What does the siren mean?

[JACKSJE4]

My son was playing our 1990's wing-type Nishijin "Hit Parade" machine this afternoon when all of the sudden the machine stopped play and a siren that sounds like a French police car started wailing very loudly. I had to unplug the machine to get the siren to stop, as nothing else seemed to work.

The machine has never done this before. Any ideas what caused it and/or what it means? Your expert help would be much appreciated!

Jeff

[compirate]

Alarms on hanemono usually mean a ball has gone through a pocket without going through other sensors first. Possible a intermittent failure of a sensor.

I explain:

To prevent cheating, for a ball to reach the 'V' pocket they usually have to roll through some tubes or ramps through the back of the center feature where a sensor registers it before it rolls back out the front and possibly to the 'V' pocket. If it doesn't go through the one sensor first, the machine thinks someone is cheating. So unless he fed it directly into the 'V' by hand, my guess is the rear (or side) sensor needs cleaning or something.

[JACKSJE4]

Thanks, oh wise one!

I will search for the sensors you speak of and make sure they are clean.

[hanabi]

...or you could ask your son to stop cheating!!

[compirate]

Also, some games will error if a bonus occurs and it isn't played out (machine assumes there is a problem - why wouldn't you want to play out a bonus?)

[DrDark]

...or if you run out of balls during a bonus feature

[Hope Chest]

My Nishijin Pachinko Awards does the same thing if I'm trying to show someone a fever mode for their first time by putting balls in the centrepiece and do it clumsily. Gotta unplug and try again.

Hit Parade...everyone's got that machine but me...

[JACKSJE4]

...or if you run out of balls during a bonus feature

Hmmm... I don't have a ball lifter and the machine often runs out of balls during a fever, so if what you say is true, then there may not be a problem with the machine at all. However, I have been playing this machine quite a bit for several months and have run out of balls during fevers many times, but have never heard the siren until yesterday.

I guess I will need to play it some more and see if I can replicate the issue!

Thanks!

[Hope Chest]

FWIW, mine has never had the siren any other time than if it thinks you're "cheating". When a mad fever hits and it runs out it merely stops with the "ball tray empty" light on.

[Youngjedi]

My Nishijin would siren out durring a fever as well. After cleaning all the tracks and sensors...the problem went away.

[DugFreez]

I have a 93 Sankyo machine and it does this if you don't keep feeding it balls after the fever hits. It doesn't matter if the top tray goes empty...it only "sounds the alarm" if you don't play the fever rounds to the end.

It seems like a strange thing to program into the machine...but I guess that if you hit a jackpot and aren't continuing to feed it...there must be something wrong.

[JACKSJE4]

Thanks! I had family in town this past weekend and the machine saw a LOT of play. The siren issue only came up twice, and each time it did there were balls in the jackpot hopper. I'm suspecting that one of the sensors is dirty (as was suggested in this thread several times), so I am going to take the machine out to my workshop and give it a good cleaning to see if that resolves the issue. I will report back soon.

Jeff