Got sanyo 'fantasy' from CL, questions on maint & operation

[squib308]

I recently got a Sanyo 'Fantasy' (?) machine off CL and had some questions. It's not 'vintage', as it has an electronic shooter, but it's one of the older 'modern' ones, I think...it does have an LCD screen and speaker, also. It says '13 or 6' on the front, which I assume is the ball payout for different holes.. yes? It also for identification purposes has the word/name 'Scarlet' in a couple places, as well as the letters 'GX'.

Anyone with any idea on what that era might be, feel free to enlighten me. One or two of the attached photos shows the label/sticker on the front, I couldn't figure out any dates from them. I figured the dates off the vintage machine I got, but no idea here.


One photo, if you can make it out has three of the holes highlighted in red (1.)- these ones need to have new light bulbs, I think. There are corresponding bulbs on the other side of the playfield that go on if you get a ball in the 'lucky' hole. Not sure how to get at them to replace them, as there's a bunch of electronics in the back blocking my way. Do I remove the hole-decorations from the front maybe? I tried removing one, and it was still held in by wires, didn't want to force it, put it back. Of course it still doesn't light up, but it's not damaged, either.

Same photo, the 'tulip' is highlighted with blue (3) - the tulip never is open, and if you look at the way the pins are above it, it won't get any balls while it's closed, so something else must open it.. what?

Same photo, a circular thing above the tulip is highlighted in cyan (4) - this circular piece has a hole in it that rotates constantly. A ball in the right spot will sit right above it until the hole comes around again, and then the ball disappears and rewards you with 6 balls, I believe. This motor is REALLY loud and buzzy. I was going to check it out and see if it needed TLC or what its deal is, but again, not sure how to access it. Tried unscrewing it from the front, but it was still held in with wires, and who knows what else (ball path?), so I didn't want to mess it up further & put it back. Any ideas how to fix it? Is it possibly humming because it's a 50Hz motor on 60Hz power? There's another motor that as far as I can tell spins a disc that turns the flashing lights on and off, and it doesn't buzz nearly so much, and it has a '24v 50Hz' sticker on the back.

Final question on that photo - the yellow highlighted area (2) looks to be like a flap that drops down at some point.. so...when is it supposed to drop down? Is it possible that is broken?

I was demonstrating the machine to my girlfriend, and got three numbers in a row on the LCD screen, and it kind of went craZzy, but in a positive way, I'm pretty sure. The tulip didn't open, nor did the flap when that happened. So is that the 'Fever'? or is the fever on newer than this machines? What all goes on during that? do you get more balls for pocketing ones you shoot? Is it supposed to drop a bunch like a slot machine jackpot?

Ok, that's it for the front of the machine. On the back of the machine there's a label I can't read (in japanese) that relates to some black levers, of which there's 4 - one at either top corner, and one on either side in the middle of the machine. I can see they're latches of some sort, and _maybe_ they will unlatch the electronics from the mechanical bits, so I can replace bulbs, clean the ball paths, fix the tulip, scare the motor into behaving, I dunno. I didn't want to release them all and have everything fall apart and rip the wires out or anything, and figured I'd ask persons with more experience than myself.

So what are the black levers for, and will they help me access the guts at all? Is the label a warning "NEVER UNHOOK LEVERS LIKE SO WILL DESTROY MACHINE!"? :) Or a suggestion on what to do if you're bored...

The final diagram/label is again in japanese, and I can't read it, but it's obviously what wires plug into that panel. Fuses, I understand. AC24v, check. the others, I dunno. It looks like there are wires that should be plugged in there, but aren't, and places where there doesn't need to be wires, but are. Anyone got a clue?

Also, there's two little..ball rakes? right below the wiring diagram, that I suspect shouldn't be stuck where they are, and they should instead keep the ball path clear of balls trying to 'ride' on top of other balls. Is that correct?


