Leaderboard

I have been a long time lurker over many years, spent a long time fixing personal home machines. I have been working with a guy to bring reproduction boards to revive damaged (usually battery corroded) back to life. So basically, two guys creating reproduction fruit machine mainboards and game cards. Now obviously, these are blank boards and require a donor board, time and effort to build. Most of these boards have easy to solder through hole components which minimal skill level is required. Obviously some have SMD parts such as EPOCH, Astra IO3 CPU Card where more skill will be required. ------------------ Most boards range from £15 to £25, and some discounts can be made for larger amounts. I'm based in the UK but can pretty much ship anywhere but at buyers cost. Feel Free to drop a Comment or DM for any questions ------------------ When a new board is released for sale, BOM documents and Notes will be uploaded here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zteijgZ6kcggR_ZUyvWFackC2KUOpF-0 I do have a Facebook group (same as this thread title) where you can reach out to me to purchase. Tested & Verified Designs: Maygay - EPOCH Maygay - M1B Bell-Fruit - Scorpion 2 Barcrest - MPU4 Ace Coin - SP.ACE In Progress Testing: Bell-Fruit - Scorpion 1 JPM - System 80 CPU (2708 Version) Coming Soonish: Maygay - M2 CPU Card Bell-Fruit - System 85 Maygay - MMM Electrocoin - Universal 8205 Astra - I/O CPU Card Planned: Project Coin - PC92 Project Coin - Procon JPM - System 5 Global - Stealth In other news, we are now able to offer "REEL MCU" IC replacements for ACE Coin - SP.ACE Boards.

Wow, it's been nearly 5 years since I last posted in this thread!!! Just had a batch of MMM's in to sort. Most faults on these boards get cured by swapping out all the components in the battery area including the RAM. There can also be the odd broken via and corroded tracks but easily rectified with rivets and patch wires. One board which I'd had a few weeks previously had stopped working so I knew it was going to be a nightmare. On power up it would bleep about every second, flash a few lamps and motor drives and the 7 seg would go on and off too. Sometimes, very rarely, it would go into attract mode but not credit and then again sometimes it would credit but only on one denomination of coin???? After about 3 days of head scratching I was getting nowhere although I did discover some more faults that would have affected the lamp matrix overload (if it ever ocurred). So here I am on day 4 and I've got no idea what's going on, nothing is making any sense and the fault condition varies every now and then. Now I have two different game chips, one is 4 ROM chips (Cash Drop) and the other is Roulette which is 3 chips. I always use Cash Drop as it confirms all ROM sockets are Ok. So lo and behold with 3 chips in it runs a treat..... hmmm put the four chips back in and socket 4 if I move the chip with a little touch it boots fine or fails. Out with the socket and in with a new one. Not the easiest job in the world as the solder is grey and crumbly on the top side. A slight diversion here... A method I use to extract old sockets with crumbly solder is to apply heat with the iron tip (approx 370c) to the top side of the pin and when it melts the solder on the underside use a screwdriver blade to push the pin flat to the board (ie force it upward). Of course the socket will be ruined but it's knackered anyway. I find this breaks the seal and the socket can be removed a fair bit easier. Lots of flux is essential of course and the usual caveats apply don't attempt this unless you know what you are doing. Back at the ranch... With the new socket in the chip now is a snug fit whereas before you could extract it with just your fingers and of course it boots and runs fine. Phew!

