Bradley Challenger and variants

American, British, French or German? We want to know about it.
User avatar
bamsefar1
Posts: 41
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:18 pm
Reaction score: 0
Location: Norway

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by bamsefar1 »

Bought 2 of those locks yesterday.
Great advice again. Thanks.
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

Just restoring one of my Challengers and need some clarrification please. Both are missing the inner glass and seem to have had it gone a long time. Appears to me that the wood two side rails painted silver have a notch cut into them to hold a thin sheet of glass which stops the pennies moving too far forward and jamming. But with the machine set up the way it was the rotating centre wheel will jam on the glass if I do this? The other machine has had those two wood rails reversed and would appear to have been changed so that the glass sat further forward. Both machines have small pins attached at the frame at the bottom of where that glass would sit and I assume those were there to stop the glass shifting forwards? If the glass sits in the notches the way i think it should, then there would be no need for those pins as the glass would be held in place.To make this work I'll need to shim the back of the boss that holds the centre wheel in place so the front wheel is moved back enough to not rub against that glass once locked in.
Attachments
Side rail in place with notch the way I think it should fit, but no glass in place.
Side rail in place with notch the way I think it should fit, but no glass in place.
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

Fun and worthless fact. All three original locks for the Challengers are serial numbered to each machine. Noticed both mine were the other day. When I looked back at all the old photos on this thread I could just make out that most of those are too. Quality job when people really cared, but who cares?
Attachments
challenger-serials-a.jpg
challenger-cash-lock-a.jpg
User avatar
john t peterson
Posts: 1334
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:40 pm
Reaction score: 7
Location: USA

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by john t peterson »

I do.

J Peterson
Caring American !OMFG!
User avatar
grabber
Posts: 189
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:38 pm
Reaction score: 0

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by grabber »

Hi,
The locks on my machine are numbered the same also.
I have taken some picture of the glass on my Challenger and will post them soon. The two small pins are needed to hold the half sheet of glass in place.
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

Thanks Grabber, that would be much appreciated. And maybe if you can measure the thickness of that inner 1/2 glass too please.

( Have just reworded this slightly to make more sense. ) Something that I can't figure out with these Challengers is the payout adjustments and why they don't seem to be used?? The mechanism is very cleverly designed to be easily adjusted, just one bolt to loosen, so that the payouts can be changed from the standard 4445566655444 to quite a few variations. Of the 15 coin chutes total, the middle 11 chutes can be adjusted to payouts of 4 or 5 coins, and then the middle 5 chutes of those 11 can also be adjusted up to 6 coins. Yet i don't see any other payout castings showing different payout numbers? Surely if the factory designed this ability to alter they'd offer different castings!? And obviously with so many machines having the center payout removed, like both mine were, the original set up was too liberal. Not sure why they didn't just adjust and lower some of the payouts and make up the extra cash to the operator that way?? Which would mean slightly lower but quicker payouts to the player and a Penny to the operator each time. Even without a new matching payout casting, a piece of painted tin or card glued over the original would've been simple enough?
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

And looking at the conversions to blank the center chute they are usually all done the same way with a piece of steel bolted in place of the 6 coins so that any coin entering that chute goes straight to the cashbox and Does Not Pass GO! And covering this they usually use a sheet of alloy with machine turning just like the playfield. Seems to me the same person was responsible for all these and not just random operators, none of whom would bother to machine turn that alloy in a matching way! So more than likely a factory conversion offered by Bradley or done by them? But why not just adjust the mechanism the correct way it was designed to be changed??? Perplexed in Perth.
User avatar
grabber
Posts: 189
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:38 pm
Reaction score: 0

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by grabber »

Hi
The half sheet of glass is 424mm x 293mm.
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

That glass 3 or 4 mm?
User avatar
grabber
Posts: 189
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:38 pm
Reaction score: 0

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by grabber »

On my machine it has 3mm glass but it seems a bit thin.
Attachments
bradleys-challenger-1d-machine-010.jpg
bradleys-challenger-1d-machine-014.jpg
bradleys-challenger-1d-machine-025.jpg
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

Thanks for the inner glass info. When re-assembling the machine it finally dawned on me what had happened over the years and why I was puzzled. Originally the inner glass sat inside the notches cut into the two silver painted wooden side rails. But to get to the playfield the operator had to remove the front glass, then remove 4 screws holding the two tin covers in place above the inner glass, and also 2 more screws holding the steel coin deflector. Only then could you slide the glass up and out to unclog the playfield. Obviously a pain after the 10th time!

