Back on the job with my EM "Winner"

[Homepin]

OK so I had a bit of a cleanup in my shed and decided it was time to get cracking on my Winner EM. I tackled the burnt out 'Lock Relay' today. From memory this relay is energised all the time whenever there is a game playing so it does a pretty long duty cycle.

Here is the relay as I got the game:



I dismantled the relay and removed what was left of the coil - it was a molten mess. Not having a new coil I decided to make my own after the success of the bell coil and motor that I had previously made. Took some accurate measurements from another coil in the machine and drew up some parts:



Then I cut the parts from a 1mm sheet of hobby 3 ply (available at hobby shops)



Rolled a piece of light card and superglued the thing together



Checked that the iron core fitted - nice and snug - PERFECT!



Put a bit of high temperature tape around the light card and wound the coil. Originally it had 1150 turns of 28G wire but the closest I had to hand was 30G (very slightly thinner). I figured if I could squeeze 1200 turns on it would allow the relay to run cooler and perhaps not burn out as quickly??



Managed to fit 1200 turns nicely - only took about 10 minutes winding by hand. All info I could find suggested that this coil should read 14.2 ohms so I was pretty happy to get 26.9 figuring this should really take the pressure of the coil - if it was still strong enough to pull in????



Fitted to the machine



and tested it with my trusty 24V AC transformer - all good and another part of this project completed.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Great job!! 

 i used to make my own coils from scratch many years ago for my machines when i didnt know where to get new ones from, my home brew Vortex pin still has a few home made coils in it, as well as some hand rewound Stern/Bally coils.

[goodolddays]

Nice work Mike  .

The lock relay coil is fried in my Gulfstream , but for now I have just bypassed it by adjusting the relevent NO switches to closed , except for the hold switch which doesn't matter.
It just means that if you haven't finished a game when you turn it off, it will still be in the middle of that game when you turn it back on , plus a couple of other things, that don't matter , eg .. adding a credit via coin switch starts a game instead of adding a credit etc.

[Strangeways]

There are two coils that you can bypass for home use machines - the "Hold" and "coin lockout" coils. The main advantage is that you don't hear the constant "hum" of these two coins. The downside is that the machine loses "character" - I like the "hum" of an EM.

Very ingenious, Mike - it should work a treat.

Glad to see you back on the "Winner" - One of my favorite EMs and I'd like to add one to my collection at some stage.