Seeburg vl200 latch bar solenoid is energized

Here's my story
I bought a 3wa wallbox off of craigslist, plugged it in to my seeburg vl200. Made a few selections... 3 plays for a quarter....it selects but only the 0 number group, so if you select h5, it will play h0, d8 plays d0 and so on.. That's really not my problem I don't think lol as I'm sure I can get that working by cleaning and checking contact gaping etc.... But while experimenting With the new wallbox, I randomly selected from my keyboard and then back to the wallbox... For a few hours why I was working on other projects. Always with the same result... 0 group using wallbox and normal selections as expected using the keyboard..

Oh, I should also say that I'm a big user of the d cell battery trick to energize all 100 selections.... Shouldn't be relevant but throwing that out there.

Now here is my problem:
Well my wife gets home and hits a selection with the keyboard and gets nothing... First time that has ever happened.... The keys stayed down and the latch bar stayed energized. I have the fpa with the latch bar safety feature which popped the key up in a minute.... So not too concerned...

I unplugged the fpa and put another fpa in and I got the same result. I removed the second fpa and plugged in the dcu and tripped the coin switch for credit and I got the same result.

I swapped out the tes with another one I had laying around and got the same result.

I swapped out the 0a2 tubes, 6x4 and the ax12 and got the same result.

There was a discrepancy between the 3wa and the tes in regards to pricing where the tes had some ep plays for 7, 8, 9 and 0 while the 3wa was all single plays.... Not sure if that could be an issue... They both are now all single plays.

In a nutshell.... As soon as power is turned on, the solonoid gets pulled in, the wallbox is disconnected and it happens when the fpa is installed as well as when using the dcu. By unplugging the tes plug from the dcu will de-energize the solonoid. Plug the tes back in to the dcu and its re-energized.

I Will be pulling all my manual out tomorrow but for the life of me I cannot remember what could pull in the latch without the starting and hold switches in the tes. Could it be a contact in the stepper that I'm missing.

I should leave this for Ron -an easy one for a change. But, since I use these machines commercially, here you go:

Open the back and pop the cover off the stepper. You'll see this:
http://s1192.photobucket.com/user/Rob-N ... sort=2&o=0

The number stepper wheel is on the right and it is stuck on "0".

This does two things; it makes everything through the stepper an "0' and holds out the proper keyboard action via the small set of contacts on the roller just to the right of the number stepper wheel. In fact, the roller and contacts often introduce too much friction and cause the number stepper to not reset. I just eliminate these problems by taking a visegrip pliers and bending it's mounting bracket just enough to keep the roller off the number wheel.

Again, --these are the contacts and roller that are on the number wheel and mounted at a slight angle just to the right of it NOT the long blade contacts on the letter wheel,--

The purpose of these contacts was to holdout keyboard selections till the stepper finishes and resets. I've eliminated these since the mid-eighties and several million plays later I don't think they've been missed.

A drop or two of light machine oil on the bearings of both stepper wheels in addition to getting the roller load off should get them resetting properly again.

BTW: Has the selection receiver and stepper been thoroughly serviced ?

Rob-NYC

Rob,
I find it easier just to oil the wheels and the rollers that ride on the wipers--no "gepppetto bending" iz necessary !!
Ron Rich

Hi Rob, wow... That sounds easy enough... I will give it a try....

The selection receiver and stepper were done, I can't speak for the wallbox but I'm going to go through it this week.

Funny, I went thru my v200 vl200 troubleshooting guide and they don't have this condition listed.... I don't recall it in Rons book either.

Thanks so much for the Advice above, I will try it tonight and update the group with my results.

Guyz,
Funny, I just fizzed one today that had a stuck #1 stepper wheel--oiled it as usual--working like a champ--
If you were lookin' for that problem being listed in my Seeburg Mechanism Guide--you won't find it as it is not a mechanism problem !
Ron Rich

Here's my update.... My buddy Steve_B came over today and we took a look at it in detail. The number wheel was definitely stuck and there was no return spring action on it. So we removed the selection receiver from the jukebox and separated the stepper section that has the 2 spring loaded wheels on it. The number spring was detached.... We got that Bach on, put some oil on the shafts and cleaned the contacts and put it back together. In my hand, the wheel returns nicely when it's moved one slot or all 10 slots. Same with the letter wheel to the left

Put it all back together and did a test.well the keyboard solonoid was still energized and now only the letter wheel rotates when making a selection from the 3wa.