David Mead came to join me in CS and together we repaired hundreds of SRU circuit boards and those damned Varelco(?) plugs that kept on breaking when you unplugged the board from the reel unit, what a design flaw that was. He had an absolute photographic memory and would remember details from older machines in seconds we had no need to have record kept, although he did as I remember and kept copious volumes of details. I met him in a pub a few months (years?) ago and he is still in the industry and is an engineer for one of the big companies, forgive me I know not which one. Tony Braggins went from development to HR, strange step but there you go. He spent years in that role before retiring and as far as I know became a trustee for a Nature Park. The R+D team changed massively over the years and as I have explained previously the 'cabinet populating' side of things all went a bit pear shaped prior to the introduction of the SWP's, so that will date it for 'you that know' a you may have read I was asked to take it over when on of the w@n7ers left, or should that be pushed. The software department obviously grew from the introduction of the SRU and although we started with two or three developers, eventually it went on to number at least a dozen or more as I recall. I wasn't too involved with the software team until I took over the PM role for the SWP's and then I had at least three working for/with me under the 'matrix management' project which was novel to say the least. I do remember a game we played in the software department which involved taking an eprom and placing it in the end of the Eprom packaging tube and flicking it upwards into the ceiling tiles where the legs would hopefully keep it there embedded in the fabric, of the tile. Cheers

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. Im sure my routing is all perfect though. As soon as the reels first twitched I was like thats all the processing and serial link sorted... then the memory alarm went off which validated all the audio (which theres alot of!). I was like wahoo! Nailed this one first time also. R.e.l.i.e.f 20260718_162233.mp4

Some pictures of the machine completed

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

Well..I have been chasing this machine, for the last decade. I missed it, on marketplace in 2015, and it recently turned up again, in Detroit. And even then, the seller has been very hard to get hold of. It's a rebuild of Lucky Strike So, a 400 mile round road trip this morning, to Detroit. The cabinet is in good shape. Things that are missing. The individual coin transfer chute, from the mech to the tubes. No back door. I haven't powered it up, as the power supply probably needs a good looking at, and this is a Rifa cap style PSU??. Anything else I need to know, before powering it up? Can't believe I actually own this, let's hope, I can get it, to work

Delighted to say I bagged this beauty recently! I only had one poor picture to decide in a very short time if I wanted it, good news is a courier has collected it for me and I will probably have a few weeks wait before it arrives! So we can all see together if it was a good buy or not. This was my guiding picture!

I would like to thank you all for your help and suport. My two machines are now good working with the regent files N°2. I would like to present you my new "toy" a slot machine whose name is "Golden luck" but it's not a fruity machine. Do you think that it's possible on the forum ? Here is a picture of the roulette.

Ok, a bit further on, i have stripped the reel deck, soaked, cleaned and re-oiled the bearings (yes, 6 bearings, 40+ year old quality you dont see any more). Put it all back together and now the reels spin as they should. Sorted the payout and that is fine now. But and this is a head scratcher, it plays and pays fine, all lights work when they should, however when you get the nudge feature it starts of well but as soon as you nudge any reel once it will nudge the once and the machine will do a quick reset (a quick blip on pin 40 of the cpu). I thought it might be down to the sense circuitry of which the track runs right by the triacs and maybe a bit of back emf of the coils with them switching in and out quickly, however normal game play was fine (oh and also no sounds). Before i delved further into that i remembered that this machine as well as the nippy nudger rom also came with a golden nudge it rom card. So what the hell, i put that in. Interesting results, now it plays and pays fine, the nudges work (although the panel does not light up so i assume that is different lamp ouputs for golden nudge it) and the sounds work. The gamble feature on golden nudge it which is not on this one does not come into play, if you get a win you get the first tone of the gamble feature and then it collects. I then put my hand round the back to close the back door microswitch and it would not nudge again. Anyway after a fiddle about and a good kick and a wipe and wobble of the rom card it now works with door open or closed so i think my next port of call is to check the rom cartridge connector on the mpu and the edge connectors on the cards. If i did not have this to do and had to rely on christmas TV i would have gone stir crazy by now 🤣. To be continued........

Send it to me, I'll put a new socket on for you.

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.

Then the frames were painted in a matched ral colour

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.

