Balls off Track

[johnnygreenboat]

I recently picked up this machine (nishijin sophia) and I thought it was working fine until playing it for a while the jackpot stopped working. I looked in back and found the balls accumulating to the lower right of the jackpot mechanism (see pic). Anyone have any ideas what this might be before I start tearing it apart? I'm not sure if this might be a common problem

Thanks

[wrkey]

There could be a couple of reasons for this.

First, make sure you have lots of balls in the JackPot hopper at the top.
Second, there is a "push button reset" located to the left of where you have the photo showing. This will reset the jackpot regulator seesaw.
Third, it could be something (bug, marble, oversized ball, candy, tooth, etc.) caught in the machine and causing the jam.

I noticed you are a new member so WELCOME!

Also, if this is your first machine I suggest you review the 'How A Vintage Pachinko Machine Works' found on the thread in the Vintage Pachinko forum. This document was written with a Nishijin machine as a 'model' and therefore should be a HUGE benefit to ya!

Good luck and again... Welcome!

[NJ_Mike]

I have a similar problem with one of my machines, except that every once in a while a payout ends up in the lower recieving tray. Since it doesn't affect play, I haven't worried about it too much.

Comparing it to one of my machines it looks like there is a ball guide missing underneath the tulip in above where the balls are gathering, but since this problem just started, that probably isn't the reason.

I think a couple of more questions might help clarify where the problem is:

Are all the jackpots ending up in that spot? It doesn't look like there are a lot of balls there.

Do some jackpot elements pay off while others don't? It looks to me like balls entering the tulip above (and any associated element "upstream" of that tulip) may be falling to that spot below, which means they wouldn't trigger a payout, but the other side of the machine might still be paying out.

Using Rusty's guide (which was very helpful for me on my first machine by the way) I would test all your jackpots and see when a ball ends up there, it may be something very simple like a jam up, lack of balls, or you may have to take more of the machine apart to figure it out.

[heavyguitarman]

I had the same problem. The mechanism that is holding the balls from rolling out needs to be cleaned really well and maybe lubed a bit. I had to tweak a few parts in that area of the machine by slightly bending them, but make sure you know how each part works and why it's there before any tweaking. Try the cleaning first and make sure you have plenty of balls loaded.

[Moparformances]

keep in mind that the lower tray is a overflow tray.. so once the upper tray is full and backing up into the machine it will start diverting balls to the lower tray...

thats how an origina machine is suposed to work..

from time to time people have taken there machine apart and accdently moved that little diverter into the wrong position during reassembly.. causing all balls to fall into the lower tray and if i rember some one had a machine that half went to the upper and half went to the lower..

hope that helps

[NJ_Mike]

keep in mind that the lower tray is a overflow tray.. so once the upper tray is full and backing up into the machine it will start diverting balls to the lower tray...

thats how an origina machine is suposed to work..

from time to time people have taken there machine apart and accdently moved that little diverter into the wrong position during reassembly.. causing all balls to fall into the lower tray and if i rember some one had a machine that half went to the upper and half went to the lower..

hope that helps

Thanks - that helps me, I figured it was something along those lines. I'll fix it on the next scheduled cleaning. It's a different problem from what johnnygreenboat is having though.

[Moparformances]

I recently picked up this machine (nishijin sophia) and I thought it was working fine until playing it for a while the jackpot stopped working. I looked in back and found the balls accumulating to the lower right of the jackpot mechanism (see pic). Anyone have any ideas what this might be before I start tearing it apart? I'm not sure if this might be a common problem

Thanks

almost every model "B" machine i have bought looks like yours.. JAMED

like Rusty said fill the top hopper and manualy dump them using the push rod reset under the seesaw one at a time

if u dont have balls in the upper hopper the jam is just going to move down hill ..

[johnnygreenboat]

It was just a ball jam. I really didn't think the balls were supposed to be in that spot, but now i see it's part of the channel the winning balls go through. I'll have to keep an eye on it and see why they are getting stuck. thanks for everyone's comments