Sorry for the huge post, but this machine seems more complicated than the vintage one I understand completely. But that could be because I just can't see the mechanical parts & can't read japanese. And have never played a moderish pachinko machine before..

thanks for any help, I appreciate it!
b

PS. if this all is in a manual, shoot me the link, and I'll be happy to read for myself. I searched and searched and searched and couldn't find much about sanyo pachinko machines of this era. some newer, some older, but not like this one. Or if there's a FAQ I missed somewhere, that'd work great too.

[Drunkenclam]

Welcome Aboard



Cool looking machine
Its not one I'm familar with, but I'm sure someone will chip in soon.
My guess would be the 4 black levers are if you want to remove the playing field (cel) and insert a different one. Below the wiring connect there can be a little device to stop balls riding on top of each other and a stop you can pull down is so you can carryout maintenance on the back of the machine and stop all the balls falling out of the hopper. The flap in the yellow box on mine during fever (3 matching numbers) will open and allow balls in. Each ball in will win 15 balls.
Can you open up the front glass ok?

Any other problems apart from a noisy motor?

[MrGneiss]

WELCOME!!!


I believe your machine is from 1994..It looks like its a kenrimono type of machine so once you get your 3 matching numbers you will need to got balls in specific pockets in a specific order to open the other pockets and doors..every pocket should payout 6 balls and the door at the bottom probably pays out 13 balls for each balls you get in it..

I know its different but here is a play guide for one of my machines..It should give you an idea of how this type of game is played..

Maruhon Double Game (kenrimono) Play Guide!!


Btw, all of my machines with rotating pockets make noise..some louder than others..Here's one..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKkfjfYvePo

[Moparformances]

great looking machine..

i have had a few games that early modern era.. like posted above some motors just plain loud..

it sounds like your machine is working great.. as for the bulb that is out please post a close up pic of that area.. my guess would be that is your spin bank. machines will bank up to 4 spins at a time.. if you get more balls into the spin pocket then all you will get is 6 balls and no more banked spins.. untill one of the banked spins is used then you can bank again.. (hope that makes sence??)

sometimes geting 4 banked spins is hard to do.. so it may not be burnt out... (just a thought)


Welcome to Pachitalk

[Drunkenclam]

opps .yes 13 not 15..

[squib308]

My guess would be the 4 black levers are if you want to remove the playing field (cel) and insert a different one. Below the wiring connect there can be a little device to stop balls

Mm, so if you flipped them then the front could fall out, or something like that. Well, since I don't want to remove the playing field, I don't think anyway, I think I'll leave them alone..

I did find the 'ball dump' lever that dumps all the balls out of the hopper, also on the back, right side. Right next to... my next question

There's a pair of hinge looking things on the back right side.. I was thinking maybe I can swing the electronics bit out, if I want to service the mechanical parts... But then I remembered looking at the pocket I think the light is burned out on, and it didn't want to pull out the front, 'cuz it had wires attached to the back, so it seems unlikely that it the machine is setup in a way to open the back like a clamshell and access the mechanical bits.. at least not without unplugging some of the wiring harnesses. Is that (opening the back) a possibility, or not so much a good idea?

Can you open up the front glass ok?

Any other problems apart from a noisy motor?

Yep, got the glass open (a lever on the back left). That is, after my girlfriend got her bike key stuck in the lock on the front, cuz there was a ball half stuck in the 'spinning hole' & wouldn't dislodge.. She figured she could just open it & fix it real quick, and for some reason, the lock let her spin it just far enough that it couldn't pull back out, _then_ lock and not permit any further rotation. including back to where it started, where the key can come out. Fun stuff. Managed to wiggle and pull & got the key out, however.

Other problems is, well, I'm not sure it's a problem now, reading the other replies, sometimes a ball goes in one of the holes & doesn't give you a payout. I can hear it roll from one side to the payout mechanism area, but then nothing. I think it's a sticky lever or something, because I think it will payout if you whack the side of the case with your palm. Sometimes a few balls get stuck in there that don't payout, you give it a whack, and then get like 3 payouts. But it also could be where Moparformances says it banks your balls. ?