To make a long story short, with the free play adapter disconnected and the dcu plugged in and the keyboard solonoid still energized, and the make a selection light lit, I continued to make selections while holding both the letter and the number keys down for quite a few times before I noticed that the make a selection light turned off and the solonoid de-energized.

I then Plugged the freeplay adapter back in and the selection solonoid is now working properly and all selections van be made from the keyboard with no problems.

Tomorrow or later on this evening if I find the energy, I will go thru all the contacts in the stepper and make sure they are all within spec per the manual. In order to try and figure out what I now broke or miss-adjusted while fixing the number wheel...

So In a nutshell I can make selections again with my keyboard and I have a really nice return spring action for my stepper letter and number wheels when tested by hand on a bench.. WooHoo.... Thanks for all your help today Steve.... It was a blast working with you again!

Hi Jeff,
My guess is that you have "disturbed" the top set of contacts that ride the step-up wafer--They sit at the very top of the stepper assembly and are easily "disturbed" any time one is inside that cover ! See the manual for adjustment procedure. Ron Rich

Thanks Ron, Will do... probably tomorrow.... will update the forum when complete.

Jeff, I think that is the transfer switch on top that Ron is referring to.

Steve,
Yes--egg-zact-ly the contacts I waz thinkin' ov--jest cood/did ? not name em, at that time ??
Ron Rich

OK, Here's the update....

The transfer Switch definitely wasn't lifting high enough to Open the A contact while closing the B contact when the letter wheel entered its 2nd thru 21st position.

At that point, I realized that the screw holding the number wheel on backed itself out and was real loose. On initial assebly, I had difficulty tightening this screw while getting a good return action at the same time. I had hoped that the lock washer was going to hold better but it didn't.

So I removed the entire assembly again in order to get a better look at it.

This time I removed the letter wheel to see if maybe I put the Teflon washer in the wrong location but I didn't... and now I can't tighten the letter wheel either without jeopardizing a good return action.

Well to make a long story short, I put a little blue lock tight on both screws and reassembled them as tight as I could without jeopardizing the return action. Between the lock tight and the lock washers, they should be good for a while.

Once that was adjusted, I noticed that the Start Switch Contact was putting too much pressure on the number wheel (Just like Rob said)and it did not allow it to return back to its rest position. I put a few drops of oil on the roller and thought that the roller rolled feely enough but no matter how lightly I set this switch on the number wheel and allowing it to open the contacts once the wheel was in a number position, it was still just too much pressure for the number wheel to return back to its rest position.

So I detached the contact switch and taped it up in electrical tape with the contacts in the closed position. I just pushed it to the side... At this point I was too tired and too lazy to go into the garage to get my needle nose vice grips in order to bend the tab.. If the stepper cover doesn't fit, I'll just reinstallthe contact switch and bend it out of the way.

I re-assembled everything back together for like the 3rd time and re-checked all the contacts again...

Made a selection on the 3WA and.......

The good new is that the 3WA now selects... Woohoo

The bad news is, all 3WA selections are off by 1 number group. Example: If I punch in A1 it will play A2, If I punch in E3 it will play E4 and so on.... In addition, B1 randomly gets selected.

I'm hoping that these fixes will be found in the 3WA and not in the stepper. I sure don't want to disassemble that thing again LOL

In all honesty, I never expected the 3WA to work properly when I bought it, I knew that I would need to go thru it.... what I didn't know was that when I sent my TSR3 out for a rebuild and I paid additional for them to do the stepper I never thought that I would be having all these issues.

This time I removed the letter wheel to see if maybe I put the Teflon washer in the wrong location but I didn't... and now I can't tighten the letter wheel either without jeopardizing a good return action.

Forgive me if I've missed something but, this is exactly the sort of hack-up that I found over-and-over when buying used steppers from people -even some operators.

Some points:
1) The spiral spring that returns the wheels to home will easily get caught between the gear and the bearing if it isn't properly dressed (held away) during re-assembly, or if it is wound too tight.

2) If this is not corrected it will eventually cut that spring due to friction.

3 The washer can also cause jamming if it is not situated around the step in the shaft but instead gets caught between the wiper wheel and the bearing head. This should be obvious and is easy to fix.

Steppers are probably the trickiest part of these old machines -but they are easy if you understand the action and realize that there is only -one right- way for these things to be assembled.

Get rid of the Gepetto glue and put it together properly.

The bad news is, all 3WA selections are off by 1 number group. Example: If I punch in A1 it will play A2, If I punch in E3 it will play E4 and so on.... In addition, B1 randomly gets selected.
I'm hoping that these fixes will be found in the 3WA and not in the stepper. I sure don't want to disassemble that thing again LOL

Well, you probably will have to do it all over again.

