How to reset a mechanical meter in 5 minutes (S+ maybe others)

[poppo]

I did a search but mostly came up empty, so I will document how I reset the mechanical meters on my S+ slot. Other meters may be the same (or not).  It can be a little tricky, but seriously, it only takes about 5 minutes.  I know most people probably won't care about the meters or may even have them removed, but someone may want to know how to do it.

The hardest part for me was figuring out how to disassemble the meter. I had to tear one up to see how to open it the easiest way. The key is removing the clear front bezel and then it just slides apart. But getting that bezel off is not easy since it's designed to snap into place and not come back off. So you start by drilling a small hole just above the little square looking box on the side. Do not drill too deep, just through the black plastic. See picture 1.

Next stick a small screwdriver in the hole and push in and up (toward the front of the meter). This will pop the bezel out. See picture 2.

[poppo]

Now just slide the guts out. Nothing will fall apart (yet). See picture 1. You can see how the bezel snaps into the metal frame of the main unit to hold it together.

Next comes the tricky part. What we are going to do is push the 'axle' that the little white gears sit on out from the left side. Now don’t go crazy here. We just need it out like shown in picture 2. Before I go any farther, it is possible to reset the meter by simply spinning the first digit wheel backwards (it spins easily this way). But if you have several thousand readings it may take a while. But what this means is we don’t need to worry about resetting all 6 wheels. It only takes a few minutes to spin down the last three by hand. So we will not worry about those three. This is good because if the axle is left in on the right side, you can't freely spin the right three digit wheels and won't have to worry about aligning anything on them. And you REALLY don’t want to remove the whole rod or this will take longer than 5 minutes. You will have to tap it gently with something (I used that same small screwdriver). It's not pressed in very hard, so don't be whacking at it.

So now you just turn the left 3 digit wheels so the zeros line up in the front. It's easier to do this if you line up the numbers along the top (i.e. the 7) so you can pay attention to what you are doing with the white gears. Next carefully get the axle back in place. The little gears on the axle have wide and narrow teeth. Just line them all up the same as the first 3 (that you can’t turn because they are still engaging the digit wheels) and it should slide back into place. It's the narrow teeth on the white gears that you want to slide between the digit wheels. Then just push the axle back in from the other side.  

Don't get frustrated at this point. There is not much to mess up as long as the axle stays in on the right side (it won't just fall out on it's own). Just remember all you have to worry about is the left three wheels and gears. Don't worry if the right three digits don't look like they are lined up. As long as the gears stay engaged (which they will), they will align just fine when you get the axle back in.

Oh, and DO NOT use tape to hold the digit wheels in place. Even that blue panters tape will pull the old painted number right off the wheels. Yes, I tried.

[poppo]

Picture 1 shows what you should have at this point. My wheel #3 just happened to already be at zero so all I had to do was spin off <100 counts.

When you are done you should have it back to all zeros as seen in picture 2

[poppo]

Slide the guts back in, pop the bezel back on and enjoy your 'new' meters.

[knagl]

Nice, and great picture documentation.  K+ to you.

Some folks may want to consider setting their meters to a number like 999990 or so to get a few "test runs" of the meter in place instead of starting it at zero -- I think that's how meters come shipped from the factory for that purpose.

[poppo]

Some folks may want to consider setting their meters to a number like 999990 or so to get a few "test runs" of the meter in place instead of starting it at zero -- I think that's how meters come shipped from the factory for that purpose.

Yes. On the last step of manually spinning the last 3 digits down, you can go a little farther and get it to 99999x

If you try setting the left digits to 999 instead of 000, you will have to spin the right 3 digits up instead of down. And it's a little harder because of the ratchet on the solenoid. So it's easier to spin 000000 backward how ever many digits you want. I popped one back open and spun it back to 999991

[CaptainHappy]

  to POPPO for documenting his process so thoroughly!

  to KNAGL for adding a good suggestion too!

CaptainHappy

[slot monkey]

Great job poppo