Bally Slot Machine Error Code 506
Bally Slot Machine Error Codes
Bally Slot Machine Error Code 88ff

Maintaining your Bally Slot Machine. This slot machine, known as the E2000 series electro-mechanical slot, was originally placed in a casino, and has many hours of use on it. Built in 1983, it is over 25 years old and is fully legal for personal, home use. It has been reconditioned. Bally Manufacturing Co. Slot Machine / Bell: Series E-2300: Bally Manufacturing Co. Slot Machine / Bell: Series V-2000: Bally Manufacturing Co. Slot Machine / Video: Seven Seas: Bally Manufacturing Co. 1960: Pinball / Electro-Mechanical: Sheba: Bally Manufacturing Co. 1965: Pinball / Electro-Mechanical: Shoot-A-Line: Bally Manufacturing Co.

Bally Serial Number Information: A Bally Serial number identifies the year the Bally Walk-In was manufactured. This information is useful in determining correct model parts, as many parts have evolved in design over the years. The Serial number is required to determine warranty coverage.

Repair Tips for Reel Readers

How to test and what to look for when doing your own repairs

When one of these goes bad you may see an error that would be 4x or 7x where x indicates thereel position, i.e. a 43 error code would indicate the reel reader on the third reel.

What is described below is for testing the reel reader card using this home built tester. The tester provides both a 50 volt source or a 5 volt source (switch selectable).

After describing this procedure I will tell you how to test the cards with out having to have a 50 volt source.

I designed and built a tester to make troubleshooting easier. I test the card and all of the photo-transistors
first, then I split the two halves of the card, one for cleaning but also so that I can use a dental tool, poking
it into the tiny opening to push the photo-transistor or IR Emitter back up and out of the small square opening. The photo-transistor/Emitter should be at something close to a 45 degree angle.

Once the bad components are pushed out of the way, I use my soldering iron to melt the solder on both leads at the same time while grasping the upper portion of the optic. It comes off very easily. Once removed use solder wick to remove the excess solder. You want to do this so that when you put in the new device the leads will be nearly flat on the PC board.

Replace the defective components and quickly tack one side, allow the solder to cool and then solder the other side. Once the other side has cooled you can go back and firmly solder the lead that was previously tacked. Reassemble and then retest to make sure that the optics are working properly. Tapping the top of the card lightly with the handle of a screw driver will show any intermittent connections.

The one question that may come up is what constitutes a bad device. Since the reader cards supply signals to TTL logic devices then we can use standard logic levels of 2.0 volts as a high and .8 volts as a low. When measuring the output of the photo transistor, if the voltage is less than 2.0 volts, while unblocked or higher than 0.8 volts when blocked then that photo-transistor (or emitter) is defective.

In the cards that I have repaired I typically see voltages of greater than 4 volts unblocked and .01 volts blocked for the 50 volt reader cards, 5 volt reader cards the unblocked voltage is 3.14 and the blocked voltage 0.2.
Test all of the emitters and photo-transistors first, the replace all defective ones. I make it a habit to clean the bulbs with alcohol on the 50 volt cards so that as much light as possible gets to the photo-transistor.

Testing reel readers without having a 50 volt source.

The 50 volt supply is only used to power the incandescent bulbs. They are in series along with the 470 ohm resistor. Each bulb requires 5 volts to operate properly.

You need a few basic items, a Volt/Ohm meter (DVM) , a 47K resistor, a light source (flashlight) and some clip leads and a 5 volt DC power supply

Split the cards by removing the 2 screws and lay the small card off to the side

If you lay the card flat on its back with the mounting bracket to the left then the pins at the bottom will number 1 through 16 from right to left
Measure the resistance between pin 16 and 14, Pin 16 is Vcc and 14 is Ground you should have a reading a bit above 500 ohms, indicating that the 470 ohm 2 W resistor and all of the bulbs are OK. If not in this range then you will have to remove the tape covering the backs of the bulbs and then measure resistance across each bulb individually. Remember the bulbs are wired in series like the old Christmas tree light strings.

Assuming that the bulbs and resistor are OK. Attach the ground lead of the volt meter and one end of the resistor to pin 14 (pairs 13/14)
of the card. Connect the other end of the resistor and the positive lead of the volt meter to pin 11.

Now using the 5 volt supply, apply 5 volts to pin 1 of the card and read the voltage, shine the light into the small (tiny) hole that is for Q1, voltage should be some where around 4.7 volts with the light on and some where less than 0.2 volts with the light off. Just keep in mind that ambient light might cause the light off reading to be higher. The acceptable voltage ranges need to be within the acceptable ranges used in ‘Logic” circuits so a logic high you need 2 volts or more and a logic low 0.8 volts or less.

You may find that if you have these readings, a Q-tip dipped into alcohol can be used to clean the top of the photo-transistor by pushing the Q-tip into the hole and then twisting the Q-tip. I routinely clean these as well as to clean the bulbs.

Repeat this process for each of the following pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9

Other than pin 11, all of the other pins are in pairs

Pins 1 & 2 Collector of Q1
Pins 3 & 4 Collector of Q2
Pins 5 & 6 Collector of Q3
Pins 7 & 8 Collector of Q4
Pins 9 & 10 Collector of Q5

Pin 11, Common emitter
Pin 12 Missing (pin is cut off)

Pins 13 & 14 Ground
Pins 15 & 16 Vcc
This process is not nearly as quick or accurate as using the tester but should allow you to test each of the cards.

The 5 volt card testing process is not much different other than it is not necessary to split the cards and you need a 3K resistor instead of a 47K resistor.

Apply the 5 volts across pins 16 and 14 and then measure the voltage on the associated
pin pairs.
In this case the 3K resistor attached to pin 14 and pin 11 biases another transistor’s base (Q6), pulling it low so that it will turn on the IR Emitters. Remember to block the light for each IR emitter to see the photo-transistor transition to a low state.

Testing results for the 5 volt cards readers you will not read anywhere near 4.7 volts, they will be closer 3.0 volts for a high and about 0.2 volts for a low

Repair Tips for Power Supply

I have noticed that the schematic for the Bally E1000/E2000 power supplies list expected voltages, but, what does that mean?

I have a couple of these power supplies so I decided to do some testing to see what voltages were obtained under certain circumstances.

If you apply 12 VAC across pins 1 and

Bally Slot Machine Error Code 50