Solid state Dixieland bingo notes

These machines are obviously out there, it's obviously Dixieland of some sort, but I can't find any real information on them. It's not a fully electro-mechanical bingo, it has a solid state PCB that controls the game logic, so it has to be late 70s or early 80s. It doesn't say Bally, Sirmo, or even Dixieland anywhere, so is it a knock-off of some sort? I've seen parts and even PCBs for this out there, so someone knows exactly what this is and it can't be super rare. If there is an IPDB or bingo.cdyn.com page for it, I couldn't find it and would be interested.

Buying it

I picked this Dixieland bingo machine up at the Winston-Salem auction on 12/13/14 for $30 (plus whatever fees). It was one of two machines on the floor and after inspecting them both, I decided this one was in better working shape. It turns out I was wrong. The other machine went for $10 and was apparently perfectly working minus a fuse, while after 6 months of owning mine I never had the time, space, or willpower to bring it up to 100%, although it's close now. At the time I really wanted a bingo. I had 1947 United Mexico flipperless game I was having fun with and was looking to have one game of each type and era in my collection. I probably would've bid up to $75 for it despite it being a project bingo (does it get any less desirable?). It was solid state and the hubris in me thought I would be able to get anything solid state working no problem. Plus a 6-card bingo that lets you play up to 11 credits with multiple features is literally as exciting as bingo gets.

I had about $2000 to spend at this auction looking for something on my want list but there was no combination of game I wanted at a price I was willing to pay. I honestly wish I bid higher on the very nice Hyperball that went for $400 (which was my max on it). There was also a nice Maverick I was iffy on that went for $1000, if only because The Pinball Podcast guys talk about it a bunch. The two bingos were the last in the row and I didn't spend $15 on a U-Haul trailer for nothing, so I bought one.

Bringing it home wasn't too bad. You can easily move it solo using Pinball Skates and a lift table, but the cash box is a big annoyance. Because it juts out of the bottom left side, the machine is constantly off balance and won't sit flat on a trailer. I could've done something responsible like ratchet it down well or stick something under it to balance it, but I just drove home with it being somewhat topsy turvy. I'm convinced I broke a couple pins on a ZIF socket that I had to replace because of this, but it could've been worse.

It sat sort-of-working in my kitchen for the past half a year and I would tinker a bit with it, but was more focused on other projects at the time. Now that I'm ready to sell it, I brought it out to the garage and decided to work on it a bit. Naturally, since it was about to go, I fixed most of the problems within an hour or so.

Selling it

I listed the game on Craigslist for $75, Pinside for $60, and Pinball Bash for $50 as a complete project, threatening to part it out and hang the playfield on my wall if it didn't sell. This was before I fixed the stepper issue and the game was acting very erratic in addition to not scoring. Now the only two issues are that the R and D switches don't work, so I'm sure the new owner is getting a steal at $60. The game is worth more to me parted out (both in parts and decoration) but I'm not the kind of person who's going to part out a mostly working game just because it's a huge bingo.

The buyer, Larry, is a bingo guy and hasn't seen a solid state bingo machine, so I'm excited he's getting something cool. He's coming from 5 hours away to pick it up. Maybe the price is low, but I've gotten enough good deals from other collectors that it's nice to pass that on.

Here's a video of the machine in action as-is

Fixed Problems

I don't have schematics or even known who manufactured this, forgive me for pointing and saying "this thingy is broken".

ZIF socket broken on PCB

As previous mentioned I broke off the pins on one of the ZIF sockets on the motherboard. I replaced it with this one from Jaleco for $9 (Part number 24-6554-10-R). I don't remember if this actually caused any problems, I was just looking for things to fix at this point.

Two ZIF sockets hold this on

Intermittently, the ball lift motor would run whenever a ball wasn't in the shooter lane.

This is just a simple switch adjustment. The motor will run whenever a game is in progress and it thinks a ball needs to be lifted. It will also run immediately when you power the game, even before it boots, up so you can empty the balls from the trough (that it thinks are there).

Game resets back to 1-card and restarts intermittently when pressing the button to play an additional credit

This was also a switch adjustment but it took a minute to figure out what was going on. The switch on the gate at the end of the shooter lane triggers a relay (PLAY RE4) to tell the game the first ball was launched. This gate was physically slightly bent, no doubt due to someone improperly removing the playfield. This caused the the gate to get stuck slightly open and that PLAY RE4 relay would stay triggered. There was about a 50/50 chance of it getting stuck one way or the other because the ball might bound off the rebound rubber into the gate and close the gate again. To fix this, I just physically bent the gate back so that switch only closes briefly when a ball passes through it.

The stepper was also gummed up which added to the wonkiness this caused.

Various numbered holes don't work

Luckily I didn't spend too much time troubleshooting this. I unplugged all the jones connectors, bent the contacts inward to grip better, and reseated them to fix this.

Game beeps constantly after adding a credit

This isn't really a problem. If you hold the switch that adds a credit down for more than an instant the game alarms (until you shut it off I think?). I'm sure this is because it thinks you're trying to get a free credit with a slug or something.

Unfixed Problems

The only remaining problem with this game is that the R (Regular) and D (Double) buttons don't work. It's not a problem with the switches themselves, but the game is going out the door tomorrow as-is and the seller sounds more than competent enough to fix it themselves.