This mornings update..... Cleaned the contacts on the mpu rom cart socket and reflowed the solder connections on the back of the socket, cleaned the rom cartridge edge connections and reseated and cleaned the roms. Now both cartridges work fine (happy days). I think i prefer it with the golden nudge it cart in it as you get a few more sounds, ok the nudge now panel does not flash but thats an easy work around, however i am going to keep it original. Just need to rebuild the cabinet fix hold button 2 and remove and clean the reel solenoids as reel 3 is catching by a few thou. Still so impressed with the build quality and the fact it has bearings on the reels, infact that impressed i have attached a photo🤣. And yes i have addressed the hairline fractures on the reel bearing housing. Roms, cant remember which is p1 or p2 need to read them again and take note. VID_20251227_105457405.mp4 582e5e09.bin aafe44aa.bin

New glass has been completed! Very happy with the finish and comparison. Would highly recommend Mikonos for any graphics.

Bravo!!! Bravo! 😀 RP8 is the culprit. Incomprehensible. I desoldered it and tested it outside the MPU; it's fine. I had tested it before, though. On the MPU, RP8 is allowing 5V to pass through. I'm very happy, very happy to see it working. It's a bit of an 80s nostalgia trip. I'm going to fine-tune the settings and run the test mode. I want to thank the contributors, Midibob, Andrew96, Northstar ( I had forgotten about you, sorry ) and Jimxxx, for their expertise; without which, I wouldn't have achieved this success. 🤝 Truly, hats off to you. Sincere thanks. I hope this thread will help repair other MPU3s. Gentlemen, thank you again.

I went on Saturday and was treated to a warm welcome and free drinks. Can't remember shovelling so many 10p's into the slots before in such a short space of time but the sounds of the machines were fantastic, with the 80's music on in the background it was just like the old days. I got a few jackpots and lost a few gambles too. Glad to have made the trip, even though the trains were terribly delayed. My favourite was the JPM bingo fruit machine, forget its name. I remember some of them being really tight and nothing has changed lol, those being Chances Unlimited, Road Runner, Frog Hop and Fruit Snapper. Adders and Ladders is probably my favourite MPU3 shorter cab machine. Just a shame there were no taller MPU3's like Fortune Numbers or Strike a Light. Was also hoping for some BFM original Cops and Robbers. Maybe they will come one day. Overall a very enjoyable visit and quite happy to waste a few quid indulging in my childhood memories. Hope to visit again in the future.

Well, she lives. Couple of teething problems with the coin mechs, need to get some starters for the fluorescent tubes. Payout is temporarily disconnected. Finally fitted the test switch (many many thanks Nick for your generous donation to this project). It's taken a few weeks, but I love it 20251017_182306.mp4

Hi I just manage to gett this up and working. Just wonder if was also used in UK. I belive it is the only backgammon ever made on a machine. Cant win money on this type ( but Cost. Money ) its only for play 2 player or against cpu, for high points. Snapchat-1701319154.mp4

Just spotted this Ronnie, Carfield electro's have to be the worst ever to work on, The problem is frustrating by the lack of Carfield schematics in circulation. I had a glimmer of hope when contacting the Dransfield company to find someone still working there that remembered these machines and thought some paperwork may be hidden away in a drawer. Unfortunately he reported like all the old gear they look to have been thrown out so, I was back to square one with Nicks machine too. A have made a little progress and managed to get it to fire up, fire being the operative word as it has a timer motor and buzzing plus it's constantly chattering a pay slide. as the pay slide is 240vac I have had to removed the offending relay to silence the slide. so work continues. The stripping of the motor and gearbox would have been my first suggestion for the squeal, the same solid grease I had to chisel out of Nicks reel motor gearbox too. Those light optical sensors that are part of the win circuit through holes in the reel drums are not the best system and this one had been tampered with so expect the wins could be wrong if I can get it running. there are three micro switches one on the back of each reel solenoid arm, they have something to do with the wins too as they are operated on cherry wins. One switch arm was completely snapped off on Nicks machine. The reel solenoid mountings again are different on Carfield to such as Bell Fruit, JPM etc and because of the holes through the reel drums for the light sensor, moving the actual solenoid mount won't be an option Moving the actual reel bands may be your only option to aligning the symbols on the win line. All those open relays that operate on mains 240vac will cause pitting of the contacts causes them to get a carbon coating and that in turn reduces the contact circuit and as the machine relies on good contacts can and will cause many different faults. They do need cleaning periodically but, especially after so many years of use. Contact cleaner is the best option with some heavy card between the contacts saves taking the coating off the contacts. The hold timer on Nicks machine appears to have had the same cam job done on it too. Talking to Paul, his Carfield had a couple of faulty timer motors of which I think he sourced from a donor machine so, As Nicks machine has at least one jamming motor it could be that is a problem with the age of these machines. Again they are 240vac, I have a load of 50v but they are no good for this repair so, The only source I have found for the same motors are from RS but not cheap.

