Naughty Bally Venice Bingo. Issues and a operator hack...
In my previous post, I published a long play video of my Bally Venice bingo machine being played.
If you are part of the 11% of the viewers that watched the end of the video... You might have wondered why I didn't play for extra balls.
To summarize the last game played:
I get the Numbers lit in All 4 star zones score 450 feature lit.
I start chucking some balls: I hit the *16, then hit green 19, then *1, then red 2...
And the last ball lands in *17. That's 3 out of 4 star numbers lit. The camera is still rolling (figuratively speaking).
I figure I should try punting for extra balls and try to skill shot it, *6 is easy enough to hit.
All my quarters are played with zero credits left on the register but I remember I have a few Quarters in my pocket. I fish out my quarters. Press the yellow button before dropping the coin for extra balls and nothing happens! The yellow button is dead. Dead dead deadski.
Is it supposed to do that, like some kind of devious feature, or did the machine just pack up?
I press the R button in a lame attempt. Hoping that it would shake up the machines Goldbergian innards, but no dice.
I turn off the camera, edit out the last part of the video and I start investigating.
Now that I gave you the play by play. Here's the unadulterated ending of my bingo session.
Let's go straight to the point: The machine did pack up.
That's what I get for not going over the whole machine when I first got it and not playing the game for long periods of time. But it did give me the chance to study the manual and schematics and find some hacks along the way.
After making the video, playing a few games, the yellow button had multiple symptoms apart from the aforementioned dead yellow button:
Sometimes the yellow button would work, but switching between red button and yellow button mode with zero credits on the register... the switching would be difficult.
Sometimes, pressing the yellow button would start a new game instead of playing for extra balls.
Sometimes, once the game was in play for extra balls mode, pressing the red button would play for extra balls instead of starting a new game.
What a mess! I was dealing with multiple intermittent issues. Assuredly multipoint failure.
The suspects were the red button relay, the actual switches on the red button and those on the yellow button too, the before 5th selector lock trip and the extra ball #1 and #2 trips.
I started with the red button relay... I open the back door to find the relay just dangling.
This is embarrassing.
On the bright side I don't have to unscrew the relay from the board to service it.
I cleaned the switch points and checked the switch gaps. Then I used beefier screws to secure the relay to the board.
That resulted in no improvements whatsoever on my red / yellow button issues.
Next was cleaning and adjusting of the red and yellow button switches. These switches are finicky AF. The order in which the switches open or close is super critical.
Here's an excerpt from the manual.
Checking the red and yellow button switches had a marginal effect on the problems.
Next thing to look at was the before 5th selector lock trip.
I was inspecting the trip bank when I noticed a tucked away cut green and black wire near the top of the trip bank. Then I found that the green-black wire went to the 4 star numbers score 900 trip coil. Naughty operator hack.
Might as well fix it. Not my prettiest work but it's functional.
I always wondered why the 4 star pays 900 panel was all scratched up on the backglass. Now back to the yellow button mystery.
I took apart the switch stack that has the normally open switch with the red on one side and the blue white wire on the other. Cleaned the switches... and they were grubby. But that had little effect on my problem.
At this point, play testing the game it seemed like it had gotten worse. Consistently. At the end of a game, pressing the yellow button to play for extra balls would start a new game. That meant the extra ball #1 and #2 trip relays were not tripping when yellow button switch 1 was first closed. Directly actuating the switch in the stack confirmed this. I didn't hear the unmistakable click of the relay trip.
At first I suspected a open circuit between the door and the trip relays but that measured good with the multimeter.
So I went upstream in the circuit and I found it. Turns out it was the timer cam index 16c that was out of adjustment.
The 16C switch in situ.
Since then Venice has been playing great... until the next failure. It has 400 pounds of wiring and relays just waiting to fail.
I can't say I play this game a lot. But that could be said of all of my games. It's a shame, Venice being such a rare title.
I made a typical long play video of Venice. Typical... I end up not winning anything.
Venice is an electro-mechanical juggernaut of a bingo machine, with 4 transistors for the special game as the cherry on top.
This game is so heavy that it's land locked in my workshop area. It's been there since 2017. Like most 20 hole games, it's not very fun to play imho. But I like it anyway. I remember coveting this game so badly, the machine hiding in a dusty Ville Saint-Laurent warehouse "attic".
Thank your R.A.B. for making this game part of my collection. Wherever you may be.
Here's a bunch of Bally Venice Bingo pictures all in the same place. Venice is a pretty rare game and there are very few pictures of the internals online. All the pictures are from my own Venice. Enjoy!
