Walter Newton wrote:Can anyone tell me what purpose the A-12S Coin Escalator Dog (underneath upper, circular escalator) does.
It appears to me if the end is engaged in the upper escalator, the upper escalator won't move.
Yet I don't see any mechanism attached to it that would drop it away from the upper escalator, other than manually pressing the spring end, and dropping it away from the upper escalator. And if you do that, it remains down and disengaged from the upper escalator.
Up, down, what does this part do?
I don't have it on any authority, but I'm pretty sure that the whole point (sorry) of that spring-loaded conical dog is to make sure that the escalator rotates precisely 45 degrees with each pull, because if it doesn't, you'll get coin jams and other problems. The escalator just sort of gets "yanked around" by that hook-thingy on the underside, and without that sprung peg from below to register the exact spots it should get yanked to, the escalator could easily go too far, or fall short of where it has to be to receive the coin from the coin entry or drop the coin into the carousel.
A common problem for old/worn Columbias is when the escalator fails to get "yanked" far enough on each cycle to register with the dog at all, and you have to "click it around" manually to complete or commence play; fortunately, you can add a shim to correct for that.