Anyone else run into this with old coin mechs?

deaniatley

Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2025
Messages
49
Reaction score
38
Location
Maine
I've been restoring a cab and noticed something odd: the coin mech accepts quarters just fine for a while, then suddenly rejects every single one like it's possessed. Cleaned it, swapped mechs, even tried different quarters, same thing. Wait 10–15 minutes, and magically it starts working again.


Feels like some weird combo of wear, humidity, and gremlins.

Has anyone else chased this kind of issue before?

What fixed it for you?
 
Out of curiosity which mechs are you having issues with?

I've had that happen a lot with the glass-reinforced plastic coin mechs from IL. Never been able to figure it out.
 
Out of curiosity which mechs are you having issues with?

I've had that happen a lot with the glass-reinforced plastic coin mechs from IL. Never been able to figure it out.
I'm using the IL glass-reinforced plastic ones too, so that's probably the common denominator. Good to know I'm not the only one who's seen them act up like that. Seems like they work great… until they don't, and then magically behave again.
 
I've had mechs that were extremely sensitive to the angle the cab was at.

With the coin door open, they'd work fine. But close the coin door and they'd be very inconsistent.

Turned out my uneven floors were enough to make them wonky.
 
I second what Andrew said. I put mechs in my first machine and the quarters we rejected 2/3 of the time. I was testing it with the coindoor open. When the door was closed it worked fine. Level and plum can makes a difference.
 
I'm using the IL glass-reinforced plastic ones too, so that's probably the common denominator. Good to know I'm not the only one who's seen them act up like that. Seems like they work great… until they don't, and then magically behave again.

So recently I've been doing a ton of coin door "restorations" really just refinishing rusty, crusty doors, replacing the coin door bezels and whatnot. The biggest issues i have been having are the IL coin mechs, finding coinco parts and the awful vertical switches on the latest generation happ/IL coin mech holders.

As for the plastic happ/il coin mechs, I find that over half of them fail in this way and no matter how many times I adjust them they last only a few times before they fail. Swapping the coin mechs for another brand into the same cabinet works perfectly. This is one IL product which I confidently call a complete failure. Sad because IL tends to make very good stuff but these just seem faulty to me.

I found that many of the older metal coin mechs from coinco and coin controls placed into the newer IL coin mech holder do not drop the quarter down the final half of the chute fast enough to trigger the switch on the newer happ/IL holders. Because the switches are oriented vertically with the connectors facing up, they are also very prone to corrosion if someone pours liquid on your cab from above.

I found that this mech holder design likes plastic coin mechs which allow your coin to travel faster. Imonex brand coin mechs function 100% on these coin mech holders.
 
Back
Top Bottom