There's something about working on a bingo machine in the workshop. With the Backglass and playfield glass off. Test playing the game. My fondest memories of Golden Gate and Sea Island are in my workshop. Once the machine is all fixed up, I lose interest. Suddenly, it's not as fun to play the game. Maybe it's the challenge, the flashing lights, the sounds, the ozone. Who knows?
Test playing Bally Venice with no glass
Someone called me a pinball junkie not too long ago. It was no great revelation, I admit it freely. I'm hooked on repairing and collecting old Bally's. There's just something about them. Their electromechanical complexity, the build quality, the artwork, their idiosyncrasies. They just turn my crank.
Just look at all the Bingo guts, steppers, relays, motors, trip bank, mixer and control unit. So much stuff! Looks like a Borg cube inside out. Maybe other trekkies will see the similarity. Maybe not.
Bally Venice Bingo Inside
Venice repair progress update:
The electrifying control unit was caused by one of the lugs of the search wiper lock magnet coil touching the frame.
Coil lug touching the frame
The blue odds not stepping up like they should was a purely mechanical problem. I took the stepper unit apart, cleaned, re-lubed and the problem was solved.
The timer unit not stepping up was a combination of an oxidized jones connector, cleaning a few switches under the playfield and taking apart the timer stepper unit, clean and re-lubricated.
Venice Italy: The city that inspires thoughts about the renaissance, gondolas, canotier hats, the arts, romanticism and dubious water.
Bally Venice: A ultra rare bingo machine. A juggernaut of electromechanical complexity and four transistors. A machine that Bally didn't even bother to make a flyer for. My Bingo Grail.
Bally Venice Backglass Detail
This machine is the quintessential chasing bugs bingo machine. Madonna once wrote a song about how it feels to work on this bingo machine. It feels like the first time (fixing a bingo machine) all over again.
So far, Venice has 4 main bugs.
The special game didn't work properly...
The timer unit does not step up when the first ball is raised to the shooter lane, causing the shutter to remain open when the first ball reaches the top ball gate into play.
The blue odds don't step up as they should. Very weird as the blue odds step up coil is wired with the green odds step up coil. So if the green odds step up properly, the blue odds should too.
I get electrical shocks off the control unit frame. Probably a micarta insulator that has a conductive carbon spot.
___________________________
The special game bug is solved, the problem was two broken wires on the ODD / EVEN advance unit disk. Two wires on the edge of the disk looked odd, as if they were bent in an unusual way. Curious, I pulled on those two wires and discovered that the wires were actually broken, the cloth sheathing was the only thing holding the wires. I re-soldered the wires. Lo and Behold, the special game works. That was the most intriguing feature. Very fun.
The ODD / EVEN advance unit disk is the second stepper unit from the left.
2 cleanly broken wires
I suspect the other problems are of mechanical or physical nature. Electrically, everything looks OK. I don't have that much time to work on Venice as I have other repair commitments to fulfil first but I still dabble in Venice some late evening now and then.
Bally Venice is assembled in my workshop. To get it there, I needed the help of a few friends. I am grateful for their assistance.
1968 Bally Venice Bingo
When you're in a hobby like Bingo machines, you need a network of friends around you. Because bingo machines are few and far between, you need people on the lookout for you. Bingo machine heads are really heavy, you need help to move them. Also, you absolutely need the manual and schematic if you hope to being able to fix the game and usually, they're not inside the game.
Whether it's lending parts to a buddy that needs to get a game working asap OR riding shotgun for a seemingly dodgy pinball transaction. To appreciate pinball as a hobby, you need people around you.
I was thinking the other day about the difference between a "normal friend" and a "pinball friend". I keep a mental list of my normal friends who have given me help to move or assemble a pingame because it's unlikely they will do it a second time. On the other hand, I have a few pinball friends that are always ready to help move something big and heavy down the stairs, and myself, I will help them however I can.
bingo.cdyn.com has always been the source for bingo documentation. Until now, the website however did not have any good pictures of the Venice internals so I will gladly send the pictures to Phil so that bingo aficionados all over the interwebs can use for reference.
Now that Venice is assembled I will work on it when I have the time. I have other shop jobs to take care of. Most of the switch points in Venice need burnishing and the special game is a mystery, but all of the internals are sound and when I first put the power on to the game, the credits on the display knocked off to zero so the games isn't completely brain dead.
Special Thanks to:
R.A.B. For acting as a broker in the Venice transaction
James S. For letting me store the game at his place for the weekend and letting me crash there overnight.
Bob G (ShootAgain). For helping me lift the head into place.
Julie L. For general help and understanding.
Phil Hooper For his website http://bingo.cdyn.com/ the best and only place for bingo manuals and schematics