Later on both my machines were converted to allow that inner glass to be removed from the front of the machine with less inconvenience. By turning those wooden rails backwards (swapped left to right so they fit) and then a slightly less wide inner glass was cut and then held in place by two pins at the bottom edge (the same nickel plated pins as used on the playfield but filed slightly). This allowed the inner glass to be removed by just unscrewing the three bolts holding the centre cast alloy payout plate in place, once this was removed the glass could be lowered until it missed the top of the wooden door frame, then twisted forward slightly from the top and lifted out. Because of the conversion the inner glass sits forward from its original position by about 3.5 mm. So the playfield pins had been pulled out slightly to accommodate this, which stops coins jamming against the glass and pins. After cleaning and replacing the pins it became obvious that there was practically no wear on the extra 3mm that had been showing, but that the pins had spent almost their whole working life at the original depth, with lots of wear. So it would appear that this conversion was done late in the game when the machines were sloppy and jamming more often than originally.

I chose to put the machine back the way it originally was made. As yet I've had no sign of any coin jams on the playfield after about 600 coins. If the coin acceptor is adjusted and working correctly it should stop any damaged coins from ever making it as far as the playfield, and they should be rejected to the right side cup.
Attachments
Showing my machine converted back to original inner glass fitting, shown from the back of the door with tin cover off.
Showing my machine converted back to original inner glass fitting, shown from the back of the door with tin cover off.
Showing the two tin covers and coin deflector that need to be removed to allow the inner glass to lift out.
Showing the two tin covers and coin deflector that need to be removed to allow the inner glass to lift out.
This is my other machine showing conversion with rails turned backwards and the glass notch can be clearly seen against the playfield which serves no purpose at all.
This is my other machine showing conversion with rails turned backwards and the glass notch can be clearly seen against the playfield which serves no purpose at all.
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

I'm so disheartened to learn that this machine is a huge GYP! Even though I've played a couple over the years that only amounted to a few dozen times. But on completion and final testing of my first machine I discovered that only 7 of the 15 chutes actually accept coins! So this is in fact even worse than the early 10 stop - 20 symbol slot machine!! After many hundreds of coins as yet not one has landed in the 8 empty chutes as shown in the first photo below. So these are just dummy chutes hand filled so that the machine always looks inviting no matter how emptied the last player left it. And that carefully worded middle plate doesn't lie when it says "All coins that fall into the columns below will eventually be returned to the players." Haha, classic. What strikes me as strange is why they bothered to even put payout mechs in every chute? If I'd realised this at the beginning I'd have saved myself a lot of time by just swapping parts around to the unused chutes.

Anyway machine number one is finished and works perfectly and great fun. Though the coin deflector wheel you control is probably only about 15% useful. More often than not the coin heads to the left side of the playfield no matter what you do with that wheel. I guess this is because the coin rolls down from the top coin chute from right to left and still has rolling momentum when it hits that wheel. Sometimes if I leave the wheel untouched the coin will stall there by itself in one of the concaves, then you can tip it left or right.

The only thing I'm not thrilled with is that centre nickled plate saying "For Amusement Only", which should be black in the recess. But this example was over polished and some of the letters have barely any height to them. After a bunch of attempts I could never get it to look right so abandoned it as is.
Attachments
These are the only 7 x chutes that actually accept coins!!
These are the only 7 x chutes that actually accept coins!!
challenger 1.jpg
challenger 1 playfield.JPG
challenger 1 plates.JPG
challenger 1 mech.jpg
User avatar
badpenny
Forum Moderator
Posts: 7211
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 12:41 pm
Reaction score: 25
Location: East Midlands

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by badpenny »

GYP .........

gyp1
dʒɪp/Submit
informal
verb
1.
cheat or swindle (someone).
"a young inventor gypped by greedy financiers"
noun
1.
an act of cheating someone; a swindle.


As are most amusement machines I'd suggest.

Nails over cups on Allwins.
Flags that stop the ball dead at the Lose hole
12 stop mechs showing 24 fruits.
Skill stops that do less than bugger all.
Mystery Payouts
Girls

:lol:
pennymachines
Site Admin
Posts: 6638
Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 12:12 am
Reaction score: 56
Location: The Black Country

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by pennymachines »

Excellent job as always. !!THUMBSX2!!

The Challenger was one of my first machines but my experience of it was slightly different. Like you, I didn't twig for a while that half the columns were obstructed by pins, but I found that coins did just occasionally get through. I remember thinking it might be better if they didn't, because when one of these columns paid out it remained empty for a very long time. The result was the opposite of what Bradley presumably intended. Instead of the machine always appearing at least half full, it more often appeared half empty!