And the tulip not opening, but again, that could be part of the game, where it opens if you get 3 in a row on the screen _and_ something else happens (what?). Really dunno. I know on my vintage pachinko machine the tulips can open if another ball drops onto the mechanism from the back, or even if you make a shot into the closed tulip. (it opens to make it easier for the next tulip shot, which closes it again). But I don't know that's the case with this one - I tried opening the tulip & dropping a ball down the hole & it didn't make it open.

As far as I can tell, there's only one 'special' hole on the box, it triggers the spinning of the numbers on the screen. I can see it is special because it has a funny ferrite-looking thing that goes around the hole, which I reckon is attached to wires & somehow it senses each ball & uses that to trigger the electronics. It actually isn't a pocket-type hole, as it just drops the ball straight through, and then there's another real pocket a little below it the ball may drop into, if it drops straight down.

Thanks for all the help!
B

PS. re the motor noise - it surprises me, because there's another motor that has a weird shaped..paddle attached to it, which then periodically turns on a pair of microswitches for the lights to blink in alternating sequence, that is much quieter. Why would they use a cheesy, loud motor for the rotating hole, and a better motor for the blinking lights? Odd. (In fact, why wouldn't they have used a simple timer chip for the blinking lights instead of a complicated mechanism that uses a motor, a wheel, a lever, another wheel, a pair of microswitches, etc?)

[squib308]

I found that the quieter motor at the bottom, that I previously thought was only to flash the lights on and off has something to do with the payout mechanism - the balls roll down various inclines until they get to the bottom, and the motor & pinwheel thing uses the pinwheels to push the winning ball into the payoff mechanism. The 'front' one, or the one farthest away from you as you're looking from the back pays off 13 balls, and the 'back' one, the one closest to you as you look from the back pays off 6 balls. Which answers my question about why they didn't just use a simple IC timer to make the lights flash..

I'm still thinking that the lights on the front left are burned out or broken in some way, as I've gotten the fever and various things have happened on the screen, but they've never lit up. In my last post, (post #6) there's a couple pictures, one of them has a couple black connectors, and a red and a yellow connector. Is it possible those ones are supposed to go to the lights? They've got labels on them, but they're in japanese, and I can't read them. My girlfriend suggested using 'google goggles' on my android using phone to see if it would find and translate them for me automatically, but goggles wouldn't recognize them as text. Could be bad lighting, or maybe google goggles doesn't do that.

Also have a problem occasionally some of the payoff balls get stuck, and don't pay off until you whack the machine, or bump the table, or pour balls in the top, all of which must break the first ball loose, then it'll pay off however many were stuck 'in the queue.. Which leads me to believe it's a mechanical issue, not a game-play feature. Trouble is whenever I turn the machine around to see where they're stuck at, they all pay off, and when I have it turned around so I can see the back, they don't get stuck!! Erg!

I found a couple more ball sensors somewhere in the back along the winning ball track, as well as a solenoid that controls the flap thing in the front. Haven't seen the flap thing open at all, but I am hoping it will at some point.

I should point out that I got this machine from a guy who said he had to fix it up, as it didn't work at all when he got it. So while I hope that means he fixed it all up proper and everything works, it could also mean a number of hacks or shortcuts, and some things works. He did give me 2 tubs of balls though, with a bunch of blue-green and gold ones, one tub weighs 36 pounds, and the other wasn't as full, maybe 10 pounds, however many balls that works out to be. A lot, imho! He also gave me a repairing pachinko machine dvd with it, but it pretty much talked about vintage pachinko machines, which woulda been nice for the first machine I got (a nishijin model 'b'), but isn't so relevant to this machine. And also makes me wonder if everything is hooked up properly in the back, as well, since vintage machines don't have all the electronics and whatnot.

Sanyo and Sankyo _are_ different companies, right? I read somewhere someone said they were the same, but I get the feeling that is not the case.

Again, any help appreciated! It seems like there isn't a whole lot of info out there on Sanyo machines of this era, and I don't really want to take it all apart to try to fix the lights on the front if I don't have to. Or the sticky ball payoff mechanism. It would seem to me they (the manufacturers) would have made some allowance for both these things, so the parlors could service them easily. But I understand they (the parlors) get new machines in frequently, so maybe they (the manufacturers) just figure before the lights go dead, or the mechanisms get sticky, the machine will be sold and out the door anyway. dunno.

