Sega Mad Money Jackpot

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sutty
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Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by sutty »

Hi Guys, brand new member here, and I'm looking for some tips and tricks for setting my jackpot and reserve, so that they are correctly positioned in the machine. I hope you don't mind me jumping in and asking questions from the get go.

Some background, when I was about 12, now in my late 50s, my dad bought me this machine, Sega Mad Money. Not new I might add, already well used, and broken. Perhaps he got it in the hope that I would restore it, and learn something useful about mechanics in the process. I made it work back then, though that's all, and I used to 'mess' with it a little, every now and again. Maybe I let him down, not sure, but it's too late to ask him now. With me having recently retired, and also with the lockdown, I took it upon myself to begin a restoration. To some, they might call it a tarting up, because I'm only doing enough such that it works, inside, and spending my efforts more on the outside, so it will look the part. Having said that, I find myself being sucked in ever deeper, by keep thinking, "well this would be better, if" and "that would be better if", lol, so I have done more that I was really originally planning, and it will probably continue that way, because I've found it great fun.

Lacking any real knowledge of such things, it has been a hard slog, and I'm happy to have now found this forum. After I stopped messing with it, it took up residence on the floor, at the front of the garage, where it has spent the last 40 years. Obviously those years have not been kind to it, but still, despite that, I'm getting there, and I'm having a good time whilst I'm at it.

I will probably have many questions, which if you will indulge a complete beginner, I will ask from time to time, as I proceed? Right now I am in the process of a complete trial re-build, to make sure it all works correctly. Until I know I can assemble it, such that it works flawlessly, all the time, I'm not going to spend the money on having the external, visible parts, re-chromed, because that's quite an expensive part of the whole process.

To this end, almost having completed this trial rebuild, today I have been trying to get the jackpot with reserve to operate correctly. Only once today have I had it cycle through the process of paying the jackpot, then dumping the reserve, then closing the reserve door. I've already completely stripped down and rebuilt the jackpot, after having cleaned all the rust, and polished the surfaces, so they all move freely. Some areas have had to go down to variously copper, and steel, to get them super smooth, but when complete, it won't be in the garage any more, so I'm hoping that won't matter to leave the steel unfinished. I'm not prepared to have that all re-chromed, because it's unseen.

Anyway, I've been working my way through various issues with it, and noted that whilst it always works in my hand, holding a Perspex front in place, to simulate the glass, several things were preventing it in from working when in situ. First, my glass sits too far forward, it's loose, such that the reserve gate can come out a little too far, into a position in which it gets locked open. I have made a rubber gasket/seal, to hold the glass closer, stopping it being loose, basically pressing it to the back of its 'frame' and this has stopped this from happening now. Second, when I tighten it into place, in the body of the machine, as the screws tighten, particularly the top one, it must distort the jackpot body, just a fraction, but enough to make the movement of the reserve gate/door very stiff. This, for now, I've resolved by backing off the top screw, and leaving most of the holding work to be done by the two lower, felt washer, bolts. This works, and has left it, super free moving, such that if I reach in, after being sure to get it into the right state, the door flops open, and I can move it backwards and forwards with no resistance. I will either bend the hook from the body, to reach it without any strain, or simply deploy a spacer, to correct this for the long term. I doubt this will remain an issue.

So now on to my remaining issue. The positioning of the main reel mechanism is clearly critical to the operation of this jackpot mechanism, and I simply cannot get it right such that the jackpot will reset, and the reserve pot will open, and also close, in turn, on each of the subsequent pulls. Honestly, I thought this would be the easy part, but it doesn't really adjust, backwards and forwards. First there is an angled bracket at the back left lower corner, which is pinned to the base plate, setting it in a fixed position in that back corner. Second, what appear to be adjustable sliders at the front, I expected to be able to move, because they screw down with large bolts into long slotted holes, are also pinned into the main base plate, fixing their position.

Are these fixed pins a modification, because the reel mechanism would move, eventually, no matter how tight they tried to tighten the nuts? Should I do away with the pins, and use those adjusters at the front, on the base plate? Mhh, just thinking about that now, that would make the machine loose on the base plate, or over-tight, so those do need to be fixed. They look like an adjustment, but would serve no purpose, with respect to the relationship to the jackpot, because I thought the back of the machine has to just slip in over the back ledge of the base plate, and be quite a snug fit.

Anyway, as a result, I've been trying to adjust the positioning of the base plate in the cabinet, minus the angled plate at the back left hand corner, which fixed that corner in one place, but all I can achieve so far is my jackpot paying then resetting, but on the subsequent pull, as I peer into the machine to watch the slider engage onto the back of the reserve door 'open' latch, it flirts off too soon, before having reached far enough forward to drag the release back, seemingly the latch being lifted off, up and away, from the slider. Does this mean I'm too far forward, and the main jackpot reset is lifting it back out of the way too soon? I know it drops down to allow it to engage on the subsequent pull, following a jackpot, so if the main jackpot reset got there too early, it would lift the reserve latch out of the way again? Not too much further back though, and my main jackpot won't re-latch. Is it really such a precise position that I need to go for, with just trial and error, by bolting the base down into the body in incrementally different positions?

I've posted here in tips and tricks, because I thought someone may be able to point me at an existing article, or share with me the tips and tricks they use for this process. Oh, needless to say, the fixed pin position, that I described as setting it in place, from the back bottom left corner of the machine, does not do everything right either. Maybe it would if I just tweaked the right corner? It seems so precise!

Thanks in advance, and also thanks for taking the time to read my long and rambling first post.

