Hello

I'm based in the UK and have been showing slides with it on 'free' mode up until now and so was somewhat surprised when I started to try coins and they simply were totally unreliable.

A couple weekends back I had it at London Sci-Fi Film fest weekend and when I tried it was fine with 20p's. Sometimes it took a couple of shots to get it in. However it sat idle most of the fest as it stopped taking in the coins (which aren't round btw).

Testing it at home it seems taking 20p UK coins is very intermittent if it doesn't then stop entirely. A on off of the power seems to help although only briefly.

I thought I had figured out the issue - it needs the coin dropped in from the top of the slot and not the bottom. I've made a bit of block for the bottom 4mm and testing that theory now. Seems improved but not massively.

The manual shows where there is an adjustment and am I correct the entire coin unit needs to be taken out for it to be adjusted? Further more there is an adjustment for something marked in Chinese without indication which screw exactly to adjust.

The issue with 1 pound coins still exists which is they simply won't fit in the slot. I think the mechanism could cope with it but the entry slot is to narrow and it gets stuck going in.

Has anyone come across these issues. I can't leave it in a public or even private place unless its in free mode.

In this state the unit is great for free view and useless for any money making which of course would help pay for film and processing.

Cheers

Mark

Hi

Answering my own Q's again I found the higher drop coin insertion did help. I was near the viewer part of the night and only had to help and swap 20p's a couple of times.

Will still need to sort out this issue ordering more of them.

M

I'm in the US and it works fine with US quarters ($0.25). Is a 20P the same as a shilling? I remember back in the day that you could use a shilling in a US vending machine and it would slide through as a quarter, although you'd be loosing money as a shilling has a greater value than a US quarter. The coin box provides a short circuit that starts the mechanism. I wired a button to the outside of my unit to activate it without a coin. I'm a little busy right now, but when I get a chance I'll try to identify the wires that provide the coin signal. I believe there are four wires: two provide voltage to run the coin box and two provide a short circuit to trigger the mechanism. If you could source an external coin box, then I'm sure you could wire it into the coin signal leads and just block up the coin slot. Frankly I think this is the best way to go as the coin mechanism on the viewer is way substandard compared to vending machines here in the US which would probably survive a plastique explosion.
Steve

Hi

Just heard back - seems they've not encountered the problem before as no one who has the viewer in the UK are using the coin slot.

They are reproducing sizes of coins and running some tests.

M

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "blackiceuk" wrote:

>
> Hi
>
> Just heard back - seems they've not encountered the problem before as no one who has the viewer in the UK are using the coin slot.
>
> They are reproducing sizes of coins and running some tests.
>
> M

the 20p's seem to be working now when dropped from the top of the coin slot.

Counter seems to have stopped registering although it may loose it count the second its unplugged - which is often.

So far the comments are really great and appreciative. Trick is to get people to look into it in the first place.

M