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Decided to re-base my Adders after putting it off ages.. It was well fooked, needed doing.. Should last another 40 years now... 😂😎

Yet another board nearly drove me to insanity. Maybe I'm lossing my touch with age, who knows. Usual battery rot symptoms so all the usual suspects whipped out and renewed. A bit of track patching out needed for the alpha and triac driver links but other than that pretty clean. So on power up (with diags) the triacs all test OK then the tester alpha comes up with MPU4 ALPHATEST OK so all looking good. Thinking I'm in for an early day and just waiting for the lamp tests to start it comes up with an alarm and a bit of garbage on the alpha although I can see it's trying to say 'alarm' but no idea what. The RAM solder joints were looking a bit crusty so I thought that better come out, just in case, which was good as it failed on my tester. I've had similar issues before, like the previous fault above, so it's always a good idea to check out IC16 and put it in a socket which then gives you the option to isolate the CS feeds to all the support chips. Isolating IC5 the alarm was still apparent but the alpha then stopped on a readable 6840 error. Of course changing the chip made no difference. Just a little teaser here, I'd checked the 5v previously and it was a bit low at 4.77v but we all know TTL min rating is 4.5v and it boots OK so I thought I'd come back to that later. Big mistake!! Anyway back at the ranch getting nowhere and contemplating taking out all the support chips and putting in sockets which I did. After each replacement no change to the fault so 2 days later I'm losing the will to live. By now I've made sure all the Address and Data lines are intact plus every other line from the cart to the board. I'm thinking there must be a corroded via somewhere that I've missed. Rapidly running out of ideas and it's now day 3. There's only two options left, the first one is to jump in the Thames but maybe option two first. Thought I'd go back to the low voltage supply and see what's going on there. After stripping down the regulator I thought I'd run a test on the LM323 with my bench PSU and lo and behold it stuck solidly at 5v?? Hmm, what am I missing here? Tried a spare regulator chassis and blow me the board booted and ran fine. After all that wasted work but hey ho it works so put away the swimming trunks. So what was going on with the original regulator? Putting it back with the little board again it's measuring 5v off load but if I put a 12R resistor across the output it drops to 4.77v. It was then I noticed something on the radio. I listen to Caroline on 648Khz and putting the resistor on the output more or less blocked out the radio signal! Suspicion then pointed towards the tant cap that decouples the input to the LM323. When a new one was fitted the voltage remained stable under load at 5v. As the wires to the board power socket weren't attached they probably acted like an aerial otherwise I would have noticed this before. I'm sure someone up there doesn't like me.

If it's a solenoid sticking then the plunger and the inner sleeve of the solenoid will need cleaning but no oil needed, Check the small hole in the top of the solenoid is clear and not blocked.. Also check the lift arm which is attached to the reel solenoid plunger via a metal link, It has a brass bush and secured to the shaft with a metal clip, you can remove it and apply a small amount of grease to the shaft then refit the lift arm as it needs to be free and not sticking.... If it's the reel drum sticking then it will probably need a reel strip down. Each reel has a clutch which grips the reel drum to spin or nudge the reels, it also slips to reduce the torque on the reel motor allowing it to turn freely when the reels are held in position. The clutches are made of a leather disc which is normally soaked in oil, I use Neatsfoot oil for leather, They dry out over time and causes the reels to stick or slow to start or not spin at all. I soak clutch washers in a jar with oil for at a good 24 hours, the longer the better to allow the leather to soak up the oil, When you rebuild the reel mech, you do not need to refit the clutch washers dripping in oil but dab off the excess. Also while the reels are stripped apply a thin covering of grease to the main reel drive shaft which will lubricate the reel drum bushes so they spin freely too.

I remember 18 months ago when i bagged a Winsprint for £50(buy it now). It was a Sunday evening and i had arranged to pick it up on the Monday evening. That was one nervous 24 hours. There is nothing like that feeling when you have loaded it in the van and are just driving away.

I just can't resist a challenge, it'll be my downfall one day. So, a bit more on the Chico Display PSU board. The original board had got well overheated so the only thing to do was make another one! Here's the before and after... I thought it would be a good idea to raise the power resistor off of the board with some ceramic spacers in case of an overload. All ready to go back.... On the original board the power resistor just fell off as the solder had melted! Also the regulator's joints were all dry!

