BALLY 'SIR PRIZE' SURPRISE!

[OldReno]

If you have a safety timer, it is behind the hopper on the left back corner.  It's the little guy with the red pilot neon light, and the push button that turns the machine back on after a hopper time-out.
Sounds like you had fun, and I had fun too.

[daisyjuke]

If you have a safety timer, it is behind the hopper on the left back corner.  It's the little guy with the red pilot neon light, and the push button that turns the machine back on after a hopper time-out.

Nope.....nothing like that on my machine! The slot works with or without the mystery motor connected. I'll worry bout it later. Somebody this side of the pond might come up with the answer. Problem is, there is little interest in these fine Bally EM's in the UK. Collectors tend to go for Mills,Sega and Jennings. I think it might be because the Bally still has a contemporary appearance. Having a break from the electrics and going to takle the reel glass rebuild next week......if I don't post pics....you know I screwed it up!

[OldReno]

I think the E/M's are much superior to the mechanical one-armed bandits.  E/M's use not only diabolical mechanical functions, but also oddly bizarre electrical by-ways which even to us in the modern 'chip' world, can often rebuild.  It ain't that hard to wind a coil, or get out the hacksaw and file to make a part.
And, they're such FUN to decipher.

[slotsteve]

I agree if you can,t fix a em your in trouble 99% of parts can be made

[daisyjuke]

uk had a  law at onetime where you could get over i think 10 times your betin arcades, in mid to late 70,s we bought cont loads of games that were changed to give 2 spins and pay under 10 coins

I think steve might have had the solution to this machine staring me right in the face. the 'mystery motor' cycle seems to be about 2 spins ie. the microswitches operate. now, if one switch operates the coin relay and  the other the 2nd game light...........? does this make some sense to you guys with experience?

[daisyjuke]

Well, here's an attempt at remaking a reel glass. My graphic, cutting and photoshop skills are rustier than the machine! I'd give it a 6.5/10 and its better than the smashed and peeling glass it replaces. I can live with it.....for the time being. The inserts are wrong as i am having problems with the sizing on the latest version of photoshop. the 'Hold' and 'coin accepted' gels etc. have still to be made. If you half close your eyes and stand on one leg......from 50 yards it looks ok!

[Thompy]

Well done with that, it looks good to me.

[OldReno]

I agree, that looks good!

[daisyjuke]

Thanks, It took a while and the signmakers foil was a b**ch to cut by hand. A vinyl cutter would have done a marvelous job.

Back to the machine....

The wierd stack on the left of the reel mech turns out to be the 2nd game feature. The the wire that feeds reset solonoid for this feature I found cut and tucked in the payout tray lamp housing in the door. The only logical ( at least logical for me) place in the door this could have been connected to is the pulse for the coin switch. This activates the feature and gives you a second game for your single coin. Connected up and this is all good.....1st game light switches to 2nd game light and handle release operates for your 2nd pull. All resets.....GREAT!

One final piece of the puzzle...you can HOLD anytime you dont win. Now the 2nd game feature is working, this makes the game way too easy. According to the general EM manual it is the 'hold bar switch' which determines when a previous hold is made. It is directly connected to the draw relay. If that checks out OK......then i fear i might have shorted that circuit when sorting out the the beau plugs. Might have to back track.

Nick.

[OldReno]

Brilliant work, Holmes...!

[daisyjuke]

Brilliant work, Holmes...!

eeerrr.....that would be 'SheerLuck Holmes'.....!

[Thompy]

Just a flyer of your Bally.

[daisyjuke]

Many thanks Thompy! interesting...the 'solo symbol hits'. my machine seems to have been modified not to do that. the reels check out and are stamped 'SRP-2 #1,2 &3. seems that it is just the reel strips that were changed.

[Op-Bell]

The original Sir Prize was a great British pub machine. There was another one called the Jolly Joker that was practically the same machine with different symbols.

It had a dual coin mechanism, for sixpences and tokens. Sixpences (half a shilling) tripped that gadget on the left side for two games and went to the cash box, and tokens just tripped the token relay for one and went to the hopper. This meant it could pay out up to 20 tokens for the maximum legal prize (5 shillings), allowing the traditional 18 for bells. It had a time jackpot - hitting the secret combinations pound-pound-bar or bar-bar-pound turned it on, and then the next 10 games paid out maximum coins if a single Sir Prize symbol turned up on the payline, which it did nearly every pull. Hold and Draw was controlled by the Hold relay. The switch stack on the left dropped it out in the early part of the cycle, then another contact on the stack passing through a contact on the hold bar pulled it in again towards the end, providing that none of the solenoids was pulled in. Power to the hold solenoids was interrupted by another contact on the right at the end of the cycle. (Actually I believe they are mechanically released by a cam). If the hold relay pulled in, it self-latched with one of its contacts. In the event of a winner, a contact on the Win relay opened to drop it out again. So there would be no hold after hold or hold after win.

Time jackpots were made illegal so the Sir Prize unit in the upper right part of the cabinet had to come out, and then hold was made illegal. After much industry lobbying it was allowed again so long as it was random - the player couldn't know until the coin went in whether he would be able to hold or not. That's what the small cam motor is for. An enormous number of Sir Prizes and Jolly Jokers were reworked for arcade duty with new glass, win wiring and hopper board. You were lucky to get one with original glass but I'm sure the dual coin mech and the Sir Prize unit are unobtanium now.

[Op-Bell]

I should also mention, those are not the original strips - but you knew that. The originals were black background and glowed in ultraviolet light, and the tube above the reels was a blacklight. It looked ultra cool in a dimly lit room. There's a limited selection of fluorescent colors, and the same somewhat unusual hues were used on the belly glass, though it was backlit with white in the normal way.

[Wizard]

I have a couple of Sir Prizes, both of which have fiddled with, mainly the glasses have been altered to remove references to tokens and the Sir Prize feature game. Both fortunately had the "Sir Prize Unit's" still in them and the original reel strips.

Here is a pic of what it looks like: