Motors
A bingo can have up to seven motors in it. The general rule is that the older the bingo, the more likely it is that you will see a motor problem. Besides just the additional years of use, the newer bingos included some design changes like the R-button to reduce the time the motors were running. In addition, the newer motors were beefier.
All of the motors in a bingo are gear reduction motors - they have an attached gear box with reduces the RPM while increasing the torque. If the mechanism the motor is connected to is jammed in some way, there are two possible outcomes:
- the motor stops turning. If left long enough like this, the motor coil will burn up.
- the weakest gear in the motor will have teeth broken off. In fact, this is intentional to keep the coil burning (and possible fire) from happening.
Ball lift motor
Almost all bingos have one of these mounted on the inside right of the cabinet. They will usually last forever unless rust/crud in the ball lift mechanism causes it to seize, and the result is probably broken teeth.Hugh Kowne over at oldbinger.com identified the most likely cause of ball lift motor damage. If the playfield is not screwed down, and it slides forward in the cabinet, the lift mechanism can jam against the playfield where the ball lifts through. Stick your finger inside the opening under the red cap where the ball comes up. If you feel chewed up wood on the vertical edge of the hole nearest the front of the playfield, the lift mechanism has been hitting the playfield.
ball lift motor |
| Notice the tooth decay splattered on the motor frame |
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ball lift motor |
| Overhead view. Lots of teeth have been broken off. |
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test the motor gearbox by turning the cams one complete revolution. The gearbox should spin easily without binding. If necessary, disconnect the ball lift mechanism connecting rod.
If the motor is missing, you have a problem. If you are lucky, they threw the cams that are attached to the motor shaft back in the game. Usually you aren't lucky. There are different cams for different games (though many of the games of the same type used the same cams), so you pretty much have to locate a parts machine or find someone with the game and parts who can give you a motor and the correct cam assembly.
Many of the ball lift motors (especially on early games) where made by a company in Racine, Wisconsin which is still in business. They can repair a motor for about $20. See the resources section for contact info for Moto-search.
Control unit/mixer motors
There were at least four different styles of these. On early bingos, they were sealed motors made by Merckle (you couldn't get into the gearbox or disassemble it easily). The only way to check it besides applying power is to turn the attached fan with your finger and see if the motor will rotate the shaft it is connected to. This won't guarantee the motor works, but at least the gear box is ok. You should turn it at least one complete revolution of the attached shaft.The most common motor has a couple brass tubes sticking out of the bearings and where made by MultiProducts. The motor could be taken apart, and probably should be to repack the gears with new grease. See the overhaul section for details and pictures. Basic check same as sealed motor. This motor is the most useful to have a spare of, as it can be used in a lot of machines. The one gotcha is that there was at least two different sizes for the motor shaft. If you motor shaft was too big, you could drill out the gear unit it mated to the larger diameter hole. If your shaft was too small, you can try finding something to use as an adapter. I've seen people wrap thin metal around the shaft to increase it's diameter. It works ok. The most common failure of this motor is the small gear on the motor rotor (the part that spins inside the stator) itself. A Wico catalog from 1995 was still selling this part.
Dennis A. noticed that roll pin hole through the shaft is also located differently on newer motors. It's about 1/16" further from the gearbox. This was probably due to Bally mounting the motors with grommets on later games. If you replace a motor, check and see if the roll pin hole is spaced differently. If it is, use washers or grommets to mount the motor away from the bracket to offet the difference. If you don't, you will change the alignment of things on the shaft. Generally this would only matter with the mixers (make sure the rotors aren't hitting the metal bracket above them). On the control unit, you can adjust the switch bracket to realign the switches. On both the control unit and mixer, verify that the wiper fingers on the end of the shaft are making good contact and the slip ring wipers aren't flexed too much sideways.
Some late model bingos used motors similar to the ball lift motor. An open gearbox could be visually inspected. Some had sealed gearboxes which would require drilling out rivets to open....not much point unless you have a few bad motors and want to try and make a good one.
Feature motor(s)
The magic screen, magic square, mystic lines and some magic line games all moved the numbers around with a motor. This motor has a sealed gearbox which could be drilled open, or sometimes unbolted. It often is a smaller motor with no fan, so there is no way to check it without applying power.All you can do is check to make sure the motor is still there.
On Broadway, Night Club, and Showtime (at least), the magic squares motor turned all the time, and the motors failed eventually. A factory modification was made to power the motor only when the ABCD buttons where pressed on the foot rail. The modification was to cram some brackets and switches around the corners index cams. The switches where operated by the latching plates and would power the motor for 1/4 turn of the cam (until the latching plate fell into the index slot to stop the numbers from rotating). Later games used the same idea, but placement of the parts allowed for better brackets and switches to be used.
Trip bank reset
On late model bingos, the trip relay bank was rest by a motor and a set of plastic cams that reset each trip relay in sequence. Early games used a big coil that had to be strong enough to reset the entire bank at once. I've never seen a bad motor on the trip bank, as it turns once at the start of each game and that's it.