-If the stepper has been heavily worn the wiper wheels begin to settle a bit backwards at each step. This is due to wear in the step gear. After a while the contact either no longer makes good contact with the correct rivet, or in extreme cases, it actually touches the next lower rivet. The contact wafer has elongated holes to allow a certain amount of adjustment to compensate for this effect. However, once things progress beyond that point it ti necessary to cut out the hole a bit to allow more degrees of adjustment or, in extreme cases I move all the wires back one rivet. Before doing that I check to be sure there will be enough degrees of movement of the wafer in the other direction to allow proper contact.

This was one of the shortcomings of Seeburg using these small stepper designs from Guardian. Rowe/AMI's steppers have much larger wafers and contact 'arms" that are held by a setscrew and thus can easily be adjusted to compensate for wear....But look, nobody expected these machines to still be being used sixty years later.......

On the transfer contacts above the letter wheel; form these contacts to transfer at the second pulse and form the bottom blade so that it rides down in the wheel notch at home position -but not all the way. Only enough to keep the roller centered. This is the right amount of pressure.

Rob

Hi Rob....

Nope, I can assure you.that the spring and the 2 metal washers with the keys in the center were not causing the bind. Remember I had this thing out and in my hand under really good lighting and was able to view exactly where the spring was attached to the wheel as well as where it was attached to the mounting frame. And nowhere Inbetween those 2 points was it causing a resistance. If anything, it could probably use new nylon bushings as they were both thinner that tracing paper and probably lost their ability to supply a smooth surface to slide on.

By the way, I do not consider what i did with the lock tight as a hack... The screws are tightened town pretty well, not loose at all, no movement in wafer etc... It's just precautioary so ithe screws don't have an opportunity to work their way back out during operation.

The second notch on the letter key is what the manual suggested as well to set the transfer switch. That's probably why there are 21 notches used on the letter wheel instead of 20.

Funny as there are only 10 notches on the number wheel and if you mount the wrong way, The other side only has 8 notches, so that logic didn't apply with respect to the start switch.

That's a great tip about adjusting the wafer... That's probably what it needs.. I will try that and get back to the group... Thanks again!

Nope, I can assure you.that the spring and the 2 metal washers with the keys in the center were not causing the bind. Remember I had this thing out and in my hand under really good lighting and was able to view exactly where the spring was attached to the wheel as well as where it was attached to the mounting frame. And nowhere Inbetween those 2 points was it causing a resistance.

Well, that is a new one for me. Granted, I've only done about 60-70 of these old Seeburg steppers, but I have never seen a case where the problem you describe wasn't caused by the spring caught in the bearing or the keyed washer under the screw not being seated correctly.

Just in case, you do have the original metal gears...correct? I did do, and see some swapping of the metal gear assemblies into SS steppers and once also, the other way around.

Rob

Hi Rob

I would never question your experience in this matter as we all know that you and Ron are the heartbeats of this forum and without your knowledge and experience this forum would not exist.

I can only attest to what I was specifically looking for during my re-assembly and could not see... Which was if and where the spring might be binding on the numbers side.

When I removed the wafer disk on the letter side to check for location/position of the nylon bushing, I kept my finger firmly on the letter metal gear so as to not let it move at all while I cracked the screw loose on the other side and during the entire process of removing the wafer disk, verifying the location/position of the nylon washer as well as the time spent replacing everything on the letter side back to its original position.

Lining up the rectangle slots in the metal washers, one on each side of the wafer disk was not a big deal for me and if the gear wasn't completely set in its proper position, the outermost slotted metal washer would not sit flush in its intended spot.

I checked all the number wheel contacts as well as I could between the wafer and the board during its action and all the positions look like they are making good and correct contacts based on the action and the specific location of the number gear. No excessive wear was found on the silver nubs either.

My situation is now this...

When I make a selection like a3 from the 3wa it grabs a4 one number group too many... The action of the number wheel and its reset position seem to be working as expected.

In addition, after every selection made on the 3wa, b1 also gets selected before the mechanism comes to a complete resting stop.

I'm hoping that these 2 issues are in the 3wa as I have not begun to even check a single contact switch in that equipment yet.

As always. Thank you so much for all that you do for me personally as well as our group... It's much appreciated more than you will ever know as I find myself many times searching the forum for old topics while learning many things without ever having to logon and ask a single question... That's why I try to update the group as I do when I'm personally involved in a discussion like this.