rowe bc-25 problem (no fault code)

[TheShanMan]

Was working in San Jose, but now that I've transported it up to Oregon it isn't. All voltage led's light, no fault code (just the dot that indicates computer board is operational), out of service light is off, and the coin/bill reject button activates the bill motor. I don't hear anything happen with the hoppers, inserting a dollar bill doesn't activate the bill motor, and the test vend buttons do nothing.

I couldn't find much info about this state in my BC-20 manual (btw, this was a BC-20 that was upgraded to a BC-25 apparently), but the "bill changer inoperative - will not accept coins or bills" troubleshooting flowchart says the computer board is bad. I'm a little dubious because it was working in SJ.

Any ideas on what to do at this point?

 

[Encom]

Check the connectors between the bill acceptor and the machine itself. Although it should through a code if they aren't working right, verify that the first light in bill path on the Bill Acceptor is on.

If you push the test vend buttons, does it drop the coins? If it does, after that do the hopper motors run?

 

[TheShanMan]

Light is on, but the test vend buttons don't do anything.

 

[KenLayton]

I would double chaeck the soldering at all the board connectors on the CPU board and the power supply board.

 

[TheShanMan]

Will do. Hopefully that plastic cover comes off easily (haven't looked closely at it). Thanks Ken.

 

[TheShanMan]

Well it just occurred to me what might be happening. Whenever I pushed the reset button there was absolutely no indication of it resetting (e.g. I would think it would flash "F" on the display much like when it powers up). Popped the button top off and sure enough internally it was shorting. Now that's working fine.

On to my next issue: tokens! I have .984 tokens, which are just a hair larger than a quarter. They seem to be jamming the hoppers as they get pulled up by the serpentine chain. Is there no way to use this size of tokens with a change machine such as this or is there some way I can perhaps modify it to work?

I don't have a ton of tokens yet - that's the good thing. But I bought a couple hundred of those nice MAME tokens that Santoro of BYOAC sells at arcadereplay.com, and I'd hate to have to get rid of those. And actually, it almost seems like it's getting hung up on the couple dozen chuck e cheese tokens I have (which I think are .984 but maybe just the slightest hair bigger???). But if I'm going to order a ton more tokens to fill this baby, I'd want to go with one size, and I would be afraid that some percentage of .984's that I buy wouldn't work.