Just recently I've had a fair bit of PC92 work coming in and with lots of new avenues I've never been down before. As always I love a challenge with a tech that I thought I knew all about but obviously didn't. As most folks are aware the Procon tech morphed from the early PCL right up to quite a few versions of PC92 and the multitude of mods inbetween is extensive! It's well known that no documentation for PC92 exists in the wild (although I bet someone is hanging on to a copy!) so the only thing to do is to try and capture all the differences and get them documented. I have collated most, but certainly not all, the differences between the released diagrams and the later versions. These I will upload soon once they are double checked. Most functions are easy to work out but I have found there are some tricky ones. The first one I came across was Theme Park which on the bench would always fire up a stake % key error (402). This could be bypassed by activating certain switch connections on the matrix. I was expecting the normal stake key board to be fitted but on the machine in question there wasn't one? This issue is still outstanding but I'm sure there's a silly reason why the key isn't fitted? The second one involves Chico and this one had me going for a bit. This game has a 4x20 VFD but it's not driven off of the VFD port on the board, maybe it wasn't fast enough, cleverer folks than me on here will probably know. In this case the VFD is driven from the 14 way DIL socket which has a feed from the SIO chip. Another thing to note is the VFD gets its 5v supply from a separate Display PSU board which is powered from a 12v feed from the same 14 way socket. This little board also has a transistor on it which reduces the 20v P2P waveform to TTL levels for the VFD. I have to say all credit goes to Magik as this was all gleaned from a PC92 video he did about a year ago where he came across this for the first time. Had his head scratching too. I will post the diagram for this board shortly. Another thing with the 14 way is it needs a link between pins 3 - 13.

And don't forget to regrease the reel motor. I think you'll find that the original grease has gone (off, hard etc.)

That makes sense now, I also never noticed the quantity of 3. Fair play mark I wanted to buy them and had a good 10 mins to ponder I hope they are saved and put back out there. i have had a few lucky buys over the years the latest being razzle dazzle for 50 quid! And £120 to get it here. its great there is still stuff out there to be saved

Some fucking scummy dealer. It will all come out in the wash, will be up for sale for £££££ soon once they've paid someone a fortune to fix it for them! 🤣

The reason the seller has cancelled the sale is because it's you! The reason he's cancelled people you know is because they are trying to get stuff for you. I have done the same, as don't want anything I'm selling to go to you. It must happen to you a lot 🤣

Worth removing the wires from the coin switch and phsically touching them together, see what happens.

They would, all the bleep means is it's changing state but if the state is wrong... could be way off the mark here but thought I'd chuck it in the mix.

A bit more success today. The last couple of days I've been trying to get a 4x20 LCD to work instead of a VFD for the Chico game. The VFD's are so expensive so having one for a spare is not on but being as LCD's are under a fiver it made sense to try and use that. The good old Arduino was used as the interface between the board and the LCD My coding skills for the Arduino are somewhat basic so my old mate Duckduckgo AI came to my rescue. It still took a long time of trying various offerings of code before I found one that would actually work. The thing with AI you have to be so specific on what you want it to do but once I gave it all the right bits of info it came up trumps. Not exactly 100% but good enough to know it's working. https://youtube.com/shorts/7uQOyLWrSpU

I'm always amazed by these old techs, not a transistor in sight! Thanks chaps.

Here is the Star Nudge machine

Just reading through this thread and remembered an article in the coinslot archives section, not very readable i am afraid but you can make out the gist. Page 1 headline. 1978 17 JUN.pdf

Hi gang. Has anyone got a 38mm diameter Bell fruit reel washer that they could spare please? I've stripped down the reels and one of the washers has the tab that locks into the shaft missing 😞

the burnt one will be the same as the other 3, 47 ohms, check the zener diode, it's 4.7v the same as the other 3, this damage happens when someone connects a switch up incorrectly and sends 34v from the lamps up the switch matrix! so check the switches are wired correctly and not transposed with a lamp connection!

Nice clean cabinet, shame about the battery vapours. I always do the fingernail check on those little caps C9-16 and if any of them come I apart I swap them all out. I also check that all the tracks to the associated zener diodes and caps are valid to the triac driver transistors, it easy to miss. C47 will need changing too and make sure it's ground connection is valid as the track has all but disappeared. I usually stick a rivet in the battery terminal and run a new bit of copper back to C47. You may find the positive battery terminal has rotted back to R72 as well. All 10 of those transistors in the view will need changing even if they look good. With the rotten tracks to the Alpha I stopped trying to do them on top of the board and now run patch wires underneath. Hope I'm not teaching granny to suck eggs here. Good luck.

Very impressive collection i must say. I wish i had your dedication, i buy and acquire kit like that with the intention of doing them (some do) but then get sidetracked and they end up on a work in progress pile that seems to keep growing. Some of my pile below 😂

Picked up this one very local to me, not my era but thought worth saving, seems to be a good game from the 90's just pre MPU5, suprisingly it does boot but only spins up the reels, nothing else! No alpha, prime suspect is battery damage to tracks under! To be continued..................

