Leaderboard

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

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.

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.

Finally got this done! Had a fair bit to do and it took a while to get the small glass that smashed re made as well as the missing button decals, it’s came out really well, I will tell the story with pictures first job the base and structure of the cab

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! 🤣

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.)

As sort of expected, they’ve been stood in damp. luckily, super 7’s is the best of the 3 and after a couple of new platforms and castors it’s solid and in need of a huge clean. the clubber, was only ever bought for its Sru parts inside… and to be scrapped. the big banker, well… the cab is very bad and very wobbly… yeah, it can be saved - weighing up weather it’s worth the effort and parts for its value after all time sorting base… These are the issues people never see…. Everybody sees the £156, nobody sees the £200 to get them to me, the work the parts bla bla bla and most importantly the time. 3 members on here have enquired about buying already, and a previous buyer has too… worth it? Probably not… but that’s the gamble A nest in the bottom, and a base that caved in when machine weight was on it.. screws will be countersunk and wood painted… castors washers etc etc. trial fit always first.

Cheers pics to come in the plenty

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

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 🤣

Let's hope they haven't gone to the bakery

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

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)

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 😞

https://ebay.us/m/NvtCkI too far from me

1984

I remembered an old thread about this, found it was 2019! Might be of some help: https://www.fruitemu.co.uk/ib/topic/21442-bfm-cops-n-robbers/#comment-328340

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

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..

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

I think you are right on both counts. I have just had a look on one of mine and although it has not got a hopper it has got the extended game card and that square chip near the aux 3 connector on the game card is a 68681 DUART which makes sense, so power from pl10 and information from aux3 on the game card. So that is a dead end as none of the tracks that directly go to the hopper are anywhere near the battery area. As Bob says a screwed up switch matrix can make them do funny things and something else i would look at which realy can do strange things is the RAM, although it looks quite clean in the photo it is in the battery area.

Power, Power, Power. We have all done it and will no doubt continue to do so, start off and get side tracked, cant see the the wood for the trees scenario. Well done Bob, another interesting read. Didnt realise Caroline was still going, just had a look on their home page and the solar power meter for the Orford Transmitter made me chuckle.

Dont know if this helps or hinders but below is the razzle connections showing 10p never enabled but it does show the inhibit lines which maybe of some help.

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 .

Like the look of that nick, reminds me of the old jpm electro was it red arrow?

I'd like to see a pic of the internals anyway as I do find these electro machines fascinating. Let's hope the fella comes up with the goods.🤞

Christ knows how you get to the bottom of these repairs! Quite a skill 👌

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

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.

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

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.

so to continue, thats the jist of some of them, theres lots more: Bellfruit Games: Probably *the* origional and best modern machine creator out there, if you take modern meaning the early 70s on. They dominated the electro market in the 70s and 80s, there wasnt an arcade anywhere that didnt embrace the bellfruit machine, but they made some pretty good electronic platforms too.... Black box revision one- Two board sandwich in a metal case, tended to heat up a lot, Could develop some strange and frustrating faults. But a compact little computer, used the standard electromechanical reel system with triacs controlling the stop solenoids. Brought us some of the best known classics like firecracker, upstairs downstairs etc. Black box revision two- Same two board system with an NVRAM card added. Used stepper motors instead of electro reels. Nice machines on this platform, usually in that BFM small cab (two step etc). The internals of these cabs were quite daunting for ops of the day, let alone us collectors! System 83- stroke of genius by BFM, brought us some of the most entertaining games of the day. Good robust tech, and indestructable cabinets! System 85- actually came out in 1984. I know this because I have a system85 machine in a system 83 cab with an 84 date on the inspection sticker. Nice reliable tech it was, straightforward PCB layout, easily repaired then and now. Unlike JPMs etc it used a MC6800 CPU which was common on several diffrent techs of the day so it was easy for arcade ops to repair these. Probably my favourite BFM tech of all of them. System 88/89 (later named scorpion1) This was BFM growing up I think. Games were more advanced, sampled sound made an appearance. Scorpion platform was again very straightforward, but I think they had one or two flaws in the design. Rattly reel motors for one, and why was there airvents cut underneath the lamp resistors? You would think they would have rated the parts accordingly. Nevertheless, scorpion machines wiped the floor with the rolltop MPU4s at the time. Scorpion 2 - came out 1991/92 I think , someone will correct me. BFM made some drastic design changes to the scorpion platform and utilised FPGA chip technology to give their system some decent security, and to simplify some of the PCB design. Ive yet to figure out what this security actually is, I think it was just a case of scrambling the ROM address and data lines or something. Scorpion 4 (scorpion3 I dunno, mabye in house revision) - One of the most bloddy unreliable power supplies in existance came with this platform. Which is a pity becuase the PCB design is straightforward, SIMPLER than scorpion 2 believe it or not, and yet still easy for the hobbyist to repair. Its that damn switching PSU that lets it down, theres scorp4s switched off all over the country that are perfectly good MPU wise but have broken PSUs. I know one arcade alone with 8 machines having this issue. You can also get reel failures through the reel power rails drifting out of range, burning up the reel transistors. Six reel scorp4s are prone to this in particular. scorp 5- too new for me to bang on about!

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.