Unboxing a 1970 Allied Leisure Wild Cycle Motorcycle Arcade

 Unboxing a 1970 Allied Leisure Wild Cycle arcade machine.

I had the opportunity to purchase a New In Box (NIB) game, but not just any kind of NIB. My kind of NIB... from 1970!

This is something I've dreamt of doing ever since I started collecting coin operated machines: unboxing a vintage machine.

I had to drive a 1300 km round trip to pick it up but it was worth it. Just for the experience.

When you are buying a vintage NIB it's a bit like Schrödinger's arcade machine. You don't know what's inside the box. You gotta take the risk.

It's not because the machine hasn't been opened that the machine is perfect... Especially after 50 years!

It's a cardboard box. Not a time capsule. It all depends on the storage conditions.

Be aware that rubber parts dry up. Box or no box. There's always the risk of corrosion (switch points and metal parts) or nasty traces left by critters.

I was fairly confident the machine was clean judging by the state of the box but you're never 100% sure.

In the end you're paying a premium for the privilege of the experience of unboxing the game. Once the game is unboxed it's most likely worth only a fraction of the paid price. All in all, I'm satisfied with the machine's condition. Could've been worse.

Here is a photo journey of Wild Cycle's unboxing. Enjoy!

Next post: pictures of the inside

1962 Bally Spinner: Correcting a design flaw using junk parts

 Correcting a design flaw in 1962 Bally Spinner using junk parts.

I am currently the caretaker of a 1962 Bally Spinner (No! Not 1963. Spinner was released December 28th 1962 according to IPDB). Spinner is a unique concept in the history of gambling machines. It’s like a giant game of Hungry Hungry Hippos for adults.

I’ve known of... and worked on this rare game since before it ended up in the middle of my living room.

Spinner in the middle

Full ball traps

Empty ball traps

And for as long as I’ve known this game it’s had the same problem. Way before it even ended up at my place the game didn’t reset and start properly.

Back then, I thought it wasn’t resetting properly due to the fact that all the switch points were heavily tarnished so I cleaned all the switches and the game seemed to work fine. But the problem wasn’t entirely solved... Intermittent problem.

A dime would be dropped in the coin chute and more often than not, the centre disc would start spinning without first ejecting the trapped balls from the previous play.

Normally, at coin drop.

The start relay would engage by way of the coin switch.

Then, simultaneously, the timer unit reset coil and the ball dump motor would energize through the start relay and the start relay would hold in (remain energized) through the open at zero switch (closed the rest of the time) on the timer unit and the ball dump motor cam switch open at index(closed when in rotation).

Once the ball dump and timer unit reset would complete, both switches holding the start relay would break, the start relay would drop out and the felt disc would start spinning and normal play would begin.

Bally Spinner Schematics

In reality, what was happening was that the timer unit would reset so fast that it didn’t allow enough time for the ball dump cam to rotate enough to close the cam switch, due to mechanical loss and slop in the mechanism. Before the reset cam could even rotate enough for the cam switch to close, the timer unit would have reset, and electrically both conditions for the start relay to drop out were met.

Ball dump motor cam switch at index

Ball dump motor, shaft and eccentric cams

The timer unit would reset lightning fast because it didn’t have a wiper or a disc. Just a ratchet gear, with no wiper and disc drag to slow down the ratchet gear as it wound down to zero position.

Not actual stepper unit from Spinner, but here's what a stepper unit looks like without a wiper and disc

At first I wanted to correct this problem electro-mechanical by installing a 0-5 second delay relay and use it to delay the timer unit reset coil from energizing by about 1 second so I ordered a Chinese copy of a Omron delay relay from Amazon, but then I got impatient. Update post with solid state timer HERE.

I should just try to create a delay mechanically by adding a disc and wiper to the timer stepper unit. The wiper and disc would have for only use to create drag to slow down the ratchet gear just enough so that the ball dump cam would rotate enough to close it’s switch.

So I looked through my box of bad parts and found a bad payout disc from a Bally Super Wall Street and some 3 finger wiper of unknown origin. The 70’s parts fit perfectly on a 60’s stepper because Bally and a slight tension adjustment of the ratchet gear spring did the trick.

Mechanical delay disc and wiper

Bally Spinner relay board... Someone at the Bally factory mixed up the labels

So far so good! 

1962 Bally Spinner top view

1962 Bally spinner inside

Bally Big Time bingo: two variants. Bingo haul and Decals

Picked up a few Bally bingo machines over the weekend.

Gotta love a van!

Nothing special. Two Show Times and a Big Time. The price was low but the drive was long. The machines were all water damaged (found that out once I'd driven all the way there) and are pretty much good for parts only. The whole affair was more of an excuse to take a day off work and drive around to be honest.