Here... this plug isn't polarised. I seem to remember if its ever been on backwards the opto is going to be not opting any more... Have you tried another hopper? Sometimes they are full of fluff and old grease seizes them up. Can you manually rotate it? The errors could be legit

You loved that little paragraph in that manual didn’t you …🍋

It's to do with the rise of "unscrupulous individuals" at the time! 😉

I’ve been noticing this a lot lately you have machines from 1984 with mechs from the late 90s on them,I have a cash zone which should have the original ms115 fitted from 1990 that has an me126dfx fitted….ms115 seems virtually extinct..

Fair enough I stand corrected..

Below is the function chart for the 138 which might give you more of a clue as to what the inputs / outputs are doing and their function. Below is some information on the hopper, something i would try if i had the machine in front of me (probably out of desperation is disconnect the supply to the hopper (pin 1 only 24v) and see if it trys to boot any further. It may or may not but worth a try for how long it takes. I have just done a board here with very mild battery damage, just a clean up. Put it back in the machine and all ok apart from the seven segs were all missing one segment and the last three were not working at all. Back out removed and tested associated ics (all ok ). Put it back in to probe it and bugger me worked and has continued to do so. Thats what i hate. Still seems like it is some contamination and or leaky component causing it.

Sorry to hear this,, the sys80 looked a rare one,, I have all the parts and could of helped you along the way ,

That’s shit! I have been there too with a silly price lineup. Someone must have offered him a grand or something

Can’t see what error you have, but it’s known for the hopper driver boards to burn out. just like with solenoids, and battery leaks the payout constantly fires/spins. I would say concentrate on switch issue first as may be related to that, and needs to be fixed regardless

As a complete guess (but logical) and i may be completely wrong but heres my two peneth worth. Since you have mentioned that about the hopper is the alarm maybe Unexpected Pay Out.🤔

You should see pulsing outputs on pins 7-15. The ones we're interested in go to IC22 so make sure the outputs on 3,6,8 and 11 are good. Depending on what switches are operated you should then see good outputs on IC33 & 34. These two are in the firing line for the battery vapours and can do funny things. I think I've mentioned this already.

I’m on holiday at the moment, so not with a machine.. BUT hopefully this helps. with the route plug in place, it’s either top two left side, or top left, and bottom left. 90% sure it’s the former, you can link these without a plug if you wish, but a plug would be cleaner unless you have some link tabs there

Two pins on route plug for mars mech need to be linked to accept 10ps (two end ones)

Thanks for the imput guys Bob I will check those switches first today thanks Graham, it's a multi mech so electronic, but the token slot is S10 and credits as it should, thanks Nick, No I never removed the loom from big shot but did compare the pin voltages to razzle they were the same and fuse was intact, thanks

Just a thought ronnie but you did say you changed the mech cable? Did you try that cable in another machine? Also those cables do have a fuse in some cases and needs to be working and not blown obviously so assumed you checked it .

Just guessing but are are the micro switch connectors on the correct tabs ie the no and nc haven't got switched?

very familiar! I made one up for someone to help them that had one missing, it was temporary to prove the machine worked, it did and nothing more was ever heard about it! this was my veroboard version lol April 2013, temporary was permeant lol (another thing i never got any money for doing)

Many thanks Ron. The 3rd reel is a bit stiff to turn. It's making the motor labour. The solenoids seem.fine, but I'll give them a clean whilst I'm at it. I'll try stripping down the reels. Thanks for the pics and the heads up on the type of oil. I'm slightly apprehensive taking stuff apart that's 45 years old - not much choice now

That output through the burnt resistor is part of the switch matrix, it that's not working right you'll get all funny things happening with the switches.

It may have taken the 74LS08 with it so you may have to do both. As to a cause, not really sure, maybe a short to 5v or 0v back in the loom or switches? I've had a few in recently suffering weird intermittent faults due to corrosion getting in to the cart socket. No amount of cleaning made a solid repair so they had to be swapped out which is a real pain!

Hello, few days ago I became an owner of 5-liner called "2000 coins Jackpot". To find its way to Poland (where I live) machine certainly lived through a lot. I really hope I can find some help here, as unfortunately for me I am more of mechanical and electrical guy and I am still not convinced about those fancy electronics and processors - although I know the basics of digital circuitry. Best regards, Piotr

If I remember, at the time there where some dodgy 🤠 conversion kits for this series of game, Andy Capp, Hyper Viper etc... to convert to all cash £5 jackpot, same pic for all the different machines, I remember doing a Andy Capp, we had no glass so I changed the £6 for "Jackpot" also in the hope of a jackpot increase in the future 🤑, some hope, never thought I would more or less retire before it happened 😁

Broken wire on the start switch. Banked 50p, pressed collect. Nothing. Now it's stuck at that. How do I clear the bank?? Impressed, for a 40yr old machine UPDATE: the 50p bank needs to be paid out in 10ps. Tube switch for 10p's was obviously showing empty. Cheated it, and five healthy clunks later, it's back to attract mode. It's weird. The back door switch is open, but it will credit, and pay out as normal 20260301_133100.mp4

Yes, that was the Ace Coin 100 Series.

