Leaderboard

This next one gave me the run around. This one didn't look too bad but looks can be deceptive. In fact the rusty nuts on the 64 way cart socket should have had me running for the hills! On the first power up it booted OK but the Alpha was corrupted. Normally with the diags running you get bleep shortly after this before the main tests start running. In this case there was no bleep and nothing else happened. Concentrating on the alpha one of the links was broken between R111 and the socket PL7. There was no track damage under the battery which is the usual culprit. On the next switch on...nothing...something has died! It's the old story of pulling all the support chips till the culprit is found. Too cut a long story short all the 68B21's were removed and tested, three of these were bad. It's all a bit hazy now but at some time IC16 (74LS138) and IC19 (74LS22) were found to be bad and these were also replaced. Now it would boot again and the alpha was correct. Still no bleep though? The bleep doesn't come from the sound chip it is actually generated from IC2 the 68B40 and this was also bad. so now it bleeps and goes on to the tests but keeps failing on all sorts of things. This was due to bad connections as all the terminal pins were badly oxidised. Once cleaned it would then run OK. Next thing was to do a quick bash test, a little tap on the ROM cart and ....thank you and goodnight! In fact any movement of the cart was enough to kill it. I could see green stuff in the connector so she had to come out. A new one sorted that little problem but tapping the CPU also made it go unstable. Hmm, now where have I seen this before (MPU3 thread). In this case the CPU's legs were badly tarnished and I think one actually fell off!! In goes a new one and that was that one sorted. Sometime later the alpha died again along with the triac tests. One of my spares in IC8 (68B21) had decided it was all too much and went to meet its maker. I despair sometimes, and it wasn't a far eastern copy either. Last thing to check was the switch tests. All the right switches did all the wrong functions, give me strength. Still it's usually the two 4049 chips IC33 & 34 and so it was. I think I deserve a nice long break.🍺

Yet another board from hell arrived on the workbench! From initial looks anyone would think it's not too bad, just the usual stuff to swap out and off we go. How wrong was I! The list of faults won't be in chronological order as there were so many I've lost track. I think it originally was stuck in reset but as all the transistors and other components were going to be swapped out in the reset circuit no in depth testing was done. There were loads of crumbly solder joints and getting some of the old bits out was a challenge but no pads lifted in the process which was good. So with all new bits in and looking shiny underneath it was time for a power up.....and....nothing! Not surprising really but things went downhill from here onwards, especially my sanity! On switch on you can get a rough idea if it's going to boot or even initialise by the click it makes and the reels judder. In this case there was nothing and the first step is always to check the RAM, of course it was knackered. In with my test RAM daughterboard and ..... nothing! Next one I always go for is the 555 ocillator as if this is out of limits then it won't run. Having said that with the diags it should show a triac output whether the osc is running high/low or not at all but in this case there was nothing. With the scope it measure around 450Hz which is far too low. All the associated components were swapped to no avail so a new 555 was put in and we had a good 500Hz. Still no boot though. So we now move on to the support chips and see which one is stopping it from booting. I won't bore you with the details here but once the 6840 (IC2) the three 6821's (IC 3,4&5) were swapped it sprang into life. However things weren't right and the reels were intermittent as were the lamps (there were more problems here) and the triacs. What was happening was the connectors were covered with that brown corroded (patina) and weren't making good, if any, contact. No amount of switch cleaner made them any better so the best course of action was to get them all swapped out. Luckily I had a donor board to hand and this is the only way to get these sockets now especially with the right colours. So with 'new' clean sockets things were better but still not right. Moving the ROM cart caused it to freeze and despite cleaning just tapping the cart caused it to freeze. On of the connectors was also broken which you might be able to see but I don't think that was an issue. Anyway back to the donor board and exchange the cart socket. Now flexing the cart it was solid but a tap and it would freeze!! Hmm thinks, I'll come back to that one. Attention was now turned to the lamps. The new socket had brought a few more lamps into play but there still a couple of lines playing up and 2 BDX34's were found to be duff. There were also switch issues which were caused by IC22 (CD4049). OK, so it all appears to be running and testing fine, except for one thing, after about 10 mins on the test rig it freezes. Tapping around the cart and CPU also causes it to freeze? Hmm not removed the CPU yet so out it comes and back in with a socket and.... still the same. By this time I'm thinking of jumping in the Thames again! New day, new ideas. As the CPU is now in a socket it's easy to put a new one in. Well, what do you know solid as a rock. Back in with the old one and either leave it for about 10 mins or lightly tap it and it freezes. The pins are all clean so it must be intermittent inside. You couldn't make it up. So almost time to wrap up until I checked out the AUX port PIO. I always run software with an alpha as if that runs OK then the chip is usually good. Well guess what the alpha just came up with a load of rubbish! In with yet another 6821 and thats all my spares gone. It all looks like it's working so now it's off to the Cabaret machine for a soak test. Half the 7 segs aren't working!! The diags don't check these which is a pain. This was due to IC16 (ULN2803). At last it's a goer and passed the soak test with flying colours.

Here is Silver Lining by DJE, this is set on 10p and £4.80 jackpot. This is a clone of Bolt from the blue amongst others. They say every cloud has a silver lining except for this as Barcrest took action as they said it is a copy of their Cloud 999. For more information please use the following link. https://www.fruitemu.co.uk/ib/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&controller=topic&id=24323 Thanks go to: Loo for the roms Riche 100 for the image Wizard (R.I.P) for his amazing emulator. Shortcuts are in the notes Please use MFME 20.1 Hope you enjoy. silverlining Release.zip

Good work bob .

Your more than welcome, there is a good few good eggs on here which can help out :)) take care

Well he is most certainly spoilt for choice with all the techs he has.

https://youtu.be/sL3jgr7jx0Y

Im not 100% but i think the hopper U plus 2 (ebay link below) was designed to work with every variant of serial. Azkoyne had various hopper protocols CCTalk, 2 wire serial CCtalk plus(16bit) etc each with a different hopper type on the Hopper U mk1 style (no red band on the bowl), all looked the same but would not work in machines that did not support it. Im guessing its in a Bell Fruit/QPS/Mazooma machine? If the below does not work, you definitely need the one that only has 2 dil switches on the PCB. E-Service have a ebay store and they are the UK distributors for Azkoyne, might be best to call there technical https://e-service.co.uk/. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Azkoyen-CCTALK-U-Plus-II-Serial-Encrypted-Hopper-12-24V/264420898978?hash=item3d90b6b8a2:g:5kAAAOSw6yBgGCJi&autorefresh=true

LoL... I wouldn't even offer that..🙈😆... Someone will have a brain storm and pay a fortune for it... I still to this day ain't ever paid more than £100 for a machine... that being my Cluedo that I've still got and had for well over 20 years... and my Scorpion 2 cops n robbers that I knocked down to £75 as it had board damage that I fixed... I had most of the popular mpu3, sru, system 80 & MPS machines back in the day and wouldn't pay for them anything like what they make today... So I will just watch your videos and wish I'd kept all my old machines...😆😉... When I think back that I sold my £2 Line Up, Adders, Options & Exchanges for about £50 each...😭😭😭