New Life Games Tech Forums

Hi everyone,
I have three cpu boards for an upright s-2000 machine, that when I removed the green battery, they all go to a reel tilt and closure M after playing them for 5-100 spins. Before I removed the green battery the boards worked great. One of the boards was put into a known good machine and it worked fine.
I have two other boards, one has the battery removed and works fine and the other board still has the battery on it and works fine. The machine plays good. I replaced the power supply with a known good one and that did not help. I am at the point of not knowing what to do after changing all the chips around with no luck. I wish I had a new green battery to put on and see if that ends my problem. I think that all the board are 502 ones.
I would like to talk to someone who might be able to talk me through any problems I am having, or any ideas from you great guys on this sight.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

As long as the boards are 501, 502 and 504 removing the green battery is recommended.
IF you have the Enhanced (1270) MPU do not even think about it. It does not even boot up.

I had the same problem after doing the same thing to a 502 board.

Once I installed a jumper between the 2 positive solder points problem went away.
The Positive (+) terminal was soldered at 2 points.
Install a jumper between the two positive solder points.
DO NOT do anything with the negative side.

I think only some of the 50X boards have this problem when the battery is removed.

I tried this on one of the boards from a post that you wrote before and it did not help. Tonight the only board that would work in my machine was the board that came with the machine. Last night I was playing a triple dollar mystery reel game and it worked fine, today I took the board out to look at the green battery and to see if there was a part number on it, put the board back in and it will not boot up, just all the lights are on and blinking, this board did this before and I got it working for awhile and now it is back to doing this again. I just think that it something else as it works 100% with the board that came with it and did work 100% with the other board until I took the battery off. I cannot believe that I had four boards do this.
Thanks very much for your quick answer.

When you swap MPU's the CMOS RAM (backed up by the small battery in the corner) will not match the serial EEPROM on the motherboard
This causes the machine to tilt or error and you have to use the Jackpot key and attendant switch to clear the error (like you do when doing a game change)
IT may make you do it for each error.
If I am changing boards I try to use the same game, version and base chips that way the only error I have to deal with is the MPU being swapped.
Yes each MPU has unique ID
Also when you swap chips make sure you are getting them in the socket the right way and are not accidentally swapping the the 2 game chips
GME1 is closest to the front where the LED's are located and GME2 is towards the center.

All notches on the chips go towards the front, where the LED's and attendant switch are located
That is one thing if you do get them backwards in a S2000 board you do not normally kill the chips.
Also be sure you did not bend any pins, etc.

Thanks Foster,
I tried everything you said except I do not have enought chips to keep all boards with the same chips and two of the games have the base chip 1000 with S+ chip in them. I guess what I am having trouble with is that when I bought the boards on trays, right out of the box I put them in the machine and they worked perfect. Removed the green battery and they will boot up to the game and I can play 100 or more credits and then it tilts, but before I removed the green battery I could play the game all night without any problem.
I guess I am having trouble getting my mind around this, but thanks for all the help.

When I do a game change I only change the Base Chip and if needed add the SS (S+ Reel Chip) to the MPU.
3-4 turns of the JP key and attendant switch and the game is up and ready to play.
I am using a 1270 MPU for now. 

That way I do not have to reconfigure just about everything, just fix the sound settings (the only thing that goes back to default setting on me.
IF I ever did have to clear chip a machine, I have to go through every key chip menu, except 7.3.2

I think my record for a game change was less than 10 minutes.
That includes glass, reel strips and base chip.

I have removed about 75 of these green battery's and have never had to add a jumper to the + posts, guess I've been lucky. I did get some machines that someone else had removed the battery and butchered the traces around the pos side of the battery and all I could get was a door error. Replaced the MPUs and everything was OK. I think it was about 10 of them.

I posted this before, this same litter of machines ( 50 of them ) about 10 of them would get a lot of reel tilts. I mean a reel would tilt, reset it and tilt again on the same spin. Sometimes 6 or 8 times before it would complete one spin.  All of these troublesome machines had SG000155 game chips, changed them to SG000363 and fixed the problem.

This thread got me to thinking. Did the removal of the green battery have something to do with the SG000155 acting up ?? I'm quite sure a casino wouldn't put up with the amount of reel tilts I was getting and the only two things that were changed was their home and the battery removal.

I think Buzz is on the right track. I strongly suspect that the traces on the MPU board were damaged when you removed the batteries, novao65. I had the exact same thing happen to one of my boards after I removed the battery because it had already been leaking, and me forcefully removing the battery damaged the traces further.

The traces on the board that happen to run right under that battery are for the door optics. As such, if they get damaged, you can unfortunately get random door open and closure messages. If the machine thinks that the door opened while a game was in progress, you'll get a general reel tilt.

The lesson to be learned here is to be sure to always use a good pair of side cutters to snip off the batteries, rather than just yanking them off the board.

