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Gentlefolk, I've uploaded a new set of ROMs for Barcrest's Royal Exchange. The original imposed a gamble limit of £20 for all initial wins less than that. The new version will allow a gamble of the current win up to a maximum of £100. Here, I've attached a Word document explaining how this was achieved for all folk who, like me, used to think "How did they do that?!". Please be aware that it is not for the faint-hearted 😊 I'd like to thank chris217 for reintroducing me to the wonderful world of 1980s fruit machines, Sulzer Ned for drawing my attention to the idea the the emulated ROMs can be tinkered with and Eddie Coxon, who advised me of the programming language used and provided me with a huge manual and lots of helpful advice and hints. Now that you all know exactly whom to blame, I hope you enjoy the new version together with this documentation. Best wishes, Bernard ROYAL EXCHANGE GAMBLE BLOCK REMOVAL.docx

I had a go at making some replacement backlit bands for Tensation a couple of years ago. They came out pretty good, but it was a lot of time and effort. Sadly, I no longer have access to the printer.

Yesterday I took the Win stepper apart to soak it in vinegar overnight, and today I cleaned it – it was just like slime that came off. I lubricated it where necessary and put it back together. It took a bit of fiddling about and fine-tuning.

So, I’ve made a bit more progress; I didn't have time for the project for a few days. The parts that had been sandblasted have now been painted. In the meantime, I started working on the mechanical score counter; I completely disassembled and rebuilt it. That was certainly necessary, as some parts were already wearing against each other due to stiff movement and a lack of grease. I also installed the coin tubes.

This one had be going for a while. Fault was no sound although on the bench there was sometimes and it was very dependant on humidity and temperature. What normally happens is the battery vapours contaminate the board surface and it becomes conductive. Any trace voltage around pin 2 of the audio output chip will cause the chip to effectively switch off and there will be almost full supply voltage on pin 8 which is the speaker output. It should sit at half voltage (6V ish) but this was more like 11v! After deep cleaning the tracks and components that connect to pin 2 it started behaving but still not quite down to 6v. I then left it for a while to work on something else and when I returned and powered on there was no sound again! The voltage measured on pin 2 was about 0.6v whereas it should be approx 0.02v. So it was leaking again somewhere? Next thing was to remove the sound output chip and the two little yellow caps that are connected to pin 2 and see where the voltage was coming from. Well lo and behold it was still there. There was nothing else connected to pin 2 so a lot of head scratching started. The next thing I noticed was that the track ran underneath the sound synth chip so this had to come out and look what I found underneath!!! The track runs through where it says R28-30 and this stuff was sticky and conductive, could be tobacco film who knows. Anyway a good clean on the board and the chip and no more stray voltage.

Does anyone have any other Summit Coin roms ? I Have Ultimate Nudge already, I am got the tech running on my JFruit emulator. If you are interested you can try it at Click to Play Ultimate Nudge

Here is my STOP THE CLOCK modded roms 1: all cash 3 pounds 2: nudge block uncapped to 12 nudges on random stop 3: character and checksum removed (so you can make a spare card like i did) MOD 7B - CHARACTER REMOVED - TO BURN TO EPROMS.zip

well done bernard. i will probably do NIFTY 50 today to rid the petty 50p on the solid silver so you at least win a pound. I unblocked the nudges and cash prize on STOP THE CLOCK so the nudges go to 12. it so far runs good. I think the club machine blocks were more aimed at the DOUBLE OR NOTHING gambles so the machines didnt get smashed up. can you imagine having 50 quid and do a double all or nothing and it lands on lose

MDM 1981

Pinball Heaven stock them on eBay. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371532527747

I’ve had a bit of time again, this time to work on the mechanism control sequence timer. This one was also covered in rust and grime. The gearbox was almost seized up; I could barely turn it by hand, but luckily a bit of penetrating oil did the trick. That could easily have cost me the motor. I’ve also started dismantling the door; I’d already taken it off. So that various parts can be soaked in cleaning vinegar.

