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I've worked on two with the hopper payout.
One was a total dead loss as the gubbins in the top box (if I remember correctly) had lost three of its relays. Not the end of the world, but there was other infrastructure missing, including capacitors that were joined to nothing and numerous spaces where brackets had obviously once lived and probably supported switches and relays.

The other was more successful in so much as every fuse had gone, and after replacing a couple of melted internal plugs, it all just needed connecting up and a severe talking to.
I think the biggest fear with these is bits get removed either to get another one back on the road, or for testing, and then not replaced.
BP

I have a few of the Aristocrat hopper machines, working and non working.....you stated it was working until about 10 years ago whn not used for some time, I would suspect then this is unlikely to be a major issue and checking connectors and fuses is the first place to start, especially the connector that attaches to the hopper you need to disconnect when pulling out. A common problem here is people forget to slowly pull out and unplug and just pull out yanking the plug, could be a simple connector issue. As I mentioned on a similar thread on the Hoots Mon Hopper issue, there is also a cut-out on these machines when jammed.

Your machine looks nice and an odd mixture of Kingsway, Nevada and Grosvenor. Unless Aussie distributed machines were made differently, it could be a mixture of these. Also what is on the left side as I see a shelf extension to the cabinet?

the shelf is for the electromechanical repair mans toolkit to sit on.....

Cheers all for all the info and feedback. I've given it a good run today making sure everything was seated and it appears to be the hopper itself. Sometimes it won't engage on a win, sometimes it'll pay the correct amount and sometimes the incorrect amount, and the payout meter on the front doesn't flip past 1. Does anyone have the last few pages of the Regal manual by chance? The copy in Resources is missing the last 5 pages regarding the hopper. I thought it may be helpful. Thanks Treefrog, I'll definitely check out that Hoots Mon thread, and on the left is (what I assume to be) a shelf for a beer, ashtray etc., as the machine was collected from a golf club that closed down in the early-mid '80s. Also on the back of the shelf there's a switch which seems to have been used to turn the power on and off in a daisy chained row of machines.



A few more newbie questions if I could. I was curious as to what some of the electrical components actually do.
This green mystery button?
edit: After poking around with a multimeter it appears to be connected to both the hopper and the top chip board, still stumped as to what it does though.



My wild guess was that it is to open the slot for the coins to drop into the bottom tray rather than the hopper. Am I way off on this one?
edit: It appears I was, it seems once the "In" counter (next to the green mystery button) reaches a certain number, this slot should open.



These fingers in the bottom with the two thin springs push toward the clock and engage the switches halfway along the side of the machine. What are they for and what triggers them?
edit: They are triggered by the bottom of the payout fingers pivoting into them. One for four A's, the other for four J's,Q's or K's. Still unsure as to what they are supposed trigger. I first thought 'the tune' as stated on the front panel, but found no signs of anything that should be audible.



And these ones on the opposite side have me completely stumped.
edit: Could be to tell the chipboard the mech has reset..?

It seems I have burnt out a relay on mine, I don't know how. It's marked ad-32a1. Are these available anywhere?
Also, what does the red switch do, the one that's in the front left of the top box? It has a white button on it. I can do a pic if required.

Dave, I have a few of these or similar variants, but all in storage, so I can't look at this time. I may break one as the chrome is shot with some other issues, which may come in handy for spares. Will let you know.

Topic merged - Site Admin.

Hi guys, I'm having problems with the payouts on my hoots mon bandit. It wasn't paying out properly when I got it. I have checked all payout micro switches and all seem fine. I think the problem is with the payout pins as shown in the picture. If someone has a working machine with correct payouts would they be kind enough to post a picture similar to mine so I can compare the order of those pins. Thanks.

I did check one of mine and the pins look correct, although I had a bad picture I took, but they do look the same....

Ahhh, if this is one of those mid to late '70s hopper models with early electronics then good luck. I just had one in to service for a friend and wasted a huge amount of time and never got it truly sorted. Not one tech friend in Perth wanted to know about it! You'd think there would be circuit diagrams available in Aust, but there aren't. I tried and came up with absolutely nothing that would help. Machine would occasionally payout the wrong amounts on jackpots, but like 50 instead of 40, always to rounded numbers. Biggest issue was sometimes not making the full payouts on large amounts, which if that happened would stop any future payouts of any kind when you kept playing. But I found a button inside on the top lhd which a service man could push to complete any unfinished payouts. So after exhausting every other attempt, I ended up having to move that service wiring to a new button mounted in a formally blanked off hole on the outside of the front door. I then made a decal to go just below the button into a vacant casting telling you to push for incomplete payouts. Actually fixed the incomplete payout issues - just in a rather crude way.

It sounds from what GS says that the makers had a problem with this from the start and fitted what amounts to a reset button to get round it.

