A few questions about changing the Denom

[Magicslots]

Just for the heck of it, I am thinking about changing my machine from .25 to .05.  I have the set chip that I need.
I will need to get a shelf wheel for the hopper, and a new coin guide to account for the drop in the size.  Is the encoder the same for the nickel as it is for the quarter?
Any other parts I need to change?  Is there a way to change the amount of credits assigned to each coin?  ex. 5 credits for a quarter instead of changing out all the other parts?

I noticed on some old IGT video that the S+ were once available in 10 cent denomination, are there dime shelf wheels available? Other parts necessary for this change I presume?

I am having a ball tinkering with this thing.  Of course lately, whenever I am trying to play off credits, I keep getting decent hits! Oh what a terrible problem

 

[knagl]

Certain chips support tokenization -- that is, you can make it a penny machine that runs on quarters, for example.  Put in a quarter, get 25 credits.  Put in a dollar bill, get 100 credits.  The machine will still only dispense quarters (ie. if you have 50 credits and hit the cash out button, you'll get 2 quarters out).  It's a lot easier than switching out all of the parts. 

To answer one of your questions, if you do switch to nickels, the same coin comparator is used for both nickels and quarters.

[StatFreak]

There are other options in addition to tokenization. If you don't really care about the value of the coins, you can set the dbv to 5 cents or 1 cent and leave the coins alone. A $1 bill will then give you either 20 credits or 100 credits, and cashing out will give you either 20 coins or 100 coins (quarters or tokens). However, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Doing this will give you an easy way to build a large number of credits on the machine with a small bill, but you will lose the feel of reality when you play since the coin and bill values won't match. Using a Tokenized SP chips solves that problem but then cashing out partial credits results in a hand pay.

If you just want to have the feel of different sized coins, then swapping out the parts is the answer. You can buy the shelf & pin wheels, and adjust the coin comparitor and change the back of the coin head. You can also be lazy and buy a 5¢ hopper to compliment your 25¢ hopper. You will still need to adjust the comparitor and should put in a nickel back on the coin head (not strictly required), but then you won't have to mess with the hopper, and you'll have a spare IGT hopper in case one fails down the road. If you don't need the spare hopper, then just change out the parts.