It was time to clean the credit count sequence timer; it was dirty and covered in rust. It was quite a job to get it apart. Fortunately, I’d already replaced the AMP plugs on the switches. After a thorough clean, something wasn’t quite right when I was putting it back together – I kept losing the screws from the switch terminals. It turned out I’d turned the 4-sided rod the wrong way round, which meant the screws didn’t fit. So I took it apart again and paid close attention this time. Some new bulbs (6V 2W) had also arrived, so I replaced them straight away. I also fitted new film capacitors for the RC snubbers. The old ones were already starting to crack and their capacitance was barely there.

So, for the past 2 days, I’ve been busy further derusting the transformer. This was so much work that I decided to take various parts to a good friend who has a sandblasting cabinet. In the meantime, I had also contacted (pb) BF74 (Ron) for a piece of schematic for a Dutch cabinet, if he had one. I received a complete schematic of the Full House; I couldn't be happier. I also ran a test, most problems were some residual oxidation on the relays and some AMP connectors that have not yet been replaced.

Yes i would love to have met someone who programmed them. My son designs games for children online and he has a programmer that makes the software. I am pretty sure i was told 20 years ago that the same guy that designed both SMASH AND GRAB and BIG SHOT moved to the states. There was also easter eggs programmed into alot of these so the programmers would go around the country if they lost their jobs and canned them. I think i heard an ACE prgrammer got caught out. Would have loved to have been about then. I was only 14 when sag came out , i was in the industry but was told i would never learn how to break into these programs. I said "HOLD MY BEER"

Its sounds good bernard but if you remove the gain code then what would happen on unlimited nudges 🤔. Id hate to fluff the jackpot and then think it doesn't matter as gain will nudge the bars in but, without the gain obviously this isnt possible unless its a different bit of code for the unlimited nudge gain .

Thanks for this, John. Exactly the same point was made to me verbally only a few days ago. The 'exchange for nudges' option ensures that you don't get a decent win and it doesn't offer it at all if the current win is too high. Ignoring the cherries is, I think, possible as the code stops looking for winning symbols once it finds a cherry. Telling it to stop looking appears fairly straightforward but you would then need to avoid the GAIN code which looks for an alternative when it finds a win. Obviously, it won't find one if the whole point is to ignore the lesser win. That is far more difficult. I'll take a look when I get some time. Please don't hold your breath 😊

Thank you. I appreciate it's tough going but I hope it will be useful for someone. These gambling blocks seem to annoy everyone these days! Back in the day, they probably saved a lot of people some money 😄

Thank you, sir - I do agree, but I also wonder who would have risked a gamble of £50 or thereabouts forty years ago? 🤣

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371532527747

Sorted thankyou both of you

Thanks, Sulzerned. Luckily, I was able to buy them from an online pinball shop.

Still very usable Mike. If you can get some decent hi res pics of a bottom glass for sag you could go down the perspex route which would be cheaper than glass printing.

Thanks Dave 138, that puts my mind at ease. I assembled the reels today; they were finally clean enough. I went ahead and replaced the AMP connectors while I was at it. I also received replacement bulb holders today; the old ones were too rusty, so I replaced those right away. Does anyone know what the switches on the side of the reels are for?

When I worked for Bell Fruit, we never did any maintenance on the reel motor. I don’t know if Ron can confirm that. It was rare to have a motor problem and, if we did, we just fitted a new one. There again, the machines were not very old.

Started removing rust from various parts of the Reel today; disassembled the motor... but immediately spotted a problem. It clearly hasn't been looked after; there was hardly any grease inside. There is a worn bronze bearing, and there is significant play in the output shaft (can this be ordered? Otherwise, I'll have one machined). I'm not sure if the output shaft is supposed to be like that, though. Fortunately, the gears are still in good condition.

Great work Pete, superb to see this tech running!