Coppin, this machine used a timer board to keep the payout relay energised until it had spat out up to the maximum 200 coins for highest jackpot possible. I tested as many components on that board I could and all seemed to be within spec, but very slow going for me as I rarely test resistors & diodes etc. and have to look up every colour code for each one! Give me E/M any day as you can often just see the issue. I imagine that there is a small breakdown of many components which has created a domino effect and pumping corrupted info out the other end, but who the hell knows??

Gameswat wrote:but who the hell knows??

Not me........I'm afraid...... These 4 reel Aristocrat hopper machine threads tend to turn up quite often, Are they all just the same machines, going from owner to new owner without the faults ever being fully sorted? I have often wondered whether old bandits should be microchipped so that they can be traced around the country and abroad............., It would be an interesting map with some machines I'm sure................

I changed my 3 reel Aristocrat hopper machine to all mechanical but have kept all the bits should that who the hell person knows actually turn up...

GP

A local repairman friend who has been in the industry since the mid 1970s told me that he's had many issues with this era machine, but without schematics it's a nightmare. He asked a former employee he knows that had worked for Aristocrat about paperwork, but was told they binned it all many years ago. I'm sure 99% of large companies like that could care less about the past, it's all about right now and the future!

Thanks for the replies. I will try a few different things to see if I can get it working but I am no electrician.......

Topic merged - Site Admin.

Finally got round to attacking this 4 reel Aristo which, when I start poking about, looks much worse than it really is. Thing is I've never even looked inside a hopper converted machine before so the first thing I had to do was work out what had been removed intentionally and what had been robbed. I could see the clock was wrongly missing and soon found some of the parts associated with the clock were missing as well ,namely the brake arm that times the holding back of the vertical fingers and the moving bracket that holds those fingers back,everything else needed was there although badly blocked up with ancient grease(looks like it'd been there since the Parthenon was built)(good play on works there I thought ).

Aristo was kind enough to tell me the clock is standard on all these machines so I robbed one out of an "OXO" mech I had and also found the other missing parts from the same mech. After a good clean all round the mech works fine BUT I feel the fingers drop against the payout discs a little too soon,so my questions are, should part "A" in the photo below be longer at point "B" on a four reel machine? and if so, has anyone got the right part? or is there a way of adjusting the arm to stay in place a fraction longer?

On the Mills you can adjust the timing on the bar that holds the vertical fingers back with an adjustable bracket. Not sure on the Aristocrats though.

Moving swiftly along having solved the first problem (by removing an added plate on the clock end of the finger brake this increased the time it stays up).
Having never seen a hopper close up before I was quite keen to learn how it works, so I removed it, cleaned it and rebuilt it and it LOOKS perfect and turns by hand no problem BUT does anyone know of a way to test it outside the machine? Putting it back into the electrical system of the machine is too unstable a test (too many other switches and other bits that might not be working). I can't jump directly onto the wires going into the motor unless I cut them, there is no connection showing at either end and the colours of the wires are not the same as any I can see at the connector. I'm assuming if I touch the right two prongs on the connector the motor will start, but is that too risky? Will it damage anything else? Also, I'm unsure of the voltage this motor would use? Can anyone help?

Another 4 reeler e/m Aristocrat thread!

They are rarely asking for advice on replacement award cards or if anyone has a spare reject button........................................!
Nope they all tend to be 'how do I get the hopper to pay out/work?'

Well previous advice includes ensure the relays are all the same and all firmly in place and refit new fuses and that there are coins in the hopper and any reset button is thrown and I'm afraid I have no additional help.

Maybe try posting on the other coin-op forums that specialise in this era and later circuit board and electronic machines on the off chance someone can help?

Apart from one member who I think solved his by buying a new relay? Others I think have just sold theirs on so a perpetuating problem... Non working machine eventually sells at a low enough price to a new buyer who thinks 'that's cheap enough, I'll have a go', hoping it's the fuse, relay, poor connection etc.

But by posting a new thread eventually we will track down that 14 year old kid who helped his uncle look after the 20 Hoots Mon machines they had in the family casino all those years back and who is still young enough to remember where that container of new old stock of relays and circuit boards and wiring diagrams is after it arrived two days after the casino closed.....

When you do find him PC, you have my address - send him up north to fix my Beat the Bookie e/m circuit board Aristocrat that's still in the racking...

That's a very odd post Aristo seeing as it was you that suggested to me in an email to start a post on PM? Also I didn't ask how to fix the hopper just if anyone knew a way of testing it.

I did indeed suggest you start a thread, as I said I couldn't help you and really need to find someone with experience and or parts too.

That's why I said in my post hopefully someone somewhere who has experience may one day reply... however unlikely that may be.

My posted reply was for the wider audience to reinforce how difficult it has been over the years to get these models back from the dead. It also bumped it up the recent posts list too, as will this reply, which may help the thread get more responses.

As I said, if the thread helps you to get this up and running I'll be happy for you and other members with similar machines, including myself.