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No longer JPM Good afternoon chaps people (carefull), well at least those of you who are still reading this. So the new JPM spat me out. And again, before I go much further these last reminiscences are not about JPM obviously and are a personal recollection of the last four gaming organisations I worked with just to finish what I started. I was also mid divorce and had to find employment so after messing around with the useless benefit system (for people like me) and not finding employment and bills building up, I decided to go back to my tools so Property maintenance was the way to go. As an aside, I remember speaking to a benefit agent and explaining that a mortgage, 2 kids in private school, maintenance to pay and a one bed flat to rent was difficult and I was trying my best to get everything sorted and what could they do in the short term or at the very least for a month. When he offered me £42 quid I asked how tightly he could roll the cheque up so it didn't hurt when he shoved it up his … After a short and I must say fairly successful period of around a year, I took a call from JJ (Jack Jones) who said “How do you fancy meeting me next week.” I thought why not and we both went to a decrepit factory unit on the Somerset Industrial estate in Cwmbran. Walking around through the cobwebs, bankrupt stock, steel patterns hanging on the wall, inches of dust and debris and huge noisy and oily machinery he explained that he was going to restart the business and supply IP65 electrical trunking systems again to the Automotive Industry. In conversation he just said “and would you be the MD?” Of course I agreed, without hesitation, repetition or interruption, although what the hell did I know of Sheet steel? So we built up on the base of the old business and updated equipment, systems and brought back staff. When I say we I mean it, to see Jack with a toilet brush scrubbing the old bogs was a sight to behold and one many people just would not believe. I contacted suppliers and customers, got to know the staff and also worked on the machines when I wasn’t doing the office thing, and between us and with the guidance of a mate, Spencer Davies (https://www.amcanu.co.uk/) we slowly dragged the business back to some sort of break even within a year and a half. Installing new Cad and Cam systems and training the staff in their use revolutionised the business and Electrical Enclosure Products dragged itself back into life. As another aside Spencer was also the coxswain of the Burry Port Lifeboat and a good mate of Jack’s and accompanied us on Jack's 50ft boat when I was lucky enough to be invited for a day's outing around the Pembroke coast, what a day to remember. Over a lunch meeting at Mcdonald's one day, Jack suggested we could design a metal table top cabinet, just like the vegas machines and he began to sketch it out on the back of a napkin. I nearly threw a coffee over him. To be frank (sic) I had developed a bad feeling with regard to gaming, who could blame me. I stubbornly pointed out that the business could not afford the machine time or for that matter the design time for playing around with what seemed to be a romantic departure if we were to continue to supply our customers in the way they had grown accustomed to us doing. You see we were small and flexible, I would drive (in my second hand BMW 525) to Vauxhall or Ford or Land Rover and look at the problem with the installation of electrical and control distribution layouts and call back to the factory with changes to the ‘standard’ units that we made, or perhaps design a new control cabinet and we would start the process there and then. This sort of thing… https://www.at-enclosures.co.uk/products/switchboard-enclosures With a few guys willing to work overnight and with our own powder coating plant under our roof, we would have the units dispatched, often in the back of the lethal 2 litre P100 pickup, before other competitors could even respond as they were in many cases overseas manufacturers, in fact we often modified their offerings. We were also supplying systems to the guys that supplied large scale machinery to the Automotive Industry, did you know that the engine block goes through a washing machine after it has been machined? This photo is of a small one, I was actually locked in the large fully automated one as a prank, although thankfully it was not running at the time! Jack explained we could employ one of the dumped guys from JPM on a part time basis and fit things in around production (Yeah, shure) So Clive Salvidge (mate) joined us and together from those drawings on the McDonald napkin we drew up the cabinet that was to become the Astra machine and started sending the parts to the CNC machinery. Not only that but we built the first one together. We also became involved with Barcrest as they wanted a machine cabinet to house, as I remember, a lottery terminal after they saw that prototype cabinet. Yes they saw it, you see I hawked that dam cabinet to all the majors to see if we could get funding to further the development and buy machinery. No one wanted it, “too expensive”, “never catch on”. So one day JJ took the cabinet away to Consort engineering in Pembrokeshire and the manufacture of it was to be taken on board there. JJ sold the enclosure company, although I would really have liked to buy it,I was ‘taken on’ by the new buyers and I transferred the business, the machinery, customers and know-how to a company in Derbyshire that made Conveyor systems. Ever seen the escalator at the SnowDome in Tamworth? I was involved with the first drawings of that thing. I worked with them for a while until I got the call from Alan P to ask me if I would like to join Astra to develop