Nifty Nudge Play Nifty Nudge

Brilliant, thank you for doing it Bernard.. 🤩 Another challenge for you if you get time.🙏 This is an issue I think spoils the fun on Royal Exchange for home use.... When you exchange for nudges there's always a pesky cherry that stops you getting a better win, would it be possible for the software to ignore the cherry and nudge in a better win? John

Great work Bernard. Can't say that I understand it. Impressive though 👏. Thanks for sharing and explaining 🙂

Probably not me 😁

Amazing stuff bernard and.hats off to you for this great work which definitely adds a better game to these mpu3 clubbers.

Sweepstake next?

A wee update on this the machine is all back working albeit it needs a new alphanumeric display,a thank you to everyone who commented on this post especially netdent and midibob who helped alot. Cheers Brian

Layout NCU.rar

Should have that file when I did some 10 years ago. Will have a look... But the chip on my board was not locked so I just read it with my dataman pro.

If at all possible could you dump the roms please.

Cheers nick ,, I wouldn’t imagine there would be many of these around now,,,

Thanks now with a happy new owner, razzle dazzle is next

Well done, it looks good, nicely repaired

Yes, I’d say so too, sulzerned that’s what I’m planning to do as well

I actually forgot that I have the top glass 😂 it's a bit ropey but okay

Newbie ... looking to delve into emulators, all fun (and games). Hello from North Yorkshire ...

i Can't believe this thread is over 16 years old and sort of still going 😁 Anyway as for the project. When i started this in 2010 i was always hoping that others would take part and improve on what i did back then(which they have).Materials depend on backlit and none backlit. The best way is probably to look through the thread and see what different members have had success and failures with.

Nice job on the shot blasting and really makes a nice difference

Hi all, I think I mentioned these devices a few weeks back so I thought I'd purchase a few and have a play. If you're not aware these devices can emulate ROMs and come in all the sizes and will do masked ROMs too although I haven't got there yet. Amazing so far and so many things I haven't tried yet. They are about a tenner each but the time and effort they save it's a no brainer. The devices can be flash programmed in seconds so no waiting 20-30 mins to erase ROMs and re-burning when you're testing patches to code. Then plugging them in to test and finding they don't work! (yep we've all been there) Once installed in the ROM socket they can be re-programmed in situ via USB. Here's a pic using an MPU3 card... Also big and smaller brothers. They do devices for larger chips but I don't need them as yet. Another advantage of these is you can save multiple images which can be selected by the jumpers so changing code can be done in seconds. Of course in the case of MPU3 & 4 you can't put them in the case as it's not deep enough but that's fine just for testing purposes. Another advantage is you can put the whole image on one device and patch the CS lines to the empty sockets (not tried this as yet) but it's all explained in the blurb. I needed to use these due to trying to defeat the CHR and CRC check as burning traditional ROMs was taking all day. It can now be done in seconds. I'd like to thank John Parker for his assistance with this and taking the time to explain it. Cheers John you are a squire and a gentleman sir. For the guys out there that like hacking ROMs for changing the gameplay, I think these devices will be a godsend. It does also mention in the blurb you can change bytes on a running system, not tried that either but it's all terrific stuff.

It could be the motor on the main control timer is sticking, With machine switched on your can turn the end of the main control timer shaft by hand which might free it off OR, It could be the variator timer, specifically the variator's cam switch. First, when machine is in credit, two timer's should start clicking away on the main panel. One is the rotary hold/nudge selector with wires around it's board, the other is the variator timer with a red cam which operates a cam switch as it turns.. When you press the start button, the main control timer starts, the reel motor starts and the reel solenoids lift to allow the reels to spin, normally the main control timer would complete a full revolution without stopping but this would allow the reels to run in a sequence. To stop this happening the cam switch on the variator takes over the power to the main control timer motor and makes it stop and start as the cam on the variator turns. As this action also starts and stops the main control timer motor This 'Varies' the stopping time of the reels to prevent sequencing. Once the reels have all stopped in their 1,2,3 sequence, the control timer takes over from the variator and restores the circuit to it's own motor to finish the timers full revolution. Now if the cam on the variator fails either the switch collapses, any of the wires have become loose or disconnected even if the variator motor fails then there will be no circuit to the main control timer motor and as soon as it starts it freezes in the same position with the result your machine just sits with the reels spinning and won't do anything else. if you get stuck post pictures or better still a video of your machine.