At the moment,The only early adverts with pic I can find are from 1974 showing Gemini and Kaleidoscope However I have found advertisements in 1976 with a number of listed used Barcrest's. King 40 Crackerjack Spellbound Stuntman Winnerama Solitaire Contrasts Masquerade Extravaganza

I have a couple of sets of reels here I thought it might be good to start a thread with the help of pictures on what's involved in a step by step guide of the strip down,service and rebuild of these mechanical parts. Some electro owners have their own way to strip and service these reels which is fine with the same results, this way is my own which I find easiest for me. This first set of reels are out of a Bell Fruit Ten Up. This is a four reel machine but the working parts are the same on a three reel set with only one reel less. A good tip is to take pictures of everything on your own reel deck as you move along so if you do happen to get stuck with many of the parts you will know exactly where they belong.. The reels in early electro machines are held secure in position by two clamps at the back, later models had two brackets mounted on either end plate of the reels and secured by two bolts accessed under the reel shelf. once released and the reel loom plugs disconnected the reels will lift out from the machine. Part 1. First job is to remove the drive belt along with the two drive cogs on the reel and motor shafts. the cogs both have two hex bolts each to secure them to the drive shafts and may need a pair of pliers to help crack them loose as they have to be very tight. both these drive cogs are identical so no need to mark which came from where as they can go back on either drive shaft when rebuilding.. Next the reel motor... Bell Fruit used BA socket sizes for the smaller nuts and bolts on their machines in the 70s so anyone like me with socket drivers the bolt size holding the reel motor is 4BA or approx. 6mm but first remove the two wired spade connections to the motor before removing the four securing bolts, this will allow the heavy reel motor to be removed from the reel deck and place to one side... All being well you should have these parts removed.

This is SNGs Main Control timers twelve switch operations during one cycle of the timer. Cam switch 1 Controls and supplies the reel motor.Switch wired positions are at Common, Normally Open to reel motor,Normally closed not used. Cam switch 2 Controls and supplies the self holding circuit to the main hold select relay coil and the pulse to the total play meter.Switch Wired positions are at common,Normally open to hold relay and Normally closed to total play meter. Cam switch 3 Controls and supplies the self holding circuit to the Cam switch 3 relay coil.Switch wired positions are at common,Normally closed to cam switch 3 relay,Normally open not used. Cam switch 4 Controls and supplies No1 reel index solenoid.Switch wired positions are at Common, Normally closed to No1 reel solenoid,Normally open not used. Cam switch 5 Controls and supplies No2 reel index solenoid.Switch wired positions are at Common,Normally open to No2 reel solenoid,Normally closed not used. Cam switch 6 Controls and supplies No3 reel index solenoid.Switch wired positions are at Common,Normally open to No3 reel solenoid,Normally closed not used. Cam switch 7 Controls and supplies the self hold circuit to the 1 credit relay coil and pulses the cash in 5p value meter,also pulses the token in meter.Switch wired positions are at Common,Normally open to credit relay and Normally closed to pulse meters. Cam switch 8 Controls and supplies self hold circuit to cam switch 8 relay coil and self hold circuit to the 2 credit relay coil.Switch wired positions are at common,Normally closed to cam switch 8 relay,Normally open to 2 credit relay. Cam switch 9 Controls and supplies circuit to reel board studs/wipers and supplies circuit to cam switch 22.Switch wired positions are at Common,Normally closed to reel boards,Normally open to Common on cam switch 22. Cam switch 10 Controls and supplies circuit to cam switch 1-12 main control timer motor and supplies circuit to cam switch 26.Switch wired positions are at Common,Normally closed to main control timer motor,Normally open to Common on cam switch 26. Cam switch 11 Controls and supplies self hold circuit to cam switch 11 relay coil and supplies circuit to cam switch 20.Switch wired positions are to Common,Normally open to cam switch 11 relay,Normally closed to Common on cam switch 20. Cam switch 12 Controls and supplies 0v circuit to cam switch 1-12 main control timer motor and 0v circuit to No 4 reel index solenoid.Switch wired positions are at Common,Normally open to main control timer motor,Normally closed to No4 reel index solenoid.

Sorry lad's but we got it. The machine is now in our arcade in Kendal Cumbria fully working on new coins sat next to our Super Line Up.