at the time). Now I get nothing and I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to get this working. I'm brand new to slot machines (I have a King Camel Pachislo slot but this is my first American made) and I'm fairly  :59- to working with electrical components so bear with me.

I took pics of the entire machine in hopes that someone will see it and know what to do. I have several pictures if anyone wants to see more than I have on here. I don't have a manual for it so if someone had a manual in soft copy that would be a great first step for me. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
 :99-

Here are a few more pics just to make things clearer.

I have IGT machines......so I profess no specific knowledge of this platform.
I am responding only because no one else has and this will keep it at the top of the forum in the hopes that someone else has a specific solution.

The battery is a good catch on your part. This is what holds the game memory and you will get a battery low error when this occurs.

The next thing I would check is all of your fuses. Use a multimeter as just looking at the fuse is not reliable.
If you find a bad fuse swap it out.
With the hopper still out close the door and see what happens.

If the game appears to play open the door (shut off the power) and replace the hopper.
never ever pull  or install parts with the power on.

After you replace the fried fuses - IF you are finding more blowing I would first check the wiring that goes through the hole on top to the candle. The metal is very sharp and this is a common place for wires to short.
On my machines the last time this happened I took a soda straw, slit it down the side and then taped it in place to protect the wires.
Quite often candles are removed for transport and the removing/installing is when the wires get a nick and the fuse blows.

The other fuse blower is the hopper. One stuck coin - or more commonly a wrong coin or other foreign object can cause problems. The hopper jams and you blow a fuse.
There is a device called a hopper knife that can get broken and then parts fall into the hopper and get stuck behind the wheel.
I had to take mine out to replace the knife a few weeks ago and took it apart for good measure I couldn't believe the number of cig butts, coin wrappers and crap that was caught underneath. (Just Gross !)
This is why I suggested leaving the hopper back in.

Good Luck

Here's a case of misery loving company. I too got a Bally 5000 in nonworking condition as may first project. We're gluttons for punishment. Mine was partially gutted and took me awhile just to identify what was missing. At least yours looks like it has all the pieces-parts. I've finally got mine "almost" working. It has a case of herky-jerky reels but that's another story. Let's talk about yours.

I've read enough in these forums to learn that this series Bally can be an unreliable pain-in-the-butt. The power supplies are particularly unreliable. The first thing you want to do is measure the voltages. Fortunately they're real accessable (the screw terminals at the top of the power supply). You should have +5V, +12V, -12V and +24. The +5V is the most critical.

The only time I've gotten nothing displayed on the front screen is when I didn't have the main board fully seated. Since you pulled yours out to replace the battery, pull it out again and make sure you didn't accidentally bend a pin or disturb/unseat anything on that board.

I know a little less than Jay about a 5000.   Looking at your pic. it looks like the battery has been changed to a button battery, most of the Bally's I have worked on, had a jumper connection that can be removed to save the battery when not in use. In your pic I see a jumper ( right below the battery ) that's open.  Could it have possibly fell off when you changed the battery ? Check it with a meter and see if it has 3 volts on one side.

The more I look at the Pic. the more I think I'm wrong.  

There wasn't anything on that jumper before but that doesn't mean its correct. I bought this thing without much info at all. The woman told me it worked the last time she played it but it had sat unplugged for 6 months or more and then it wouldn't work. I figured for $50 it was worth a shot.

I'll check that jumper with my multimeter and will also check out the power supply to make sure the voltages are right. Thanks for the insight so far, I'm hopeful that it will work soon.

Ok, finally getting around to posting back on here. Sometimes life gets in the way of hobby unfortunately. I think we've pinpointed the problem to the power supply. There is some corrosion and whatnot on it and we are losing voltage when it goes into the black box. I know there are people that rebuild power suppliles for these machines but does anyone on here have a schematic for this power supply? I have a friend that works on electronics like this that I could fix it for me if he had the schematic to look at.

Thanks

Your new battery looks a little bit too big – are you sure your mpu board is connected properly to the backplane board? Error code 83 is a ram error – after changing the battery, have you cleared the ram? The jumper on j14 in normal play is short in j15 located in the lower left sideof the board. You only need to change during ram clear.

The battery might be the wrong one. I just replaced it with the same model that was in it before but that doesn't mean it was correct.

The MPU board feels like it sits in properly but I'll definitely unseat it and put it back in.

I was troubleshooting the 83 error but I'm afraid that the power supply might have went south on me though. I had an electrical engineer friend look at the ps and he tested it. Everything looks fine until it gets to the black box. At the bottom left of the box it says it should be at 115v and its only at 1.5v. They followed the current from the wall to where they found a problem.

I'll take a look at the jumpers you are talking about today.

Thanks for the insight, if you have any more... feel free  :131-

Your „black box“ is the power supply and when 115 vac not go in, there can’t be any output.
The 115vac input is easy to follow – it straight comes from the line filter – also check the 5a fuse  and
the power switch. With 115vac input ok you can check the power supply:
6 = dc.com.
1= power good
2= -12v
3= +12v
4= +24v
8= +5v

Ok I tested the power supply last night. On the bottom left hand side of the power supply I'm getting 122v where it is supposed to be 115 so I'm gettting plenty of power to that point. When I test the screw tops up at the top though, I don't get more than ~2v on any of them. From that information it leads me to believe that maybe I just have some bad capacitors or something inside the power supply that is causing the power loss.

Anyone have a schematic of the power supply or a manual for the Bally 5000?

there are two different ones. i'm not shure, but this must be the schematics for the black one.

Thank you very much. Now I can at least understand what is going on in this thing. And I have the black power supply so that is perfect.

I saw another post of yours in a different topic about replacing the power supply with an AT power supply and a 24v supply seperate. Would that be easier than trying to repair this one? I just want it to work, not too caring about keeping it all original or anything like that. I'm not opposed to changing it up if that would be an easier proposition.

I just have a lot of quarters that I'm itching to put in this machine  :25-

I think I've come to the conclusion that rebuilding the power supply myself is just too much. I don't have the skill set to do it properly and I'm afraid I would just do more harm than help.

This is a real longshot but... does anyone know anyone in the cincinnati/northern kentucky area that works on older bally machines? I would much rather have someone come in and fix it up. IF not, I've talked to the guy from slotdoctor and he was really nice so I might just ship my power supply off for him to rebuild it for me.