So I stripped the reel motor and chiselled out the old grease and re packed it with fresh grease so now the squeal has gone The payouts are mostly correct but at times it will miss a 6p win and give 4p so a 2 symbol payout instead of 3. I found the hold timer easy to spot with the bent over cams so it gives less holds and some actually cut away! but since checking the micro switches it's not done it again?

the absolute BEST leaded solder is to J-STD-006A standard. difficult to buy at consumer level, and it is expensive stuff!! but I can tell you it is really good solder and is what is used to repair boeing and airbus electronics so has to be good!

Another new machine ! Popeye jackpot , just need some tokens now ! converted_14.mp4

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! 🤣

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

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!

Thanks for the pictures, will be great for emulation purposes. I can dump the ROMs for you if needs be.

Ok, after sorting this out and she is now running as she should ( just the cabinet to sort out which is nearly finished), i thought i would have a go at doing a full schematic for the MPU1 seeing as there does not appear to be one around. I will make my excuses now........ It`s not perfect, it has probably aged my eye sight by trying to backwards engineer a pcb to a schematic ( thank god it is 70s tech and not triple layer). MISTAKES THERE WILL BE so if anyone notices any let me know and i will check and correct them. It is a big file, it ended up on A2 size and i still ran out of space (appologies for having to cram the rom cartridge in). But it is a start and all being well we can crack it from here. REV2 Bitmap further down thread.

Thanks guys I’m loving it! Managed to crack one its own mpu looks like I just caught the battery in time! Wet patch under the crusty battery, Otherwise the board is very clean

Well just arrived about an hour ago, and on first look I’m happy! Needs a good clean inside and out, glasses are perfect intervals complete, just the base is missing! Mpu is dead will get a better look tomorrow

Hello experts So, Bob is right. I installed the wrong component: T56. 🙄 I was really incompetent. This board has already been repaired, and the previous owner installed the wrong component, BC172. I always check the component and the schematic; and on the schematic, it's a BC172. Hence the mistake. Now it starts; yes; Bingo! 🙂 😀 Thank you; thank you again. But, well, there are some problems: The sound; I'm going to replace T11. The display is acting up a bit. One scroll bar is stuck in HOLD mode. And others... I'm going to check the connectors, the soldering, etc. Thank you very much.

I personally liked them a lot,autoroute and naughty the first machines after the dreary roulette wheel gamble machines of razzle etc,they didn’t last long because of the EM5 mech,never understood why barcrest and jpm with superbank,tumble,top up,top streak went for this mech over the mars,basically you could use steel form A M12 washers in the EM5 for pounds and the summer of 85 onwards they got absolutely blitzkrieged by them….so they say😆.

Hello. Truly a fascinating topic; fabulous, interesting from beginning to end. Thank you.

