Bally EM, coin overpay problems

[frenchmarky]

This 873 is driving me wacko!  Seems to most be involving the cherries, and differing by what pay line(s) they are on.  Sometimes I can get one cherry on the 5th line, should pay 4,but it might pay 7, or 14 or 15.  When it does this overpaying, the coin counter seems to stutter for an instant and the 'insert coin/winner paid' lights flicker on, but then it just spits out a few more overpay coins.  Could evendo this stutter/add'l pay once or twice during a pay cycle.  Is there any time that a 100% working 873 would sputter like this normally during any correct pay, or does this definitely indicate a problem by itself?

I tried adjusting the reel wipers nice and lined up on the contacts, adjusted the coin counter (After 5 steps, the wiper should move off the 5 trace, right?), adjusted any misgapped relay switches, coin kicker is working etc.  Again seems to happen more with cherries involving the 5th line.  Cherries usually pay right on top line but even then it's not for sure.  Plums/oranges etc. aren't causing the same issue.  Thank you for any suggestions!

[frenchmarky]

Did some more diagnosing by pulling out the hopper, resetting the counter and plugging it back in.
Examples:
1)  Cherry Cherry on 5th line.  Hopper pays out correct pay of 7, then counter lands on gap between the 7 trace and the 'short' 14 trace.  If the pay stops after 7, if I advance the counter one more step, it lands on the short 14 and pays another 7.  It will sometimes skip right into the 14 pay since that gap is only one space so wiper may touch it during the 7 pay and then continue.
Point is - that short 14 line isn't even supposed to be active, there isn't anything else on the paylines.

2) Cherry on 5th line.  Same kind of thing as above, pays 4 then might stop, or continue with 2-3 more, then stops or continues up the the 14 again.  Seems like the same thing where there are active 'short' lines that shouldn't be active as far as I can see.  I can't figure this one out yet, I'll have to figure out some ways of diagosing this thing that none of the Bally books I have go into.  I'll try to figure out what reel positions cause those lines to be active and which don't, whether they are paying combos or not.

[frenchmarky]

After delving into the books/manuals some more, now I'm not so sure that those 'short' traces should not be active.  It's just that the wiper contact is supposed to stop the pay when it hits the gaps in front of these short traces.  So what I'm speculating now is that from all the use these machines see, maybe the wiper contacts have worn flat to the point that the contact area is a little too fat for these gaps.  After testing and retesting the counter - zero position, disk positioning etc. - that's my first guess so far.  The positioning seems ok cuz when things other than cherries pay off they are accurate.  And even if I adjust the disk so the contacts land centered on these gaps, they can still end up touching the next contact and the end of a pay and continuing with the overpay.  If I aim them a little farther back, then they just stay on the previous trace an extra pulse and that sends it directly over the gap into an overpay too.  Aggravating!!

Anybody ever hear of wiper contact wear causing problems like this?  If so I could either replace the points with new, rounded point ones like for pinball machines, or try dremeling off the front and rear edges of the existing points to get the contact area small again...

[frenchmarky]

Found Foxslots carries new counter wiper blades, I think this will fix my problem, yay!

[Amachanic]

Hi.. A new set of wiper contacts may help, but your hopper could have a problem with the 100 tooth payout wheel, the teeth on it would be worn or broken. The hopper wiper board does have 2 or 4 screws holding it in place. If you loosen them, the wiper board can be rotated to the right or left depending on how far your contacts are off and need to line up. I had to do this on one of my 742 Money Honey to get it to pay correctly.

[frenchmarky]

Since I'm gonna get new wipers anyway, I tried filing down the front and back of the badly worn contact points to make the contact area smaller.  Sure enough the problems of the overpays pretty much went away.  The 100 step wheel looks fine.  I had tried the contact plate adjust, both directions, but those contacts are so darn worn and flat that it was impossible for it work reliably when it came to the 1-step gaps.  I mean the contact area is now as wide as the whole contact, just too big for those little one-step gaps.  They are supposed to be rounded and touch only at a small point.  That's why I ended up focusing on the contacts cuz after trying all the usual adjustments, it was the only thing left that really made any sense for the exact overpays and on what combinations and lines I was seeing them on.  That plus reading the manual about how those gaps and short traces are supposed to work.

I wonder if something like a Money Honey would have any of these 1-step gaps or not, since it doesn't have to account for a cherry paying on two different lines, or having two separate combinations at once added together like a cherry and three plums.  The other machine I had was a similar 809 single line machine and never had any problems like this with it.
 
Once I get the new wipers in I will have to readjust the contact plate again to get it all dialed in.  I'll post again after it's put back together and I find out if I was right or not.  : )  Thanks for your response!

[frenchmarky]

I think I have a secondary issue with the hopper coin fence, was missing the spring and I had put one on that I thought was adequate, but the unit was occasionally still spitting out an extra coin when I was pretty sure it was not the fault of the counter or other issues (Sometimes found extra coin barely perched past the coin stepper waiting to fall out on next payout, but wouldn't be counted.)  So I'm trying some much stronger springs on it, since it seems like this coin fence coil can handle plenty of spring and apparently is meant for it so the fence pulls in extremely fast.
This was making the overpay problem worse since one extra coin can send it past a 1-step gap and into more overpaying, but was also sometimes getting an extra coin when this was not the case.

[Op-Bell]

Since you filed those contacts, you ought to replace them soon, otherwise the rough edges where you filed it may scratch and wear the printed circuit tracks which will give you a whole other set of problems. But congratulations on diagnosing it right and working out how to solve it.

[frenchmarky]

Yeah I just got the new counter wipers and will install them.  Pretty sure the payout wipers are worn just as much as these are too.  Should the payout wipers' points look just like these new ones, i.e. half-moon rounded points?  I'm also having a few payout problems (payout with no winning combo, no payout on a few combos on line 5) and while I adjusted them for centering on the contacts, they aren't centered all the way down the wiper.  I am going to give that adjustment another shot, but concerned that they are overly worn down too and could be causing problems with payouts that might not be an issue if the points weren't so worn out - shorting adjacent contacts etc.  Thanks.