When I removed the battery and had not installed a jumper with the 363 games in a 502A board, it would reel tilt like you are describing Buzz.
I may have applied IGT's Audio fix to the board long before I did the battery removal, so that may be a factor as well.
I quickly looked at battery area and tested to see if the 2 solder points was connected via another trace, nope.
Since I had just clipped the battery terminals to remove the battery, I installed a test jumper
Tested machine with jumper installed no real tilts in over 100 spins,
Removed jumper, reel tilts started right away.
I soldered in a jumper to make sure it would work.

 
Taking 2 minutes or less to put the jumper wont cause any damage or problems, and may prevent strange problems.

Thanks for all the help, will put a jumper in one of the boards and see what happens, will let you know what happens. Thanks again for the help

Hi
I put a jumper on one of the boards and it did not help, had reel tilt within 5 spins. I guess I just have a bunch of bad boards. If anyone has a good board that they will sell reasonable or two of them let me know. I have one good board and will not pull the chips out of that one. If I had a known good board I could try my chips and see if I might have a bad one, but since you said that the door optics run under that battery and reel tilts can be caused by bad door optics or out of line, but since my good board plays good I feel that the door optics are ok. Any help would be greatly appriciated and also that all of you for trying to help.

Hang on just a little bit, unless you have a pocket full of money you want to spend.  Take a look and what SG ( game ) chips you have installed on each board and let us know. I'm going to take a wild ass guess that the good board you have has a set of SG chips with a number of SG000362 or higher, and the bad boards have a low numbered set of chips.   

Ok here is the list:
                                              5 Star                    Sizzling 7's                      Triple Dollar                    Triple Lucky

Version:                               VS009SXO              VS009VXO                      VS009VX0                        VS011NX5(I know this is a multi-denom chip but it is all I have)
Stepper:                              SG000363               SG000363                      SG000598                        SG000363             
Stepper Base:                      SB100271               SB001000                       SB001000                        SB100009
S+ Chip:                                                             SS7409                           SS8189

The Sizzling 7's one worked perfect until yesterday until I took the battery off and it started reel tilt and that is the one I put the jumper on today that did not work. I do not have money to throw away but would like to have a known good board to try the chips in, I have tried all different combo's of the chips above and the all do the same thing.
Thanks for all the help

Do an I/O test on the door optics with each machine, using the MPU that goes in the machine.
it is under Processor input tests. (not door or cabinet) you will get a alternating 0 and 1 when door is closed and the latch is down all the way. and a 0 when open.
Are your doors hard to latch? any misalignment can make the optics not line up all the way which can cause reel tilts if reels are spinning.

Also open belly door and look at the wiring near the light ballast you should see a 2 pin  white molex with a jumper wire installed or have a switch in that area that closes when belly door is closed.
The only other thing I can suggest: Is to basically disconnect and reconnect every connector involving the reels, back lit controller if you have them installed, cabinet I/O and motherboard, and power supply.
In other words every connector gets unplugged and plugged back in one at a time. that way you do not plug one into the wrong connector.
try to clear any tilts before starting on any machine. In other words once the reel tilt clears and machine is ready to play, turn off and start messing with the connectors, also just take quick look and make sure none have backed out of the connector housing. 

Thanks Buzz and Foster for the time you are putting in on this, but I think there is a misunderstanding. I only have one machine and put these four kits in. The 5 star kit works fine the others not. I will test the optics on Fri or Sat., but I do not understand why the one board works and the rest do not, and two of the other boards worked fine until I took the battery off. Do the different boards take different signals from the door optics.
Thanks again for all the help.

Just out of curiosity, what did you use to remove the batteries? And was there any leakage from them before you removed them?

since the one board works with whatever GME chips are on it.
I would just change the base chip when you do a game change.
It is a whole easier than swapping the whole MPU.
Take some pictures of the questionable boards, specifically the area of the removed battery (both sides.)
It would not hurt to remove the questionable MPU's from the trays and get out a bright light and look for foreign objects that do not belong there.

ARE the battery's destroyed or can they be reinstalled. just a thought ?

Batteries are destroyed. I removed them by using an razor knife and breaking the battery away from the connector and then breaking off what was left. One battery I unsolder ed.
Thanks for all the help, got to get to bed now. 

Hi Guys,
I finally got some pictures of the board as you asked, here they are: I am not real good with the camera. Foster could you explain to me about the io test as I get a 0 and then what am I supposed to do. Please explain to me again, I would really appreciate it.
I have another question not related to this: Do you need to run all 18 bulbs in the back light reels or can you just run six if you are using a single line game. If this is the wrong place to ask this please set me straight.
Thanks

I'm supprised you have pictures this good. 

Just a guess but look at the trace to the left and down from the + mark. looks like a damaged trace in this picture. Any place you see the Green missing is worth another look. If you have a multimeter take a reading on each side of a suspected area. ( trace )

If you have a one line game 6 light bulbs are fine.

Processor input tests, Main Door 4.1.3
You will have to press the cash out button one time  to change it to main door

Door open you should see 0
Door Closed alternates between a 0 and 1, it is about a cycle a second (1 Hz) in other words slow enough you can see it change.

