Wheel spins intermitent but will not stop

[ritzy4runner]

Hello, first time poster on this site. Just acquired this machine. Appears to be functional and will accept coins/tokens allowing you to spin the wheels All 3 wheels spin wxcept that the first (left) wheel spins but hesitates then continues. The wheel will cycle in this manner continuously while the remaining two wheels pin in a continuous motion. When you attempt to stop the wheel with the stop button it does nothing. If you press the stop button on the remaining 2 wheels, they stop and sound issues as is normal. The only way to get the wheel to stop is to pull the square plug connector at the base of the wheel assembly. and plug it in. Usually this will stop the wheel and when you plug the connector back in get a wheel stop sound, but not always, sometime the wheel will start it cycling of running hesitate and roll again in a cycle of every 1.5 seconds. In other words that left hand wheel does not roll smoothly as the other two wheels do.

I attempted to see if the adjacent (middle wheel) connector would reach the connector in question and it did. When I plugged the middle wheels connector into the lleft wheel connector the left wheel would spin properly and would stop when the middle wheel stop button was depressed. this leads me to beleive that the wheel assembly is fine and the problem must be somewhere else in the circuitry associated with the left wheel.

I have removed the coin box and cleaned it out and reassembled it, installed and connected, place a dozen or so tokens in it and it will let me add additional tokens and I can then spin the sheels but same issue arises with the hesitating wheel. I can select the coin box switch that will empty the coin box and it payout the coins in the box till empty and makes the payoff sounds too then it will display hE in the front LED display. There is a red pushbutton below that switch as well but have no idea what it does.

I have noted that in the upper left corner of the upper area of the unit there is a small electronics box with some wires coming from it. This is located behind the narrow access door at the very top of the unit. Coming out of the top of a small metal box about 2 1/2" x 4" there are two wires which are yellow/black and yellow going from a small 2 wire plug connector were damaged, and one was severed. I repaired/replaced those two wires but this appears to have had no effect on the operation of the machine that I could tell.

I can post some pics of the interior to show what I am describing if necessary. Any help with a potential resolution would be HUGE. Also any circuits, wiring, boards or connectors I should look at for the issue? All fuses and on/off switches seem to be functioning. Thanks

[FTKServices]

First, Welcome
Second, What kind of machine is it, Make & Model.
Some pictures would be nice, of the inside door by the stop button
Check all of the wire connections, unplug & reseat what you can
I had a similar trouble with an old Macy I have, One of the traces to the stepper motor was burned & broken. You have 3 lines the the motor to make it spin. If one is broken it can hesitate then spin poorly.
Hope that helps

[ritzy4runner]

All the information you just asked me for is in the thread header, Mizuho, Continental, Big Chance 777... manufacturer-Mizuho, Name of machine on base lower glass in big letters Continental, across the top twice and then in other locations on the front, BIG CHANCE and 777 in the middle upper edge of machine. I have checked some of the lights and wires, and as soon as I can get my son to give me back my copy of Photoshop so I can reinstall it I will post some pics. Thanks but I have no idea where to begin on trying to disassemble as I do not have a schematic or manual. If I get the time to do it, I will take a freakin butt ton of pictures and disassemble this beast! Thanks for something to start on, Cheers

[FTKServices]

Sorry, did not see the header.
You have to disassemble the machine. just unplug each cable one at a time & reseat them & make sure that they are clean & not corroded connections.
On the inside of your machine does it look at all like this. mostly the box on the bottom left corner with the reset switch.

[alstonj1]

from the sounds of it you have a bad plug i suggest you plug your second reel into the first plug and see if it runs and stops properly . from the sound of it the wheel isnt reaching the necessary speed to allow the machine to let you play (the reel has to meet a speed spec to be valid) try flexing the connector a bit and see if the reel works properly if so you have a bad connection .a meter would be necessary to ring the connections thru the plug to find the bad one .

[ritzy4runner]

FTK the picture you show is IDENTICAL interior wise to my machine. I attached some pictures from my machine below

Alstonj1, I did a swap of the middle connector to the left connector and the left wheel did spin properly and stopped when the center stop button was depressed. I could not get the left connector to reach the center to see if it was spinning the wheel intermittently. the wheel seems to spin at the correct speed but hesitates then resumes spinning and does so every second to second and 1/2. It makes a bit of a stopping starting noise wheile the free spinning wheels seem to make literally no sound.

In the picture I posted of the small silver box with yellow wires comeing out the top are the two wires I repaired/replaced with solder and shrink wrap. I could not tell if this was related to the issue or not or what functions they were for. This is located in the upper most left top corner.

[FTKServices]

Ok, on mine the first wheel (left) was having the problem. The small black box in the lower left corneris like a junction box. if you take it apart, on the underside is the circuit board, I found that one of the traced had been burned & was broken. so, I jumped around it and all is working.
If you want me to expalin it better, PM me with your # & I will call you.

[alstonj1]

as ftk said you need to trace the wiring to the first stepper motor you have a bad connection .the motor isnt getting up to speed and the game wont play till it does . a stepper runs on 3 feeds as apposed to a regular motor that only has one .your missing 1 intermittently or your not running on all cylinders for the motorheads amongst us .another possible problem could be the sensor isnt detecting the index mark but since it works on the second cable then its not on the reel side .so you need to do as ftk said and trace it out with a meter .

[ritzy4runner]

Did as you all recommended and opened up that machine and started by removing the cable from the base connector for the left wheel. You won't imagine what I found...3 severed wires and 3 with deep cuts into the wires. There were also a couple of wires going from the middle connector to the middle wheel that had cuts into the insulation into the conductors which required my removal of the wires from the connector and slipping shrink wrap over the damaged wires. Also, a group of 4 wires that plug into the smaller of the two plug in circuit cards located in the base towards the back of the case.

Removed the coin box, removed the plastic case enclosed circuit card (directions were on the front door which really helped) then pulled the smaller circuit card. This one had a white plug and 4 wires. When I followed these wires up towards the upper back of the case, I could see one of these was severed and two others were damaged. I ended up using shrink tubing and soldering the severed wires and shrink wrapped both solder repaired and cut wires.

Removal of the wires from the connectors was pretty easy, a small pointed scribe was perfect for pressing down the locking tab that was visable on the sides of the connectors and this would free the pin from the connector, so I just pulled it out, slipped the tubing over the damaged/soldered wire then heat shrink, job done! After putting everything back together, I was still having the issue of the wheel spinning in the same manner so I wiggled the plug and got it to spin correctly so I think between the damaged wires and the loose plug I may have it working.

I put quite a few quarters in it and it plays and makes all sorts of noise. Big surprize was when I had the first two BAR indications and then the machine started going "crazy with sounds and the lights across the top started flashing "BIG CHANCE' "777" no I didn't hit the big jackpot but I did win a few spins. All in all I think I may have it working now. I do know that there are a few light bulbs burned out so I need to try to find a supply for them. I did a voltage check and they seem to be getting around 27vdc. Thanks again for all the help and I hope I will be here again soon and that maybe I can help someone as well. Have a gr8 new year ritz

[rwarren]

Good job, you did a good repair . WELCOME to our site

[alstonj1]

glad to see you have it working i knew you could do it it just takes some time and some drive to get you motivated . A Special thanks to FTK for a job well done another vintage machine rides again !!!

[FTKServices]

Glad to see it is working again. Special thanks to alstonj1 for all his help.
I have learned that when a machine does not work & you tell people on Pachitlak. They will do almost anything to get it working.