And there's more..... Electro Mechanical (EM) - Versus - Stepper Reel Unit (SRU) As already mentioned I had succeeded in filling a vacancy in JPM's After Sales Service and had a shiny Blue Ford Cortina estate. It was one of the only estates that would get a machine in the back with the seats down, sort of guaranteed to kill you if you were rear ended but I digress. (another welshman). Work days were now in a 3 piece suit as we were ‘an extension of Sales’ as Ernie Beaver, the sales director at JPM let us know on frequent occasions. This was a new venture for me and involved, amongst other duties, taking calls from technicians in field who were stuck with a problem and couldn’t fix the machine and those were the calls we enjoyed taking! It was always a pleasure to speak with a like minded engineer who wanted to fix a problem and needed another pair of hands to assist so to speak. We would pore over the schematic in the office asking the engineer to try various things and offering our suggestions until we eventually nailed the issue! Believe me the last thing we wanted was to have an engineer left in the field with a machine that was still OOO as we called it and no idea of how to fix it. In fact several of us had been know to jump in the car after work and drive to site to be there for the next day and check out the problem ourselves if the answer was not found. This was especially true in the case of a new machine just in case it was a production issue which would be replicated. We sometimes took calls from executives of influential Companies pointing out the shortcomings of a design or a flaw in the product and demanding that we come and ‘sort things out’. Both these types of calls resulted in us often taking a two pronged approach, perhaps going to site to see the issues first hand as a PR effort, but also checking on the production facility and seeing if we could see the problem first hand and persuade Dev or production to change things. We were expected to man exhibitions stands as well in such places as Alexandra Palace, back in the day before it burnt down, Olympia and also the NEC. That last venue based near Birmingham was used only once and was the stage setting for the culmination of an important (head banging) period in JPM’s history and proved to be a turning point. More of that later Lets just step back over 40 years here Everything is no longer in black and white but it’s still sepia coloured. It’s early evening, it’s raining, and a machine is out of order. The call was made earlier in the day and the engineer turns up. First thing he does is light a fag and ask the landlord about the nature of the problem and checks out the machine. Let’s not forget before we go any further, there is no test routine per se! So, drag the machine away from the wall, create a space around the back to try and get some working space, open the beer sticky back door to the tobacco stained inside, perhaps kneel in the beer soaked carpet and wait for the usual comments from the crowd. “Ooo it’s like a telly in there,” “look at all those wires,” “can you make it win for me,” “come to stop it paying out have you?” And dozens of other well know comments He’s heard them all a hundred times If it’s payout related it’s easy, get some credit, move the reels to a payout position, hold them, hit start, wait for the game to finish, payout should happen, simples. More game related issues? He played until it came up. But then of course there was a schematic supplied with every machine and furthermore most canny engineers had a folder with the latest schematics in. By looking at the schematic, cycling the machine and following what should happen the engineer could trace the circuit and find the faulty component and here is the big difference between those days and today or at least when I finished in the industry and more’s the pity . He either went back to the car or delved in his tool box and pulled out a micro switch, a relay, perhaps even a timer motor. He might even look at the schematic and in the case of a relay related fault, check out if the contact was broken or pitted and perhaps search for another that didn’t utilise that contact or open the relay and even abrade the contact. Whatever it took. The point is in the vast majority of cases, unless there was vandalism, fire, or some other physical issue the engineer fixed the machine. He was proud of that fact, he was known for that trait. Of course with the introduction of the electronic systems many engineers, well in those days anyway, became worried. And rightly so, but their fears had to be allayed. I had already been, quite literally, "sent to Coventry" as the one person who was prepared to repair a new machine on site. The first breakdown of JPM's prototype electronic machine, the Each Way Nudge was in Thomas's Showboat Arcade in Coventry. I had a spare board with me obviously but I found that a transistor had blown and although I wasn’t prepared to actually de-solder the defective one, I scrunched it up with a pair of pliers and soldered the new one on to the legs of the old one. ‘JD’ as we say. (Job done) Lets not forget it wasn’t LSI in those days and there were many discrete components on the board. Crude?