Thanks Foster,
I got it this time and it goes between o and 1 so I guess the door optics are ok.
Thanks for your help

Didn't we already know the optics are good, doesn't one of the boards work ??   :103- :103-   OK now your going to have to do this IO test on the other three boards.

It bothers me that you can play 50 games and then get a reel tilt / door open error.  Maybe your door is kind of sloppy and the optics aren't quite in adjustment.  I don't know the proper way to adjust the optics. I use a Sharpie and put a black line on the door in alignment with the door optic, do the same thing with the cabinet optic, close the door and see if the two black lines line up. WD 40 will remove any ink marks.

Just wanted to add my 2c worth. I have also had this problem in the past with 4 - 502 boards. :37- The machines worked fine until I had removed the green batteries. The boards had no damage from acid. When the battery was removed the machine would play one maybe two times then one or more of the reel would spin slow and go into a reel tilt, I opened the door turned the reset, most of the time the game would finish the play. But on the next play would go into the reel tilt again. replaced the batteries machines work fine. Don't know why this happened only with these 4 boards. So the only solution I can see so far when this happens is to buy new green batteries solder them in and they should be good and not leak for years. The original batteries  are usually 8 or more years old and some still are not leaking. Also the batteries that I had removed were dead or all most dead, but if I solder them back in the machine works. I did try the jumper, didn't work except on one board it did. :103- Why would it work even if the battery is dead? Figure that one out. Ed 

There are 502A and 502B boards, and there are a couple of Technicial rework bulletins from IGT for tthe 502 boards.

Now that I think about it I did the rework on my 502A then removed the battery.
Thats when I noticed the reel tilts on the 502A, put  the jumper in no more reel tilts.

I have reached my limit for now, I tried the sizzlin 7 board today and it reel tilted on the third spin, I then checked the door optics and they were fine, so I have to set it aside for a while before I go nuts, If someone has some of the green batteries for sale I would try to solder them in and see if that would help. I tried to check all the connections that foster said and the only thing that I have done to the machine is run a jumper wire on the counter connection to stop all that ticking.
Anymore item that you think I can try let me know.
Thanks for all the help

I know it has been a long time, but I found a green battery and installed it on one of the boards that reel tilts and it now works fine. played it all night yesterday and not one problem. I guess they must need the green battery on them, cannot afford to buy new batteries for 25 dollars a pop so I have 5 boards that work so will leave the batteries on the boards. If anyone can give me an answer why some boards will work without them let me know.
I have been working on the boards a lot since I first posted this I am slow and could only get out into my workshop  in the last few weeks.
Thanks for everyone's help.

If they are The Enhanced MPU you can't remove the green battery at all
I removed only the negative terminal and it would not even boot. Re-soldered positive back in and all was fine.

On the 50x boards you can remove the green battery.
This is what I found out about the 50x series it helps to solder a jumper to reconnect the 2 solder pads on the board for the negative battery terminals
That should solve the reel tilts on the 50x boards. I am one that discovered the issue and many argued that soldering the jumper was not needed.
Mine started the reel tilt issue within minutes of the battery removal and stopped as soon I rigged a jumper in place to test my theory about the 2 points not being connected after the battery was removed.

Easy way to ID the 2 different styles of boards
the Enhanced MPU you cant see the green battery because it is under a legacy board (sockets for the game chips)or what is known as R board (flash type), the CMOS battery can be easily changed and located near the handle for the mpu tray and you will see a gold alloy trace around the board.
the 50x series board the game chips are located in sockets on the board, and near to the i960 chip with the cmos battery in the corner

Edited to correct terminal designation for future readers.

Thanks for the info Foster but I do not understand the jumper as the negative has on connection and the positive has two so if you could show me a picture of the jumper that you use  it would be helpful. The board is a 502 and I had a jumper between the two negative connections and that did not work. I now have a spare board that works if I need to trouble shoot a problem and I have two boards (502) without the battery that reel tilts, so I guess I will use them for parts if I ever need them. I do not know if this is important to this problem but my candle bottom light will not go out, I plan to replace the back plane but do not know how hard that will be, are the any instruction anywhere that tell how to do this and do you think this could be part of the above problem, the rest of the machine works great.
Thanks for all you time and help.

Oops I meant install the jumper on the positive solder pads.
I was posting from memory

And since you broght that up I also think I undid the negative to test if removing the battery on the Enhanced MPU was possible instead of the positive unless they totally changed the battery design.

This is my final cure for the removal of the green battery. Since I had four boards that quit working after I took the green battery off as I posted above I had a game that the green battery was starting to leak so I replaced it with this Empire Battery for a GTE3000 Portable phone. IT is 3.6 volts,80 ma and works fine. I double sided taped it to the board. I have played the machine about 40 hours so far and everything is working fine and I do not have to worry about leakage.
 Since this battery is 8 dollars and not 25 dollars it suits my budget much better. I think this is a cheap fix if needed. What do you think.