Coin Door Coils?

Sirius

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What exactly is the operation of these coin door coils? There are two small curved wires that move over toward the switch when the coils are energized. On my Close Encounters (Gottlieb), one of the switches was seriously mis-adjusted. Where exactly is the hook in the wire supposed to move to. Below the switch or or between the hook. What exactly is the purpose of this system...see photos. First photo shows, energized with the hook on the wire in between the lower portion of the switch, and the second is not energized with the wire pulled back. Can someone explain this to me pleeeeze?
 

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Those are "coin lockout coil" wireforms. In the electromechanical days, the lockout coil was there to prevent coins from being accepted if the machine was turned off or if the score motor was cycling. Kids would insert coins when the score motor ran in an attempt to get extra credits, but sometimes they would flat out lose there coin and not get any credits.

In the early electronic pinball days, manufacturers carried over having lockout coils. The coil would pull in when the cpu board finally booted up and the game was ready to accept money. As an interesting aside, when Gorgar first came out, people were losing their quarters in the machine because they were inserting coins when Gorgar was speaking. Williams determined their hardware was at fault (not enough memory) and issued a service bulletin about this. Their solution was to slap on a decal that said, "Gorgar says do not insert money while I'm talking" plus they issued some new game roms with a software patch that de-energized the coin lockout coil while speech was occuring. Thus the game could not accept money while it was talking.

Starting with "High Speed" Williams discontinued providing lockout coils on the coin doors. Sure, the wiring was their for them if you wanted to add them yourself. Williams made lockout coils optional and about two years later discontinued them altogether. Some early "High Speed" games did ship with lockout coils installed, but most did not.
 
Ok, so according to the photos I posted is this the correct position of the hooks? I only ask because it's the other side that was seriously bent and misaligned. I have no reference to go by. Also sometimes the hook on the wire will crash into the side of the tab and not go in between or below the switch. It only needs a fine adjustment and I was wondering which way is correct?

Thanks Ken
 
When the lockout coil is energized, the wireforms should be out of the coin acceptor. In your case toward the coin switches since it's a Gottlieb.

When the coil is de-energized, the wireforms should enter a hole on the side of the coin acceptor to blockout any coins from being accepted. The coins should then come out the coin return.
 
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