B

[owennewton]

Sanyo and Sankyo are separate companies but in the late 70's I know I have seen some Sankyos that used the sanyo comet II mechanism, I think that has led to some confusion about them.

I know that I had issues with the colored balls as they are just a little larger than real balls they would get stuck between pins on the playfield that real balls had no issue with and I had some payout jams that would clear by moving or tapping the machine. If I was you I would sort the colored balls out and see if that clears your jamming issues, if that dose not help than you may need to take some of the back apart and clean the ball paths as even just a little dirt in the wrong spot will make an issue.

[squib308]

I know that I had issues with the colored balls as they are just a little larger than real balls they would get stuck between pins on the playfield that real balls had no issue with and I had some payout jams that would clear by moving or tapping the machine. If I was you I would sort the colored balls out

Greetings from Pdx, a little north of ya. Dunno how your weather's been, but I personally am thinking of changing spring and summer into 'light winter'.

Hey, I think you might be on to something regarding the colored balls - In the massive jars of balls I got from the guy with the machine, there's LOTS, LOTSS of colored balls. Somewhat shiny gold, somewhat shiny copper, matte dark blue, matte green/matte blue (I think they're the same color, but some are more green, some more blue), and some really tricky, _slightly_ tinted with very small bit of gold, otherwise regular silver, and finally matte silver.

The dark blue ones always look the biggest, the regular ones or the shiniest ones look the smallest, but I'm pretty sure that's an optical illusion. The blues and greens look like anodized aluminum looks, but as far as I know, anodized steel is just rust.

But, yeah, I've got a ton of them. I will sort them out, or at least a sample of them, to test with. I did try the magic ball-hopper-release mechanism to get the ones in the hopper out.. and it jammed with most of them trying to get out of the hopper through the 'trap door'. Ergh! So I unscrewed the plastic cover... 1 screw, 2 screw, 3 screw.. 4th and last screw, and whooooosh <CLACK> <CLATTER> <CLACK> <CLATTER> <*1000's> <!!!> "crap". But it's totally unjammed now.

Say, is it bad to pick up the balls behind the table, behind the couch, under the laundry bins, under the kichen un-movable-object-counter, in the clothes, here and there and everywhere, with a strong magnet? I rally don't think there's any other way I'm gonna be able to pick them all up, short of moving out, without a magnet.

The first pachinko machine I got, a vintage nishijin, I got a deal on it 'cause it "didn't work". I found a regular ball bearing, or perhaps steel buckshot used as a game ball stuck i the ball-loader area, so it didn't feed balls to shoot. It was obviously oversized, however. These ones are pretty close, I'll have to break out a micrometer or the digital calipers to check their size. (some of their sizes.. I ain't checkin' all of 'em) The colored ones are obviously different in the manner of not having the words or logo in japanese stamped in them, they're just round balls that are the right size (or close to it). Is that how the colored ones normally are?

Thanks for the help, if I can next get the lights squared away (if they are in fact burned out), I'll be totally good to go.

B

PS. (anyone) how do the colored balls usually get played in japan? or do they? Is that an americanism? I can imagine it being an easy way to make the payouts higher without adjusting the payoffs or the machines in general - the players go and buy their balls, all regular silver ones, and then they have a roughly 1 in <x> chance of getting a special colored ball which is worth <y> when redeemed. That would also go along with them being slightly oversized, if that does turn out to be the case - a player wouldn't want to shoot a ball that's worth 10 other balls for the same chance of winning, they'd redeem them... so they might not get played, and be out of spec for any number of reasons. Just a thought. Does each pachinko parlor normally have a different stamp on the balls, like the way casinos all have different chips? Seems like you wouldn't want someone buying a bunch of colored balls of the internet worth $10 a piece when they redeem them, that'd bankrupt you really fast. Assuming the colored ball phenomenon is not an americanism in the first place