Rowe "Monte Carlo" help needed

Went back to Kirby Risk and purchased to new 24v dc relays. Installed them and it made a very big difference in the operation. It now has an incosistent problem with writing in corectly. Doesn't happen all the time, but intermitent.

I had a second search unit here at the house. It had a blown capacitor in it when I got it. The replacement cap came in today, so I repaired this unit. After I repaired it I put it into my jukebox. Same thing happened as with the other one. I want to know if I maybe causing this by canceling so many selections and almost makig it run to hard. To check the juke out I would make several selections and then cancel them out as soon as they would start to play. Could I have been overheating anything. If it runs at normal pace (playing the record that is) it seems to do fine as of right now. I literlly have checked and rechecked everything. I have reset all the relays. Gone back thru them and rechecked them 2 times. It always starts out fine but then after canceling so many it starts to mess up. So am I the problem? I have taken the entire search unit apart and checked for broken wires. (checked with continuity on my fluke meter). Checked all circuit boards for any broken traces. Took the relays apart in the selection area and cleaned and reburnished them also. I am literally out of ideas.... ANY AND ALL IDEAS APPRECIATED!!

I doubt you are "overheating" anything--what, EXACTLY, is it doing wrong--now--?
Ron Rich

Ron, I replaced both plug in relays, one on the search unit at R2. and the other one on the mech unit. It still has a intermitent problem within the search unit. I have had 2 differrent search units on this machine and both do exactly the same thing. Every once and a while it will stop taking selections all together. The selection buttons will latch in, S1 bumps in but S2 never will and the unit just keeps spinning and never quits until I reset the machine using the scan lever on the inside of the machine. It ususally takes 10 times or so of doing this and then the machine will start working perfect again. I have noticed shortly after this little spell it has, that the search unit goes thru it's normal operation, S1 bumps in and then S2 drops in as it should, but the coil never fires to write the selection in the pin bank. It just has this spell for a short bit, then things go back to normal and there are no more problems. I have been letting the machine just play tonight for about the last hour and has not had any problems as long as I don't cancel anything and just let every single selection play. So for the last hour, it's ok.

Hello Kentmore,

The pin pusher coils (in the manual 204-10743 & 205-10743 solenoid assembly) are fed via the the front wiper, on the ciruit board on the front and back of the board you will see two very thin tracks that feed these coils, if the track is worn through then one or both coils will not function.

I have seen some boards for sale on Ebay, it may be prudent to buy one, I would get one of the gold coloured boards rather than the plated type (these seem to be more troublesome).

Regards
Alan

Alan Hood
ami-man
UK

Alan, I have checked both boards out very well. Neither one is even close to looking like any major wear at all. I checked all of the traces on both boards with my meter and everything checked out fine. I reinnstalled both and then checked for continuity from the board to the coils. Both checked out fine. Kent

Also while everything was apart I reflowed all connections and again checked with my meter. All connections were good.

Hello Kentmore,

What condition are the search unit wipers in? and are the rear and front ones adjusted as per the manual. I saw that a well know jukebox supplier had some wipers for sale on Ebay at your side of the pond.

If there are no cracks in the boards and the wipers are good, you have already cleaned and burnished the contacts on S1 & S2 then the only thing that could give you the intermitant fault is connections to the long edge connector on the search unit or the wiring back to the keyboard or issues with the two open relays again clean & burnish if you have not already done so.

Regards
Alan

Alan Hood
ami-man
UK

Just a final update on this project. I finally got it all wrapped up. I purchased a gold plated wiper plate and installed it. Nothing changed. So I had 2 search units doing the exact same thing. I had gotten away from this project for a while. So when I got back to it the only thing that I hadn't done was pull the push button assembly out. I removed the assembly as a whole unit. Blew it off real good, and sprayed it down with cleaner and de-oxer. After 3 days of playing it, I returned it to my boss. So it would seem that my problem was with the button assembly being dirty.