………Yes! Effective?….Definitely! Happy?……..Ecstatic! This first “repair” of the electronics in an Electronic machine on site was no small matter and was deemed as the crossing of a major hurdle for the company. I can already hear the snorts of derision here, and I don’t blame you guys, but try and figure that this was all new ground and there was a lot riding on this. In itself it proved unquestionably that the product ‘could’ actually be repaired by anyone (gee thanks), a fear that everyone had borne since the inception of the product. In practice of course (it has to be said) that the reality proved to be a lot different. The electronics system was without question more reliable. However with the delivery of the new machines and the inevitable issues with peripherals still cropping up, many of our customer's site engineers all over the country were desperately trying to fix broken bulbs etc, on this initial batch of machines by taking out (aka ripping out) the controller and ordering a replacement part in sheer terror of the unknown. This was because they had lost the traditional testing or ‘exercising’ methods that they had learnt over many years on the electro mechanical machinery. They did not read the manual, I mean what real man ever reads a manual! All of the calls to After Sales were recorded on a ‘Call Log’ and the vast majority that started the line with EWN (Each Way Nudge) had the immortal phrase RTFM written against them They didn’t know the machine could be exercised via a test routine. Engineers were far more used to robust systems and were playing havoc with the more delicate connectors, which with later hindsight admittedly were not up to the job. It became obvious to everyone that the industry would need to educate these guys, or this product and the very future of JPM and the massive investment already made would in turn fail. It goes without saying that the success of a product meant it was taking more money than any other machine and an old adage by Mick Foster of Associated Leisure was that a charity box took more money than a dead fruit machine. Due to the previously mentioned mind set it seemed that every fault was being blamed on the new technology and the product was getting bad press. JPM quickly came to realise that it was fear and ignorance as much as anything else that was fuelling the transplant epidemic which itself was introducing the aforementioned damage to connectors coupled with the huge number of circuit boards being returned with NFF but damaged connectors. So after devising a training programme with Charles Weeks and several other colleagues we went around all the ‘majors’ in the Industry pointing out how the product could best be serviced, exercised and how to fault find! Often this was on a shift by shift basis as Engineers would be on call out Rotas. My colleagues and I were tasked with travelling the length and breadth of Britain and eventually much of Europe, setting up training road shows in Hotels, Village halls, Cinemas in fact anywhere that could hold 20 or more engineers and a few machines for them to work on. I was promoted (?) to Training Officer and this constant exposure ensured that my face was well know throughout the industry. Due to my experiences I was eventually offered the job as After Sales Service Manager. Bob Old had left the role as my manager and moved over to open a new venture that JPM had entered into, supplying spares to the industry for our competitors products as well as our own. Bob Old eventually left JPM and went on to work in a Sales role for Aristocrat in London and then Australia and became truly successful in that role. So I inherited the Spare sales team as well He unfortunately passed away a few years ago. RIP Bob you taught me how to drink!

Disconnect the motor from the gearbox by removing the spring clip across the back of the motor. the gearbox is held to the timer side plate by two small screws either side of gearbox but leave for now as it's still connected to the main timer cam shaft. Remove the far end plate away from motor by the three securing nuts on the rod clamps.pic 2 You can now remove the main cam shaft by releasing the hex nut securing it to the gearbox shaft.pic 3 disconnect the motor end plate via three locking nuts and disconnect the gearbox from the side plate by removing the two small screws. the grey cam switch holders can now be slid along and off the three securing rods.

Next, look at the underside of the timer and you will see the clamps that hold the cam switches in position. held by a screw, when the clamp is released the cam switch still wired can be removed from the holder. pic 1. Once all switches are removed there will only be the motor wiring holding the unit to the main loom. As it only has two wires and connectors abut 4 inches along it too can be disconnected from the loom but check wiring match and should look similar to pic 2. As all the switch wiring is in order in the loom it will also keep the switches in order so they can't get mixed up.