Coin Door Power off reject solenoid.

[sWampy]

Anyone know what voltage the little solenoids on coin doors run at?   I was thinking it would be totally cool to hook them up to a relay hooked to the lpt port of the computer, where the front end could shut them on/off.  So if you had mame loaded and inserted a quarter, it would accept it, but if you were just in the frontend, it would just drop through.   Sortof silly I know, but I'm bored.  I couldn't seem to find where to order new ones, and I don't want to burn up the only 2 that I have that came with my old defender cabinet. 

So does anyone know what voltage the solenoids in the coin door of a defender took to allow acceptance of coins? 

[Thenasty]

its usually 24vdc. I think I have seen 12vdc and I know about 10vdc cause I have one (but it different than what you have).
Chances are, yours is 24vdc but you can apply the 12vdc to it to see if its get enough juice to pull that TAB.
Just  in case you don't know how the Lockout Coil works.
It only accepts coins when power is applied to it and rejects coins when the power is cut or off.
But your idea is not the first but I have not seen anyone finish it cause it need modifying in the MAME source or the Frontend.
Maybe running a BAT file that triggers the POWER on/off to the coil is the quickie mod. Let us know what you come up with.

[Ken Layton]

Coin Lockout Coils come in these different voltages:

6 VDC
10 VDC (special order for Atari)
12 VDC
24 VDC
24 VAC
48 VDC
120 VAC

Since you have a Defender cabinet then it's likely you have 24VDC coils.

Lockout coils do not interchange between coin door manufacturers. If you had a Coinco coin door (for example) you would need to have Coinco lockout coils.

[Rocky]

My Moon Patrol lockout coils are 24v.

[whammoed]

With AdvanceMame you have control over the Keyboard led's with scripts.  No need to change code or compile.  You could turn on say the scroll lock led when a game is running which could activate the solenoid via a relay.

[sWampy]

I don't see why it would be that hard of a project, looks like you could get a copy of http://www.driverlinx.com/DownLoad/DlPortIO.htm write a simple script to set d0 high, hook a solonoid to d0, ground, and 24 volt powersupply and you are all set, coins accepted.  When you exit mame, call a script that sets d0 back low, coins rejected.

[RayB]

Coin doors have solenoids??!

Ya learn sumthin every day! 

(I'm not trying to be sarcastic here... I actually have no clue what part you guys are talking about. Do all coin mechs have these???)

[D_Zoot]

I don't see why it would be that hard of a project, l hook a solonoid to d0, ground, and 24 volt powersupply and you are all set, coins accepted.

[Ken Layton]

Many of the classic video games had coin door lockout coils. Defender, Centipede, Asteroids etc. had them but Pacman did not. It all depended on what company was supplying coin doors to a particular game manufacturer. For a long time Atari built their own coin doors. Then they switched to buying complete doors from Coinco. Then they switched again to Coin Controls and again to Happ Controls.

[Sephroth57]

not that im saying im not guilty of this also.. but this is probably one of the geekiest discussions ive seen on BYOAC =P

[Rocky]

not that im saying im not guilty of this also.. but this is probably one of the geekiest discussions ive seen on BYOAC =P

Thank you....thank you very much

[sWampy]

This really started cause my 2 year old loves to put quarters in the slot  and have them fall back out, and while hooking up the solenoids so I could allow him to do this by without having to constantally give him more change, I got this idea.

[TheOtherBob]

hehehe

My two year old likes to do that too.  But then she always seems to be able to find some plastic play money that jams the whole works...  Then I have to dig a couple bucks worth of quarters out of the mechanism....    The plastic play money I toss in the trash... but she always seems to find more....

[Thenasty]

guys if you had one of this in there

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=19200

Then, they probably get credits for those fake coins (if it has weight to trigger the switch).

[sWampy]

I was actually going to get acouple of those from you, but you didn't accept pay pal, and I haven't taken the time to go get a money order yet.

[sWampy]

Ok, my lpt port seems to be able to switch the radio shack 5V solid state relay ok.  Maybe long term use won't burn the lpt port up.  I can set it up where the lpt is only powering the solenoids while mame, zinc, neorage, or pinmame is active.  My cabinet is idle much more than it's active playing an arcade game, so I figure that is less stress on the lpt port.

Now a question, the solenoid seems to hold just fine with 18 volts, and even as low as 15 volts, 12 doesn't move it at all.   Will the solenoid last longer if I use 15 volts, or should I use 18 or 24?

[Ken Layton]

24 volt coils are designed to operate on as low as 20 volts and as high as 30 volts. To operate the coil outside of these specs can damage/overheat it.

[sWampy]

I sortof figured I needed to run them at rated voltage, just not sure how to make sure, they are really 24 volt, they have no numbers on them at all.

[Ken Layton]

If it's a Williams Defender cabinet then you definitely have 24 volt DC coils.

[Thenasty]

I sortof figured I needed to run them at rated voltage, just not sure how to make sure, they are really 24 volt, they have no numbers on them at all.

like i said, you can apply the 12vdc first to see and of course the next step up is 24vdc, then if still don't work next step is 48vdc and if still not working, then its BROKEN

[sWampy]

If it's a Williams Defender cabinet then you definitely have 24 volt DC coils.

Thanks, didn't want to burn them out, I don't know a source for replacements.  They are stamped may 1981, so I guess they are the original ones.

[sWampy]

I sortof figured I needed to run them at rated voltage, just not sure how to make sure, they are really 24 volt, they have no numbers on them at all.

like i said, you can apply the 12vdc first to see and of course the next step up is 24vdc, then if still don't work next step is 48vdc and if still not working, then its BROKEN 


If you do it the revese, apply 48vdc and its a 12vdc, then it will get broken. If you apply 24vdc and its a 12vdc, then it will get busted...see the picture.
This option will surely make it not to work 

First option is better.

Well as I had posted above, 12volts won't trip them, but 18 and 15 both will, was trying to figure out if I running them on lower voltage than they were designed to run at would hurt them.

[Thenasty]

if I running them on lower voltage than they were designed to run at would hurt them.

You won't hurt it if applying a lower voltage. If your applying a higher voltage, then you can cook it.
So if 15 or 18 works, then use those and most likely, your coil is 24vdc so you can use up to 24vdc for it but don't apply 30vdc or higher.

[Ken Layton]

If you have the silver Williams pinball coin door (as used in the early production run of Defender) those use conventional Williams pinball lockout coil (notice it is singular). If you have the black video game coin door on your game then it's a Coinco brand door. Coinco has abandonded the amusement industry and now only makes bill acceptors, creit/debit card readers, and vending machine changers so parts for what they previously manufactured are No Longer Available!

[sWampy]

If you have the silver Williams pinball coin door (as used in the early production run of Defender) those use conventional Williams pinball lockout coil (notice it is singular). If you have the black video game coin door on your game then it's a Coinco brand door. Coinco has abandonded the amusement industry and now only makes bill acceptors, creit/debit card readers, and vending machine changers so parts for what they previously manufactured are No Longer Available!

It's the coinco door I'm pretty sure, that's why I didn't want to burn out the coils. ;-)