Sega Mad Money Jackpot
Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:20 pm
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
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