Hi Guys Here is a brand new 40 odd year old layout from JPM. There is a read me file and a manual in the folder. Thanks to who ever uploaded the ROM on here for this:) The ROM I originally tried from DIF had a £2.10p Jackpot on 10p Play and double symbol on reel 1. Happy Christmas to all! Nudge Double Up Deluxe (JPM).zip

Happy Christmas everyone, Well i had some time this morning and have managed to get the MPU up and running (my present to myself lol). The main fault with it being the 6810 ram was knackered but whilst i was socketing all the ic`s on the board and thanks to the retro chip tester that was found, it still didnt work after that but that turned out to be a bridge of solder on the 7414 inverter chip (think i might invest in an overhead microscope camera as my eyes are not what they used to be.) So now it runs and thankfully the 45+ year old rom cartridge is ok. Problems left to sort:- The sides, top and bottom of the cabinet need replacing (a job for warmer weather) The reel mech needs stripping cleaning etc as it is gummed up with decades of crap and barely spin. It dosnt pay out so i assume the optos and or circuitry (the slides work as it does give change for a 50p). The middle hold switch has broken behind so needs a bit of tlc / glue, bandage etc. Video below of how sorry for itself it is looking. Nippy Nudger.mp4

OK, what you have to note here is the 6561 is a 256 byte x4 whereas the others are 1kb x 4 albeit they have the same footprint. You can tell the smaller RAM machines as they have a 74LS03 instead of a 74LS12 for IC24. These are most likey to be MOD 1 and possibly 2, 3 and upwards use the larger RAM. There are others though that have a daughter board with a 6116 chip and this either plugs into the existing RAM sockets or is soldered directly to the board. You can make your own daughter board up with the 6116 chip (or equivalent) as these are easily obtainable and cheap.

Have had the missing button decals redrawn by Mikonos, and the glass graphic has been printed and is on it's way to me, thanks to Mike for supplying good images of the buttons

Far too early. Come back on 25th!

Here are the new lamp holders 👍👍👍

Well done for sticking with it and getting it going, perhaps you should buy a few more machines now you have bought all the test equipment. 🤣 As previously said above thanks to Bob and Andrew for helping and saving another relic. Well, what to do now, this story is over, the TV is crap, perhaps i should pay some attention to my MPU1, perhaps...........

Cheers. Cabinet is pretty good too. I think that parts were robbed out of it in the 80s and it has stood neglected in a 1st floor store room of an arcade gathering dust since then. The arcade has been taken over by new owners (previously owned by same family for 40 odd years) and they were clearing out old stuff. It still has that arcade smell which I love

It’s nice to see old threads still being helpful and added to after over a decade. i was in my 40s then and by the end of next week I will be in my 60s.👨‍🦳👴

Here is my Twilight Zone fully LED converted 😉

Hello I can finally read the messages. Thanks to Generation.😉 So here it is, I have two 1980 French Version Ambassadors. It doesn't distribute winnings. No money. Everything happens on the meter display. Equipped with the MPU3. Well, it doesn't work completely. 🙄 If anyone needs the schematics or the eprom files, I have them. I think I also have the eprom files for the MPU2. I'll check. Thanks Sorry for my poor english. Translate by google

£200 seems alot for 3D printing. Tinker CAD design software is free and really easy to use. If you are 50% PC able you should be able to do a 3D design easy enough (with tutorials) within a week or so. I recommend a go... so many people and companies have printers now its not specialist at all. I'd be surprised if someone wouldn't print your design out for £20 . Also a VAC former is easy to make for small mask sections. We have one at work using a cooker heating element to heat the plastic in a frame, when it's ready the frame flips over (pivot in the center) on to a box with a gauze and the mold sitting on. The box is sealed and connected to a hoover to create the vacuum.

Hello "For fun only" was the law. To say that these machines didn't make money. (what a joke) So on these French versions, there are no tubes for coins. If I won, for example, 500 francs, I signaled to the café owner, who came to note the win. He pressed a button on top of the machine, which reset the counter to zero. And gave me my 500 francs in cash. The machine was ready again. Here are some photos.

Many thanks for the kind offer. I've invested in a Desolder Station and it was a good investment. The socket is done...gradually working through the board now to see what else needs replacing. There's a fair bit of corrosion