Cheers

Sutty
sutty
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Re: Sega MadMoney Jackpot

Post by sutty »

Seriously guys, this is driving me insane, lol. I've spent another couple of hours today, peering inside, and adjusting, little by little, and the best I can get is a position where the jackpot 'just' resets, the reserve fails to open thereafter, and if I then open it by 'hand action', it closes again as it should, on the subsequent pull.

Two out of three isn't bad, other than step three never occurs naturally, because I never get two, where it opens to begin with. :HaHa:

When I peer inside, after a jackpot, on the next pull, the reserve release action is such that the lever that is being pressed in on the back, never goes far enough forward to grab the door release, before it just flirts up off the first contact point. I can't tell if it is being pushed up and off by the jackpot reset action, or if it's just sliding up and off on its own, due to worn or misaligned parts. If the jackpot reset is doing it, I cannot go any further back, with the main mechanism, because then it fails to re-latch the jackpot. I'm only just far enough forward to do that, but further forward doesn't seem to help with the reserve release, indeed, it seems to make it worse.

I know I'm waiting to be moderated, so I'll just keep going in the meantime, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a spring missing. The first contact point on the back of the jackpot, for the reserve release, is on an arm that is so floppy and free, I'm wondering if it is meant to be being pulled down by a spring, and not just by gravity, as it is on mine?
pennymachines
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by pennymachines »

:WELCOME: to the site sutty!

What we usually say at this point is... post some close-ups of the jackpot reset mechanism, or even better, upload a short video to youtube of it not doing what it should do, and post it here. This will give the bandit experts something to go on, and I'm sure suggestions will follow, hopefully some polite ones. :lol:
vincent16
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by vincent16 »

You may have got beyond this stage already, but I found this video invaluable when I was trying to sort out the jackpot on my Sega.

www.s275603065.websitehome.co.uk/slot/v ... ackpot.asp



One of the key things seems to be to have it set correctly when you fix it back into the machine; sadly it is not as simple as just shutting the jackpot door and fixing it back in.
sutty
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by sutty »

Thanks for the welcome and replies, so far. Just popped back in from my workshop, having had a further go, but to no avail. The video link posted I had already found, and was invaluable to me. Once I'd seen it all working in that video, and how it all went, step by step, I gained the confidence to take it apart. I'm pretty happy I got it back together again correctly, because I had many many photographs, on which to base this. Plus, it works in hand, and it very nearly works in the machine. Soooo close.

Happy to post pictures and videos later, though a video of it not working, in situ, will be super tricky, because it works every time in my hand. Deep in the heart of the machine, it does not, and it's hard enough for me to see it visually, let alone by camera. Maybe I'll just video it in hand, and describe where it doesn't work.

Thanks again.
sutty
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by sutty »

Never one to let grass grow, I made a video of it whilst out of the machine.

After it seemingly ends, and I say bye, whilst showing the jackpot itself, it continues, if you wait a second or two, whilst I show the actuator slider at the front of the mechanism. So hang on for a couple of seconds, from the seeming end. I thought I should show the component that is meant to actuate the feature of the jackpot that I'm having issues with.



Thanks for looking guys.

Cheers

Sutty
sutty
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by sutty »

After hours at it today, and bending bits of metal, and adjusting the base position precisely, I have finally just got it to work, three times in a row. I would have done more, to be certain, but I was tired, and had had enough, wanting to end on a reasonable note.

The trick that brought success in the end was to bend the top of the slider forwards and down, just a fraction, so it was both nearer, and tilted down a tad, to help it grip into the back of the actuator tab. Of course, I don't know if it will work with the weight of coins in there yet, or 20 times in a row, but I have a plan for that too, which briefly worked every time, whilst I had it in place, which was to put a light elastic band on the arm, to pull it gently down, and keep it from popping up and off the tab with which it engages. If I need that, later in the day, I will buy an appropriate spring, when I put my order in for those with Mr Slot, and find a way to deploy it properly. I know it should work without, because there is no place to fit one, but hey, if it works, it works.

I've also been taking my first stab at waterslide decals, with which I had limited success. I got one done correctly, looking nice, but then decided to just tweak a corner, for perfection, and I stretched and split it, so that was binned. Then, I tried my much bigger one, the award decal, and that was hopeless. I don't think I waited for the glue to soften enough for it to slide off the paper smoothly and evenly.

Still, I had one that looked good, before I messed with it, so I'm confident I will get there, and obviously it's no trouble to print them again, now that the artwork is done and sized.

Cheers

Sutty
road76
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by road76 »

Hi sutty,

I probably have the same machine like yours and actually I notice something wrong with mine...
I can play without inserting any coins... This looks pretty bad. Do you have any idea about it?

Georges from France
chris rideout
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by chris rideout »

road76 wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 4:35 pm Do you have any idea about it?
Examine the rejector. Maybe the pin that detects the coin needs adjustment.
Examinez le rejeteur. Peut-être que la broche qui détecte la pièce doit être ajustée.
sutty
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Re: Sega Mad Money Jackpot

Post by sutty »

road76 wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 4:35 pm Hi sutty,

I probably have the same machine like yours and actually I notice something wrong with mine...
I can play without inserting any coins... This looks pretty bad. Do you have any idea about it?

Georges from France
Hello Georges

Sorry I didn't see your question earlier, but I think you have had an answer. There is a pin, that pushes into the escalator (coin slide), and if a coin is present, the pin is blocked, and it fails to holds the lever back, which would otherwise prevent play. If that pin, cannot go forward, into the escalator, then it will be as though there were a coin present, and it will allow play. It is easy to remove the escalator, and disassemble, to perform maintenance. On mine, that pin is mild steel, and is somewhat rusty. If it were more rusty, I could easily imagine that its progress could be blocked, and it would think a coin was present.

As already suggested, by Chris, definitely check that area first.
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