Paces Races Progress January 16
I start work on the coin head. It is a bit complicated including both mechanical parts and my first pneumatics. This is my first coin acceptor mechanism like this. The Evans Races used an early version of a modern coin acceptor which uses weights and magnets to separate out the incorrect coins. This mechanism assumes the coin is valid if it is the correct size. There is a separate coin slot for each horse. The game is capable of determining which horses received bets and will pay out accordingly. I get my first look at what coins were played last in the game.
The coin head with the fingers touching the nickels. The pneumatic tubes send the information to the odds wheel which determines the number of coins to payout.
This is the first damage I encountered in the game. The finger guard at the bottom is used by the player when he is ready to start the game. The player places coins in the slot of the horse he expects to win. After betting for one or more horses, the finger guard is pushed to start the race. Someone must have pushed very hard and broke the guard off! Rather than welding the guard back on, the operator brazed it.
Brazing does not melt the base metal of the repaired object rather it glues it with very hot metal. This braze fix was done poorly, globbed on. I will encounter more of this person's brazing later.
The nickels shown are American, indicating the last person to try and play the game was in America. I guess it was one of my grand kids, hoping to play the game.
This linkage connects the rotating crank with the metal plate that moves the played coins along a conveyer to the coin stack. It has been mangled multiple times and will experience more at my hand.
The fingers that sense the coins played are moved into position by a long bellows. This shows one end. Once the bellows applies the fingers to the coin, the finger opens a valve, sending a vacuum signal to the odds when. The odds wheel then determines if the player bet on the winning horse, and then determines the payout.
It does not look like I made much progress. The sensing finger and the bellows that activate them have been removed.