Rowe AMI MM1A selector errors

[knightthorne]

Hello all. I am new here to this forum. Any help anyone may have is greatly appreciated. I am a general repair technician, and not specifically an arcade game, or jukebox repair technician (tho I do a bit of this work quite often).

I am working on a Rowe AMI MM1A Music Merchant. It is loaded with 45's. It is the model with the 100 watt amplifier module. This unit was purchased "blind" by one of my clients at a charity fundraiser auction about a year ago. As purchased, it had very many issues. We have resolved most of them, and now have it almost completely working.

We do have the parts manual, and the service manual (both from victory glass).

Here are the current questions and issues:

1) How does one establish what year this model is? Can this be derived from the devices serial number?

2) Unit accepts, accumulates, and clears credits. However, is there any way to set this unit for "Free Play"? (the client just wants it to always allow selections as it is just in his man cave)

3) We can select and play a record, it is delivered to the platter, and cleared correctly. However, this will only work for letters (D, F, H, K, M, P, R, T, V).
All numbers will play within these letters (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0). We can select the other letters (A,B,C,E,G,J,L,N,Q,S,U) with all numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0) however, the search and select unit will not activate a pin for any of these letters (A,B,C,E,G,J,L,N,Q,S,U) regardless of the number (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0). It will spin the select coil arm assembly, however, it won't select a pin. I am aware that all of the "failing letters" are on the outer ring, except for letter (B). Realizing this, we swapped the wires for the 2 coil feeds on the outer wiper assembly, in an attempt to test the outer selection coil, and the associated pins. Once this was done, we could make the unit play records on the filing letters. So the outer coil, it's leads, and the outer pins are all functioning. We have of course returned the wires to their original position following this test. Any Ideas here? It almost seems like a key selection issue (like a keyboard matrix failure).... but maybe not.

I appreciate anything you can do to provide guidance, or suggestions to point us in the right direction.

[ami-man]

Hello knightthorne,

Welcome to the forum.

The Rowe Ami MM-1 Music Merchant was produced in 1967 and came with the "Change-A-Scene" front panel, there were about 3 to 4 different panels that could be fitted to suit the location.

Regarding your selection fault, you need to clean the open/closed contacts on the two relays on the keyboard (these are usually under a plastic cover) marked on the manual R1 & R5, in addition you can clean the open/closed contacts on the Search Unit relays S1 & S2. The best way to clean these contacts is by using a paper taper pulled between the contacts, check for mechanical operation (making & breaking of the contacts).

You had better check the impeadence of the A side pin pusher coil (if it is the same as the B side coil you had best check the search unit PCB for cracks, also thes two coils are fed via three very thin tracks that may have worn through giving no supply to the coils).

Please let us know how you get on.

Regards
Alan

Alan Hood
ami-man
UK