Leaderboard

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.

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.)

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

Well, one of the functions that IC24 does is to monitor the lamps for short circuit bulbs and turn off that bulb as a precaution. It does this by monitoring the voltage dropped across the mux voltage feed resistors. This is fed into a little two transistor sensor circuit which then puts a signal on pin 10 of IC24. In this case both the transistors were iffy and the signal on pin 10 was constantly low. This is then fed back to the CPU which told IC12 to send permanent wait states up the CPU's own backside! Both transistors (T68, T69) had black legs and the BC337 (T69) tested leaky. Once swapped out along with the 5.1v zener as a precaution IC12 didn't send any more pulses on pin 7 and you could see the lamps at full brightness along with all the switches now working. To say I was relieved was an understatement.

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.

Thank you, yes but the cat has moved on now and discovered doors, how it can be comfortable sat on top of a 38mm wide door i do not know (strange thing). Yes i have the cash boxes thanks, it did come complete which is unusual for a machine of that age, even the keys. 😀

Maygay - Living in America Tech M1 - Rom revision 1.1 Its time to nip over the pond for a trip around America with this rare machine from Maygay. Some say it's very rare machine and some say it was a failed test, whichever it is I have no idea. Thanks goto: Wizard (RIP) for MFME M1ajay for the roms and flyer. Living In America.zip

A little update i have hopefully got the 10p roms coming later this week i will let you know if they work ok

bored, so started thinking about what I know, or think I know about MPU land. Heres me list: MPU TYPES: barcrest machine processor unit - MPU0 techincally, the very first controller- no ram/roms, lots of discrete DTL logic MPU1- first 6800 based unit, still running the earlier mechy reels. MPU1 second revision- diffrent flavour of the same computer- first revision in an ugly two sided case, second revision is one in your picture. MPU2 - early versions mechy reels, later versions steppers. But later programs use the lamp output for the reels, find a board cover you will see what I mean. Its also why lots of MPU2s burn out the reel drive transistors. They arent rated for it. MPU3- Even people who dont follow fruit machines know what mpu3 is- its really that famous/ notorious, a true electronic celebrity- its been around in 7 revisions, some official, some unofficial MOD0- 3 - early boards with small RAM MOD4 - prob no longer exists, had some modifications on the PCB that didnt work, so field engineers modded them back to mod3. MOD5- board revision with bigger RAM and sensitivity circuit added on the PCB. MOD6- adaption of the PCB to use small daughter card with 6116 RAM MOD7 -unnoficial update! uses ZRAM, zero power RAM , and has some other tweaks. A special revision by the meccas MDS- and also a secret, so no telling! MPU4 - 1983 to present day, co existed with MPU3 for a while in the early 80s as well. Is around in 3 versions, alougth officialy theres only 2- MOD2 - origional version (mod1 was factory develpment platform, never released) Has yamaha sound chip. MOD4- second revision (again MOD3 factory prototype and inhouse only) Sampled sound used on program card, socket left on PCB to fit sound chip if desired. MOD MECCA- well you could say that- this one is a board that we have fitted the sound chip back onto. Theres a few in circulation all over now ! MPU3 video- it did exist, but I dont know much about it. MPU4 video - a video computer that plugged into the standard MPU4 (MOD2 mpu4 btw) . Quite an impressive system! MPU5- the current standard for most arcade ops- seems more reliable than rival systems. JPM: jpm pioneered the stepper motor system at a trade show in 1978, so far, to date they have used: electromech reel processor - 1974 till about 1978- quite bellfruitish, 16 relays and 4 cam timers. And electromechanical reels, again similar to the BF unit. SRU - revisions 0-9 - all very similar, the changes to them were very suttle. JPMs first stepper motor system, quite revolutionary in its day, and all built into a handy integrated assembly that plugged into the machine. Used horrible valerco plugs tho that dont have good track record for longevity! SRU overseas revision- SRU board with diffrent layout. Program ROMs on a daughter card with a nicad and a static RAM. Seen in dutch JPM machines and others. Unlike the SRU board in the british machine, this board looks a bit like an early pinball machine processor- square board with plugs down either side. System 80 - SRU based platform with extended outputs, seperate CPU and sound cards and improved interconnects, again all in that handy integrated unit. Some very well known and well liked games on this platform. A good system from JPM and not as difficult to repair as first thought. For years when we had system80 repair threads it was thought that the CPU cards were murder to fix. Now some of them are, this being due to the freindly nicad, but lately paulgee discovered that 9 times out of 10, its nothing more than faulty RAM. He was lucky enough that I found some replacment 5114 for him, but if all else fails, you can use 2114 without a battery backup, or you can make a mod to use 6116. This system generates a lot of heat tho as all the 12v outputs are directly driven , no matrix on these! MPS1- still embracing the TMS family CPUs, but now with a lamp matrix and a number of other improvements. Good system but not a great deal of good games on it. David Powell designed this system, as well as epoch. Its the PSUs that are a minefeild on this tech. If you have an MPS1, and it has a red label PSU, change it for a yellow label. MPS2- MPS1 compressed onto a much smaller board. Lots of discrete logic replaced by 8255 PIAs, but JPM used custom made ones, so they arent marked 8255. MPS2 and MPS1 are backward compatible apart from 1 or 2 games, usuallly BWB ones. SYSTEM5- scary serial IO reel drive JPM system. Crap tech but brilliant games. 2 revisions, one had yamaha sound, one didnt. they arent interchangable. IMPACT- JPM impact is a very nearly perfect fruit machine MPU. All modular, but all contained on a motherboard with edge connectors rather than ribbon cables to off board units. This system is quite robust and has stood the test of time. Early impact machines were in ugly vogue cabinets, later ones in the electra. Impact has had 2 flavours over the years- impact 1, which is the 4 slot motherboard system, and impact 3, where all the expansion is carried out an a single card. Possibly they are compatible program wise, but I have never tested that theory out! HEBER PLUTO5/6 - when SEGA took them over, they started to use HEBER machine controllers. Dont know much about these at all apart from the fact that anyone who knows C programming could develop a heber machine- you can download the dev kit online!