the cabinet further as the shell design and manufacture was practically ironed out and the interior design and population needed addressing and manufacturing needed to be set up. And so I joined Astra Games, back in gaming, and became the go-between from Penarth, where the design offices were, and Pembrokeshire where the cabinet was being made. We pushed the boundary on a lot of things by putting the machine in that cabinet, and of course introduced the Azkoyen hopper into the design. It was so strange us all being back together, me, Ron, Alan, Jack, Clive and a couple of the software guys who would not be familiar to you. The intention was to build and populate the cabinet in Pembrokeshire. Consort is a brilliant company and was already successful in manufacturing electrical appliances, but the constant back and forth was a problem and we soon realised we needed to be on top of it. We leased a factory in Bridgend and also moved the offices to North Road in Bridgend, I transferred the manufacture there and we started minimal production runs with Consort still supplying the machines, In fact they are still supplying the industry to this day. Astra was built up with many ex employees of JPM but also carefully handpicked new employees and we soon built a new structure much like the old JPM. I eventually celebrated my 40th Birthday with a huge bash to which most of the guys were invited and many others from the JPM days turned up much to my surprise. I guess the rest is history as they say. I eventually moved from manufacturing and design back into Customer Service, we sent stuff all around the world and I ended up travelling to Scandinavia, Africa, Italy in fact all over as the product was new and different and training was often necessary. We developed and installed the first Party time or Community games as they are called now or so I am led to believe. “Good things have to come to an end or you would never know they were good.” Once again I found myself at loggerheads with an intransigent arse who would not listen to reason as his ego was all important, the Sales Director. I had bruised his ego once in JPM when I enabled a sale in Germany and it appeared that it had taken all this time to seek revenge. Too much to go into here but I had a stand up and very heated, red faced argument where it all came out, this in front of a room full of staff and I ended up calling the Sales Director a c**t, well because he was, and it was obvious we could not work together after that. Astra had just started a Casino division, I went straight to the team leader and immediately asked for a transfer and they seemed happy to take me on board. So that was me and Astra finished. Hello Core systems! At Core we designed a new Casino product for a Canadian company VLC. When I say new product I mean the whole thing: the circuit boards, the software, the cabinet design and all to Nevada gaming board regulations which was quite a feat, that I can assure you. The team was led by Jeremy Boswell, ex Aristocrat and a german gaming company (IGT?) but also an ex stock exchange developer and a total knowledge blotter. Whatever he looked into he understood immediately and we ended up working together for 20 years some time later and in a different industry but that’s another story and not for here. I remember helping the techs during prototype build, with SMT, a circuit board and a heat gun for the first time and I ended up blowing all the dam components off the board. My how electronics had progressed. My job was to document everything and transfer those designs to the manufacturing facility in Montanna, Canada, which we did with members of the team going over to make sure the prototypes were to a standard. I used html to create a dynamic library of images and drawings which worked really quite well and was eventually going to be a CD based diagnostic tool, allowing engineers to recognise the faulty part by delving into dynamic images and clicking to circuits, wiring diagrams and part numbers. After around a year we had the thing nailed and then came the bad news. IGT had bought VLC in Canada and as such the new organisation had no need for the product! I had just had my third child (second marriage) and I didnt want to end up once again on the scrap heap so I sent out the feelers and had a quiet meeting with Coinmaster gaming. Despite promises from Core that other markets could be found and the future was perhaps bright I decided to jump ship and so moved into the Casino Industry. Finally Coinmaster Gaming to follow.

Just had a job in with some confusing fault reports. After a fair bit of on line conversing between the user and myself suspicion eventually landed on the the reel deck sensor backplane. The bottom line was incorrect payouts and it was impossible to diagnose remotely whether it was sensor issues or something related. In the end the easiest course of action was to send the reel backplane along with the sensors to see if I could work out what the issue might be. Luckily it transpired that the cd4049 chip had bad gates and this was the case for the second backplane board which was also sent over. Suspicion was also pointed at the sensor blocks themselves and as there are 4 per board with 5 sensors each (plus a lamp in most cases) I needed an easy method to quickly check the operation. I quickly put this together and it made life so easy. I checked them all good in less than 5 mins! VID20230824160710.mp4

I came across this one today with another machine I picked up,, these don’t come around often 😄

Found this on an old email server. Sitdown file SITD1_2.BIN

yeah I know, but it just alerts the little bell thing, not the same as contacting with a pm, I hope he does see it, but if he doesn't reply try pm.