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Reflex Trivia and Facts:
Well on one very lucky day for me, Mr. Jeffery Lawton
kindly offered to send me a VHS tape copy of the Pinball Expo Don Hooker
interview performed by Russ Jensen, Dick Buschel, and a few others who had
the wonderful experience on talking to the man himself who designed the
bulk of the bingo pins and circuitry.
During the interview, one of the interviews was talking
about how it was possible for the owners to change the odds on the bingos
to control the payout percentage from 60% to 90%…………………
In looking at my pins (older bingos) I couldn’t figure
it out, so I wrote Russ Jensen and asked if he knew about this and if he
could tell me the procedure:
Dan,
I just talked to my old
friend Marc Fellman in NB and he gave me some more info on the Reflex unit.
First he said in all his years working with coin machines and bingos he has
never seen anything printed on how to change the Reflex Unit. It was
apparently some "secret" knowledged passed on only to people with
the "need to know".
Anyway, I was wrong. What you have to do is change the gears on the
unit to change the odds. So you must have all the proper gears to do
it.
All for now.
Well now! A super secret knowledge only passed on to the
“trusted” inner circle, well who they heck where these guys?
Later Russ sent a follow-up
email:
I found it
last night. What it was was a special manual put out when SAFARI was
released. It primarily shows Illustrated Parts Breakdowns for the
major game assemblies/units. I have included a scan of the first page
which pretty well explains it. It does not contain anything on the
Reflex Unit except a parts breakdown.
As I recall (and Jeff L could surely tell you all) to change the odds you
had to purchase replacement disks to install on the unit for each payout
percentage.
All for now.
Russ
When I contacted Jeff he kindly offers to email a
copy (5 days and 60 emails later) I
own the Green Book:
If
you would like a copy of the “green book” or a high resolution copy of the
above “exploded” view please let me know and I’ll send em right out to ya.
Someday when time allows I will post them on this site.
Well
I love when Raymond Watts has his eye on you, this guys definitely has a
history with these machines. In response to seeing this page from me, he
sends a couple of emails my way:
I am glad
to see that you are back!
Thanks for the topic
of the reflex unit. The reflex was first used on the bally one ball
machines. Early reflex units were not wipers, but were snap
switches. See my posting, Bally Reflex Unit With Snap Switches, here:
http://rwatts.cdyn.com/Machines/download_area.html
Attached
are scans of two pages from a 1950 Turf King instruction manual. The
first page mentions that two additional ratchet wheels were furnished for
game proportioning.
More wheels were
furnished for the bingos--I don't know how many more. Attached is a
photo of four wheels I have, numbered 1 through 4. Sorry for the poor resolution
of my cheap digital camera. The No. 1 wheel has the fewer teeth, so
resets faster. The No. 4 wheel has the most teeth resetting
slowest.
Hi Danny –
I found this parts list in my instructions
for the 1950 Bally Grandstand payout machine. It describes ratchets 2,
3, and 4 as liberal, medium and conservative.
Ray
How cool is that, know anyone with a machine
shop?
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