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

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

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..................

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!

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 😂

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 😁

OK, things are looking up. I've discovered that connecting switch return 5 to any of switch feed 2,3,4,5 clears the 402 error and it then goes into the game. So I'm guessing these must be the stake switches?

Hi Bob... did you have the whole machine or are you bench testing the board? I was referring to a price/prize key board potentially in the machine or could be a switch wiring problem in the machine itself (if there is a price/prize key board). If so the usual dips for setting the price could be invalid on the bench with this rom. Sounds like 20p/25p roms but theres just no way of selecting it (if its on your bench). Thats why im thinking of external from the board.

Hi , The new roms have now arrived and just tested in my machine and seem to work fine 😁

Thank you for the fantastic layout.

All finished now and ready to go in my small arcade room. As you know through the earlier posts i have sorted out the mpu faults and got it all running. I also fitted new bearings to the reel deck in the end and converted it to take the new-new 10p (adjusted the mech, removed the magnet and fitted a new payout tube), and it still uses tokens. On a side note i could not believe the mpu still worked as i had it in pieces so many times whilst doing the schematic. All that was left to do was sort the cabinet...... Removed the old base which was glued and screwed on (bitch), built and fitted a new one...... Filled and sanded the top and sides, several coats of pva in the (weetabix) T moulding groove ready for new moulding. Glued a cat to the top of it 🤣 Also moved the token refill keyswitch from the top to the bottom front (god knows how many pints were lost down the back of the machine in its life). Replaced the old flourescents with led lights. Then fitted vinyl wood effect to the top and sides and new t moulding (i know the stick on vinyl is not very hard wearing but it is not going to be abused) Finished!!!!!!!!!

For anyone reading this in future, as stated above by MattyL. I swapped the very end red pin for and placed it in the next available empty slot (next to the grey on my picture). Issue solved. Thanks all for your input.

The PSU sounds like an ultra sonic cleaner! The fans seem to fail. My take is its just general case air movement... its not like a proper heat sync or critical exhaust fan but is beneficial obviously. Both power supply types can be used. You just have to unlatch the end red wire crimp and move to a spare 12v. I still think you might have another problem. I'd at least expect it to start booting. If you can use a multimeter you can measure the 5v while connected to the machine. If it dips bellow a threshold voltage I forget what so im going to guess at 4.8v-5.2v (Sega) the Scorp4 will keep reseting. Needs to be connected to the load (machine).

I think you have another problem because of the noise. Can you confirm its defo coming from the supply and not the speaker? Unserviced Scorp 4 machines in 2026 will probably have a leaking battery on the main board which most people diagnose as a power fault, so take a look at that. Film the noise if you can, I've never know a scorp 4 supply to be humming personally- x2 seems very strange/interesting. Looking at your loom, if there is a power supply mismatch- its not the destructive way around. Ive seen machines with the wiring the same as yours and with the later supply it usually manifests as something like no power to the reels... Defo shouldn't be humming.

Welcome, we’ve had loads of people called Gary join today 😅 when you inevitably try and comment, but unable to reply, pls change theme of page by scrolling to bottom. This is a common issue for years now

Maybe dump the roms and some hi res pics as don’t think we’ve this version emulated yet

I can't believe it's been over a year since the last thread but this one was a corker! This board had been to & fro quite a few times with various faults but this time it was just 'stuck in RESET'. That proved to be easy as the little voltage supervisor chip had failed. Thinking it was ready to go back, testing it the next day proved otherwise. It was now running slow, dim lamps, and the Start switch wouldn't work? 3 days later and swimming trunks at the ready for the jump in the Thames I was geting nowhere! For those who follow this thread may remember this is very similar to a fault a few posts back and this was due to IC24 (8255) which had failed. The plot somewhat thickens here as an old note stuck to the bottom of the board had all these symptoms on it and a previous repairer had alread been around that area changing chips obvioulsy to no avail. All these had to be removed as they needed tidying up and I couldn't be sure there wasn't something untowards underneath them. So once that done the same issues were still there. So what is causing the problem. Well, as was described in the previous fault, a pulse coming from IC12 (7) puts delays in the NMI line to the CPU which is used for various functions. I'm thinking it must be something to do with IC24 as it controls the lamp multiplex and the switch multiplex, but what? The chip is OK as it's already been replaced. Whilst in bed last night it came to me in light bulb moment and this morning I found it straight away. I was correct in my diagnosis that it was something to do with IC24 but up and until then didn't understand why. Now I do. What caused the issue? (just two components)

Thanks Nick I will give it a go 👌

20p - glass wouldn’t match. 10p would allow glass to match.

Yep was gonna say the same as ron Mike ,its usually the thin connecting wire to the terminal s that break ..ive done one or two using a new bit of wire or just soldering the break .glue the terminal bridge down with ordinary rubber impact adhesive then use black electrical tape to re insulate the solenoid.

If it can be done this would be the guy to ask not sure if he frequents here though you can find him on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@johnparker007

Surely it would be better on 20p play wouldn't it . Isn't it switchable ?

Afternoon Ron, I will take a look, hopefully it will be a simple as hoped! Thanks for the reply 👌

I did start it a few years ago, I'll have a dig through some old harddrives.

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

Came across this short film about holidaying in Blackpool in 1978.around the 3min mark there is a nice clip of a BIG BEN fruit machine .use to remember these a lot .possibly in coral island as the bingo was before the clip.

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.

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!