[Jukebox-list] AMI PUSHBUTTON QUESTION

[Wesley Dean]

    Steve, we have an AMI E-120 operating without bail switches. Wes
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Wahl" <steve at pro-ns.net>
To: "Jukebox mailing list" <jukebox-list at lists.netlojix.com>
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 11:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Jukebox-list] AMI PUSHBUTTON QUESTION


> On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 10:25:29PM -0400, Dan Peshkin wrote:
>> As you all probably know I am a novice to the world of jukeboxes.  I  
>> am in the process of getting an AMI F-120 going.  I received my  
>> manual but am still having a couple of problems.
>> The credit unit seems to be operational but I do not have a slug  
>> rejector/coin mechanism present in the machine.  It seems to work on  
>> free play , although the manual makes no mention of how to set up the  
>> machine for free play without coins.  
> 
> Free play is a recent invention; it served no purpose whatsoever when
> the manual was written!
> 
>> I have an intermittent problem where the pushbuttons work for all
>> 120 selections....but sometimes when I turn the machine on, only the
>> first column (farthest left) of push buttons will work and the
>> remaining will not.  I can not trace the cause.  I have a feeling
>> that it has to do with the credit unit.  I realize that the wiring
>> to the push buttons in in a series, but it makes no sense to me why
>> one column of buttons works and the rest will not.
> 
> This is almost certainly a continuity problem from one row to the
> next.  That follows because the credit unit is common to all the
> switches, and cannot "tell" which ones you are pressing so that it
> could act differently; the series circuit is practically the only
> thing that is common to large portions of the selections, such that it
> could take out a large number of selections without taking them all.
> 
> The one thing to know is that the continuity does travel from one
> button to the next, but does not go in numerical selection order.  I
> just went and looked at my F.  If you number the column buttons with 1
> at the left, the pattern seems to go up (bottom to top) first column,
> then bottom to top on the third column, then top to bottom on the
> second column, and (probably) bottom to top on fifth column, then top
> to bottom on fourth column, and so on.
> 
> I say probably, because I only looked at the first three columns.  In
> terms of selection numbers, the circuit travels from 12 to 11, 10, 9,
> ... 1, 36, 35, 34 ... 25, 13, 14, ... 24, and so on.
> 
> [I just thought of this: Hopefully you've figured out that you can
> undo a couple of latches and tilt the whole title/button assembly out
> forward?  If you're leaning in through the main window to see the back
> sides of the buttons, that's the HARD way!]
> 
> If indeed selection 1 works but 36 doesn't, clean the normally closed
> contact on button 1 (meaning the contacts that touch when the button
> is NOT pressed) by pushing the button, inserting a piece of paper or
> business card between the contacts, letting go of the button, and
> pulling the paper back out).  
> 
> If it's not 1 working but 36 not, follow the buttons through until you
> find the "first" one that doesn't work, and figure out which one is
> previous, and clean that.
> 
> Hope that helps!
> 
> BTW, there is another thing that can "take out" banks of selections,
> but doesn't seem to match your symptoms.  The selection levers are in
> 3 blocks of 40 levers (actually, 6 x 20 if you take it apart far
> enough to look at it).  Any lever selected pushes up on a bail that
> goes across a group of 20 levers, and these bails are mechanically
> connected to a leaf switch that starts the mechanism when there's a
> selection it hasn't yet played.  The leftmost 40 selections (first
> "section") are tied to one leaf switch, and the other 80 (second and
> third sections) are tied to another.  
> 
> My F120 would originally only run if a selection in the first 40 was
> selected, but it would pick up selections in the other 80 if it passed
> them along the way.  This was of course because the right-side leaf
> switch wasn't being actuated by the bails; I had to bend -- execuse me
> -- "reform" the lever that was supposed to make this happen, and after
> that it worked nicely...
> 
> --> Steve Wahl
> 
> -- 
> Steve Wahl    steve at pro-ns.net
> 
> Fools ignore complexity.  Pragmatists suffer it.
> Some can avoid it.  Geniuses remove it.
> -- Perlis's Programming Proverb #58, SIGPLAN Notices, Sept.  1982
> _______________________________________________
> Jukebox-list mailing list
> Jukebox-list at lists.netlojix.com
> http://lists.netlojix.com/mailman/listinfo/jukebox-list