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Here's the first one up and running for a few days. Ive still got to test it with the extra 2 Eproms and driving an LCD meter. As soon as the reels first twitched I was like thats all the buses and processing sorted... then the memory alarm went off which validated all the audio (which theres alot of!). I was like wahoo! Nailed it first time 20260718_162233.mp4

Transplanting the Actel FPGA from an original board... not for the feint hearted!

Here's the first one about to get built up

I occasionally sell the odd board left over but sometimes I have to do alot of aftercare help people for a few weeks to diagnose existing problems in their machines... what id sort out in no time at all is very difficult to get people to check and fix in proxy. Even simple meter checks aren't viable. To help with this ive built and additional fault detect circuit into these boards which drives some indicator LEDs where the old RJ11 programming connector used to be basically to help me pin down a fault which helps me to narrow down whats wrong in their machine.

The story goes that actually it was the Eclipse board that was the original design. If it had have been have been all these machines would be as numerous as MPU5s. The Epoch got the commission and it might seem easier to replace the modular parts but really its just one big system thats split up...not independent drive boards. This is what can make fault finding so difficult with them. There are no drive board error codes... if it does ever throw up an error its usually just the highest priority error code and not the actual fault. The only code is how the board resets usually.

Here's a 3D render of the completed board...

Here's a few pics of the board design. The original designer DJP was absolutely wicked... if he is 100/100 then im probably 4/100 so really there wasn't much to adapt on the board. Ive removed everything that has no need 30 years later to free up some space. The second picture is me having a play with the tools and tuning traces to the exact same length.

Hi People heres my next board. There wasn't much of a need to do another Epoch board... however this one was absolutely great for starting off my schematic building. Its a board I know well and theres also a partial schematic available, to take notes from. Here's a screenshot of some of the schematic. 6 sets of busses!

5a 50v and 5a 55v Ronnie

Which 2 fuses Brian?

Hi all de-soldered the battery off the board and cleaned with ipa as Ronnie advised,I then checked the fuses on the psu and I noticed that two of the fuse holders were cracked and weren't screwing down at all so was wondering where I could get replacements,pics attached. Cheers Brian

Cheers Ronnie

Also if you have a test meter to read voltages worth checking you have 5 volts at that regulator on the heatsink beside the battery but I guess you might be ok as the led's are lit

Cheers Ronnie thanks for the advice will do got some ipa so will get on to that today.👍

Hi Brian, The first job is to cut that battery off, then I would take the card out and check the pins for any green acid, also the chip on the game card remove it carefully and check the socket and pins, If you have IPA clean any green stuff with IPA and a toothbrush, others will do it differently and use diluted vinegar but then you need to wash the vinegar off Cheers Ronnie

Hi all I picked up an original bell fruit the other day as a non worker as the owner was going to throw it in a skip as he needed space. Got it home and switched it on red and green led came on but nothing else, got the board out and I noticed it has had battery damage. I've been informed that it's a system 85 board which I know nothing about so was wondering if anyone fixed these or had a spare,the machine is in cracking condition itself so would be a shame to scrap it. Here's some pics of the cab and board

Cheers all will start a thread about the machine I got would be good to get it working.

As above, but holiday season and weather is good in fact too good to be sat in a shed or garage hovering over a circuit board, on the bright side the lawn does not need cutting (but the beer gardens are good). Welcome Brian, and i am sure help will be forthcoming . (When we know what it is). Cheers Jim

Hi Brian glad you made it here, not as much activity going on as much as there used to be, I’m sure the guys will be interested in your latest find when you start a thread on it, there are some clever enthusiasts here 😎 cheers Ronnie

Hi all stay in Scotland been into classic fruit machines for years and anything arcade,was a bit of an addict bitd but wouldn't change it for the world, I've owned a few machines through the years but space is always the issue can't keep them all. Got a non working machine at the moment so hopefully I get some help here in getting it back up and running. Cheers Brian

I don't think we have any rom variants, as i could only find v2.0 and v2.1 the rom can be altered to make it £3 jackpot, but sadly i can't get the jackpot tune to work after i have altered it. don't know if this is of any use? if so i will alter it later when i get home tonight . cheers

WOW! Topped out at £655 SNG is on my hotlist, but not at that price!

+1 yes, impressive. well done

Haha yeah taken! Thats what im talking about, absolutely no one is born knowing how to draft out obsolete component symbols, so you have to go through the pain barrier until you learn how to do it. Same with soldering or anything. Its definitely worth as it makes laying out the physical boards much easier and actually fun. I had to build my own too. Here's the symbol cpu 68EC000 I made... note the data sheet address lines are all +1 number out compared to the actual bus. It takes a while to learn all the potential pitfalls.

Well done, a lovely looking product in fact a piece of art i would say as well as functional. When i drew out the MPU1 schematic in KiCad i could not even get it to add new components into the library (obsolete ones) so just used it as a fancy drawing tool. Just one piece of advice though... Do not put your last paragraph on your CV. 🤣