If, as you suggest, the columns were designed to remain full but unwinnable, (which as you say, would require less mechanism) it would make sense. As it is, I concluded that Mr Bradley didn't think it through properly. I've noticed that some Super Challengers adopt a similar scheme but usually I think they just bias the coin towards alternate channels. There doesn't seem any need to obstruct the channels as the machine takes its penny "commission" every time it pays the player's coins back. The Challenger has 15 columns, so it's very unlikely that one won't be almost full. The Ruffler & Walker multi-ball allwins only have 12 and work fine without this strategy.

I've seen a number of different deflector wheels and some give more control than the many-faceted 'B type' on your machine. It's interesting how much tweaking of the design went on over the years of production.
Attachments
4challengerwheels.jpg
4challengerwheels.jpg (8.4 KiB) Viewed 7217 times
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by gameswat »

By hand I can get a Penny to enter those 8 "dead" columns, but as yet with probably over 900 plays I'm still yet to see one coin enter any by themselves! Mr PM has had them occasionally enter so the odds will probably be something like 1000 to 1!! As PM rightly commented, the machine always makes a profit on any emptied column, so I'm confused about the pin layout. Looking at various photos of other machines they all appear to be the same. So this design was used over a decent period of production without change. The only way I can see to make all the columns work would be to remove all or at least most of the lowest row of pins.

I figured out a way to slightly improve the odds for the player which is to always play another coin while emptying a completed column. So rather than just pulling the lever to pay out your winnings, instead you'd play another Penny and hold the payout lever down. This will empty the full column and then keep that column open in case the just played coin enters - if so, to be returned to the player for free. Then hopefully on the next play that "free coin" will land into a full or close to full column. :D
coinops
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2015 2:12 am
Reaction score: 0
Location: USA

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by coinops »

Just found this thread...

I have another variant of the Challenger. This Zig Zag (with bolt on nameplate) has a "0" cast into the awards above the center chute, instead of a "6". If a coin goes into it, then it drops right into the cashbox. I found this one some years ago at the Chicagoland Show.

Regards from the North Coast of Ohio.
Attachments
20170215_195631a.jpg
20170215_195647a.jpg
20170215_195707a.jpg
pennymachines
Site Admin
Posts: 6638
Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 12:12 am
Reaction score: 56
Location: The Black Country

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by pennymachines »

That's interesting to see. No doubt you noticed the Zig-Zag on the first page of this thread with the cast framed opening front glass. Bradley indicate the model with the first number of the serial stamp. The Zig-Zag on page 1 appears to be 201/. Is yours stamped 200/? It appears the Shooting Star (stamped 202/) evolved from Zig-Zag.

I don't know where Snakes & Ladders fits in, but that was also a 'bolt-on' revamp and both the example J P posted and the one in the AMECO advert have the central column blanked. That weaselly ploy seems to have become standard sometime during the production of the MK1 Challenger, presumably in response to demand from operators.
coinops
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2015 2:12 am
Reaction score: 0
Location: USA

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by coinops »

My Zig Zag serial no. is 201/1796.
pennymachines
Site Admin
Posts: 6638
Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 12:12 am
Reaction score: 56
Location: The Black Country

Re: Bradley Challenger and variants

Post by pennymachines »

OK - so Challenger was model 200:

Image

Zig-Zag was 201:

Image

and Shooting Star, 202:

Image

I don't believe there were 1796+ Zig-Zags made, so their serial numbers must have continued from the Challengers.

Maybe the Snakes and Ladders were AMECO Challenger revamps.

Image
User avatar
treefrog
Posts: 4813
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:46 pm
Reaction score: 31
Location: Suffolk

Re: Help with Bradley Challenger

Post by treefrog »

treefrog wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2010 9:33 pm
pennymachines wrote:Carefully paint over the lettering with Vaseline using a very fine paintbrush and then over-spray the plates with whatever colour you want for the background. Leave for a day to dry thoroughly then carefully rub the paint from the letters using a toothpick or similar.
I will definitely have a go at this although one would need a very steady hand, I love these tips... there needs to be a tips section to add to the resource section... mind you I don't keep any Vaseline in the house...
Your link Mr PM reminded me that the tip on Vaseline and it has only taken me 10 years to have a go and use this on a bandit casting where I needed to leave some areas polished last week. Works great and only takes seconds to remove the painted greased areas after drying !!THUMBSX2!!
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 24 guests