Jennings Reel Stop question

[RameGoom]

Question for the Jennings/Pace experts out there. I have a 5c Twin Jackpot revamp with the reel stops as shown. The left reel is a bit sluggish and sometimes stops between lines, so I looked at the stop levers - it seems the left lever (in red) is less pronounced than the others and looks unusual. Is this done for a particular reason? Any ideas or suggestions? I'm inclined to bend it like the others and maybe increase the return spring tension. Then, I believe I can tweak the alignment with the two screws in the slotted holes. Make sense?

[youngjedi]

Hello,
It is definately bent. Unfortunate but not hard to fix. I can assume the previous owner put new strips in and instead of following the propper procedures for alignment, he bent the stop lever to line up the first reel with the others. That is just my thought, but i have never seen the force of a reel/mechanism cause such a bend on it's own.
Several things must be done to fix it.
A. The stop lever should be the same as the other two.
B. Once done, the star wheels will all be in axact alignment.
C. The two nuts and bolts on the first reel hub need to be loosened and the pay disk(disk closest to the pay fingers) needs to be alinged properly so that when tbe machine is at rest, the 20 steps on the pay discs are alinged evenly...very important!
D. Tighten the hub and cycle the machine. Stop the govener on the clock and align the reels with jackpot..jackpot..jackpot. if there is only one jackpot on the first reel, then this step is easy. Otherwise count the symbols between two jackpots and make sure the outer most pay disc is also matched to the jackpot payout holes accordingly. The jp hole is closest to the center of the payout disk.
E. Once the jp,s are lined up for a payout, release the govener on the clock. Let te machine finish it,s cycle. (Don't forget to get tne coins from under the mech)
Slide mech back in cabnet....check alingnment of symbols. Any adjustment needed from here on is done with the reels strips. Carefully un-pry the crimped edges around the reel and rotate the symbol strip until the jp is lined up with the other two..

Take your time. It's a long process, but is worth the effort. Lastly, make sure your hands are clean when aligning the strips. Keep the strips nice and claen looking.

One last thing...after looking at your picture again, it looks like you have a ten stop reel. (10 tabs on the pay disks). If so, understand that every other symbol is false and will not show up in a winning alignment. For example, you may have two jp's on the first reel. One is true and will line up, but the other may be false and should'nt line up center.


Hope that helps.
Charlie

[youngjedi]

Oh yah, when i mention the two screws and nuts on the hub, i am not reffering to the screws on the star wheels. I am reffering to the ones that are clamping the axle. You should not have to tweak the star wheel screws.
Charlie

[tsparts4u]

Here's just a suggestion on aligning the reel discs and reel strips. It might be a little easier than putting the upper payout lever into the jackpot holes in the 3 discs because there may be more than one jackpot symbol on a reel strip. I would align the bell holes in the discs, as on a 10 stop machine there are only 3 bell symbols on the strips that are payout symbols. These would be the 3 bell symbols at the end of each reel strip.

[RameGoom]

Thanks everyone for the info. I have the reels apart for cleaning and re-soldering a few broken mounts, and it's starting to make sense. However, what doesn't make sense is how it pays out if there is no slot for the payout finger - only every other symbol lines up with the payout oval slots.

I assume it uses a different combination to pay on matching symbols. 20 symbols, but only 10 spokes on the stops.

[youngjedi]

On a ten stop macbine, only ten symbols on the reels will pay off. The other ten do not pay off and will never line up in the center of the pay window. Basically, they are for looks only. Anyone playing the machine and not knowing it's a ten stop will think he/she "almost" won when a symbol just misses it. But in reality, it would never had lined up.

[RameGoom]

NOW....It's starting to make sense. So, in the old mechanical slots, the "randomness" is based on the speed of the reels spinning, but the payout fingers all drop onto the disc at roughly the same time, based on the unwinding of the clock mechanism...right? As the reels are snapped into rotation, that could vary slightly.

Am I getting it?

Thanks for all your input. On a slightly different line of thought, the electro-mechanical machines have a fairly constant reel speed, where the stops are "random-seed" driven by a series of chips that vary the stops slightly between pulls. That would seem to make the EM machines more reliable in determining odds of winning.

[youngjedi]

Yup...With the mechanical machines, The randomness is based on the spin of the reels. Lots of factors in the old style mechanical machines ... spring tensions, freeness of the reels and axle, etc.

[RameGoom]

Update: I did have to move the star wheel on the No. 1 reel to get the stops to align properly. That wheel was pinned, so I had to remove the pin and tweak it just a bit. I also bent the stop latch to the same angle as the other two...heard it "creak" and hope I didn't hurt it too much (hardened steel on those, they don't really want to bend nicely). Anyway it works perfectly now. I left the pin out and just torqued the crap out of the screws. Seems I have replaced half the screws on the whole machine because the slots were flared out from repeated misuse with a worn-out screwdriver. Too bad they didn't use Philips screws back in the day. So to be true to the machine, I used slotted screws - albeit plated instead of plain steel. Hope that didn't hurt the originality....

The other thing I found is on the No. 1 reel, there was a cherry toward the bottom of the strip that didn't align with a slot on the wheel - it should pay but never did. So, I found a guy that prints reel strips and had him replace the cherry with a lemon, printed new strips across the board. Now it works as it should. I wonder how that cherry got to be on the strip in the first place? Must've been a replacement strip at one time that someone screwed up?

[Canufixit]

Update: I did have to move the star wheel on the No. 1 reel to get the stops to align properly. That wheel was pinned, so I had to remove the pin and tweak it just a bit. I also bent the stop latch to the same angle as the other two...heard it "creak" and hope I didn't hurt it too much (hardened steel on those, they don't really want to bend nicely). Anyway it works perfectly now. I left the pin out and just torqued the crap out of the screws. Seems I have replaced half the screws on the whole machine because the slots were flared out from repeated misuse with a worn-out screwdriver. Too bad they didn't use Philips screws back in the day. So to be true to the machine, I used slotted screws - albeit plated instead of plain steel. Hope that didn't hurt the originality....

The other thing I found is on the No. 1 reel, there was a cherry toward the bottom of the strip that didn't align with a slot on the wheel - it should pay but never did. So, I found a guy that prints reel strips and had him replace the cherry with a lemon, printed new strips across the board. Now it works as it should. I wonder how that cherry got to be on the strip in the first place? Must've been a replacement strip at one time that someone screwed up?

Can you Share who made your reel strips for you ????? Thanks SteveC