New Life Games Tech Forums

Hi All, anyone know what Mikhon progressive unit this is ??? whould it be a cham 1 ??? It says link 7.22, can it be used or converted to a stand alone and anyone know how to program it with psp. Thanks

(http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r89/transamguy455/Picture333.jpg)

well after many hours of reading, this is a Cham 1 and no it can not be used as a stand alone......from what I have read it pretty much useless for home use unless you get the main control boards.

I can't confirm whether or not that's a CHAM I, but I do know that the CHAM I is driven by a CON1. You might also need an LED1 board, but I'm not sure. Jay is our resident expert. I believe that Joey still has some CON1 units for sale.

You might want to wait for Jay to fill in the details.

While I can't confirm exactly what you'd have to add to it in order to make it work, I can confirm your statement, b5srt, that it cannot be used on its own as a stand-alone controller.

I was just reading Jay's posts in the thread next door (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=15696.msg134290#msg134290) and you connect the CHAM I directly to the CON1.

Thanks for the help.

I saw a CON1 for sale on fleabay the other day for about $75.
That's at least three times less than what I paid for one a couple of years ago.

Anyone know if you can at least flash a message to this board directly without the con1 ?

That you may be able to do.   :89-  Use PSP and choose "CON1" as the connection type.

What shows on the display now when you plug it in?

if dip switch 8 is off it will read EMPTY, if dip switch 8 is on is shows $0.00

I'm not sure what the DIP switch does (do you have documentation?), but I think you should be able to program the thing and get a message instead of EMPTY.

If I remember correctly, the other dip-switches were to perform different display tests such as "all red", "all green" "all yellow", "Diagonal line scan", "Horizontal line scan", etc. etc. to check the display lamps.

If this unit wasn't connected to a Con1, then it wouldn't have any communications to a computer or a machines data outputs.
"Empty" being displayed meant that the flash memory chip basically didn't have any stored information. ( correct me if I'm wrong on this. )
Whether or not if that chip can be located, pulled, and flashed with some sort of display/message -
I don't think anyone has tried without a Con1 connected.

I think all that the Con1 actually did was contain the gizmos to calculate the incoming progressive info/data and how and when the messages were displayed as well as communications to computers for configuration of the display - pretty much the same thing the PSP program/software does with the other progressive displays.

Without me having a Cham1 in front of me to look at - are there any chips on the circuit board that look like that might be CMOS or memory chips that can be pulled easily from their sockets?
I think they were all soldered directly to the boards right?
 

While the one in this thread isn't exactly the same, it looks awfully similar to the one I programmed for a friend (in this thread (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=15136.0)).  Granted, the one I worked on had chips that indicated it was a stand-alone unit (and didn't have a bank of DIP switches), so I can't say that you can program it for certain, but it wouldn't hurt to try, either.

I had the same as what you programmed for your friend but this one I tried to program many diffenent ways and I get nothing, so I have to assume you need a con1 even to progam a message.

Yes, dip switches 1-6 seem to be for test mode only.

Hi,

You need a Con1 to drive this board.

This is a Cham1 also known as a LED5. (LED = Link Extension Device). For large overhead signs there is a slighly different board called a Cham44 or LED4

I have tried a number of things to talk directly to the board via the 9pin and it does not answer.
Since this forums inception I have only ever seen 2 standalone Cham1s but it would be my conjecture that they and the link device both underwent the same manufacturing process so they look the same, both have the 9pin but the chips are different.

The CON1 has a 2 wire output that connects to the 2 pin interface at the end of the board by the LED.
When you program the CON1 with PSP and press F1 for send - the Cham1 says "loading" and then has the programmed message in it.
The led then flashes very fast as the jackpot amount is transmitted to the Cham1 about 9times a second.

Bascially the message stays in the Cham1 and the jackpot value is updated.
Case in point:
I have several signs . I have a Cham1 in each of the slots and then a large 36" wide sign and finally a 10' sign over my bar.
When I program the large sign I have my CON1 only connected to the large sign. As the message, the way it scrolls etc etc is different than how I have the rest of my signs behaving. Once I get the message looking right. I then connect up the CON1 to all of my signs at the same time and they do what they are supposed to do and all show the same jackpot value.

I know Joey (our NLG forum host) had a bunch of the CON1s - his number is on the top of the page and if you give him a call I am sure he wil ship you one for a fair price.

To get back to your question about flashing the board without a con1 - theoretically you could send 1 way serial data via the 2 wire interface.
The command structure for this is not documented. I at one time had access to the Mikon support site and there was no such bit level documentation.

Using an old serial BERT tester I am sure you could decode the sequence between the Con1 and Cham1 and find out what codes need to be sent for message programming and which ones are used to finish the sequence. When I spoke to John Acres (founder of Mikohn) about the displays he indicated that there was huge capacity in these signs that PSP never touches.

 

Thanks for the great info, I think you answered a question I had......Once you program a message you can remove the con1 and it will retain the message on the display, is this correct. Thanks

This is mostly true.

My equipment is aging. If I leave the machines off for more than a week or so, the message on 2 of my little ones and the really big one get screwy.
There is an onboard battery I need to replace.