I noticed the Show Time bingos each had an interesting decal on the top arch:

Bally celebrating its 25th anniversary: 1932 - 1957

A Union stick I have never seen before: 

NATIONAL INDEPENDENT UNION COUNCIL

AMUSEMENT & VENDING MACHINE EMPLOYEES

LOCAL UNION No 1

Never saw that before

Also noticed a key difference on the parts Big Time compared to my good Big Time:

My good Big Time bingo machine has a strange setup for the ball trap switches. Actually my machine doesn't have switches. It has contacts and it's the conductive metal ball that completes the circuit to the card number lites. The shutter has NO switches on my good Big Time.

It's a very annoying setup, balls that have orange peel (imperfect surface due to long term play) tend to have poor contact resulting in intermittent and flickering numbers on the card.

A set of contacts 180 degrees across the hole.

The Big Time parts machine has proper switches on the shutter. I speculated that it was a retrofit of some sort: maybe an operator put in a shutter from another machine model due to reliability issues...

But on the underside of the playfield, there is no sign of the contacts. So it's definitely not a retrofit.

Interesting production variations. I'm curious to know which variation is the most common for Big Time.

Which variation do you have on your Bally Big Time Bingo?

First Race One Ball Horse Racing pinball video

First Race: Solid State One Ball Horse Racing Pinball repairs continued

First Race Solid State One ball horse racing flipperless payout pinball

This is my third detailed post about First Race, a solid state one ball horse racing gambling machine. As I write this post, there are no other known examples of this game. The manufacturer is unknown and the machine was last operated in South Africa. The machine was extensively played judging by the playfied wear.

First Race might be a prototype, a one off or the last of its kind. Who knows! There isn't any information about it.

I found the machine at a pinball re-seller in Montreal. It was sitting there for years before I acquired it. I'm not usually into electronic amusement machines but I couldn't let this one pass.

Here are my previous posts about First Race:

First Race: Solid State One Ball Horse Racing Pinball Unknown Manufacturer

First Race One Ball Horse Racing Payout Pinball: Overview and repairs

Here are a few detail pictures:

Backglass: It's made of plexiglass. Notice the lack of manufacturer's name or logo. Also notice the odds are displayed reverse of my 1949 Bally Champion. Left to right the odds are displayed decreasing instead of increasing like on the Bally Champion.

Playfield is nicely screened but artwork is sparse and the paint is thin. The rebound and flag springs are made of plastic. Very 90's.

Bottom left and right trap holes are ball returns. Center bottom trap hole pays out purse odds.

Here's a view of the inside of the front of the cabinet. Notice the coin meter. It adds up the number of credits knocked off via the hidden credit reset button.

The coindoor. Red button is for "extra bonus" feature. Yellow button is to play credits if the coin tube is empty. Coin tube can hold about 90 Nickels. Seems a bit contrary to bingo machine symbology where the red button is to play credits and yellow button is to play for extra balls. I will probably end up swapping the button lenses around.

Inside of coin door. Door is simple thick gauge steel. Very basic. The coin rejector is adjustable. Video poker machine buttons.

Where I left off last post. I suspected the shutter motor had a problem. I took apart the motor and the armature brake mechanism is definitely broken. There's supposed to be 2 tabs, opposed 180 degrees on what I can describe as an armature brake disc made of black plastic. Both tabs are broken.

The result is that when de-energised, the armature keeps spinning freely for too long. The shutter cam triggers the carryover switch and the motor powers up. It gets stuck into a perpetual cycle.

Looking on ebay. I found similar Crouzet motors that I could probably use to swap out the brake mechanism but they are all listed for 100's of dollars. That's a bit too much for me. Until I can find a (affordable) suitable replacement, I will disable the motor and push the shutter by hand.

Motor armature with the broken brake disc.

After getting a 120 to 240 Volt converter and replacing a broken relay, the machine could coin up but the shutter switches would cause the machine to freak out. Only the 6's would pay out correctly. I took out the main board and re-seated all the integrated circuits and changed out the chips with tarnished pins that went black / brown. This however did not solve the switch issue...

I took the time to trace out the wiring to a DB9 and DB25 connector on the main board. This allowed me to better understand the architecture of the game. There might be future revisions of the pinout chart...

The coin switch and yellow button go through a flimsy looking assembly with a 4093 ic with two transistors. I had my doubts about the assembly so I took it out for closer inspection.

Once the assembly was out, I could see that there was a broken wire and a broken pin on the ic socket.

I re-made the assembly with an actual pcb. Makes it less flimsy and with the new unit reinstalled. The switch payout problems were gone.

At this point I'm happy with the state of the machine. The game coins up. The switch logic is good and the machine pays out correctly. The wiring could use a bit of tidying up... all in good time. The situation with the motor is unfortunate but I might be able to repair it in the future OR shoehorn in a different motor to do the job. I would prefer the former.

If you stumble upon this post and you are into weird and rare gambling machines, please consider sharing this post. I don't have any information about First Race. I'm looking for any information about it. Where it came from, who made it, production details, documentation, manual, schematic, score and information cards.