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I'm having an issue with an S+ here.  It's a Darts theme with the Haywire feature and 3CM.

For the first hour I tested it, everything was fine and payouts were correct.  After about an hour of playing it, I saw the center reel misstep and the machine did not correct for the misstep.  After that the reel was obviously in the wrong position and payouts did not match what the reels were showing.  I opened the door a few times, moved the reels so they would reset when closing the door.  They would appear to home correctly.  But after that point I noticed on at least 2 wheels that the reels would consistently Nudge in the wrong direction when stopping.  i.e. the dart is adjacent to the payline pointing towards the payline, but they would nudge the opposite direction.

The reels feel stiff, so it doesn't seem like weak steppers.  There is nothing rubbing against the reels.  When doing a normal spin they move the correct direction, only when nudging do they go the wrong direction, and that didn't happen until after a wheel misstepped after an hour of play.

There were never any errors that came up.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.
Scott

A "darts" game...hmm... :315-  ... "Bulls-Eye"?
If not, maybe a TYPE 23 SP chip?

If you can tell me, what is the checksum of your SP chip?
If you can't then read this link and post the SS and SP numbers of the chips installed...>>>

http://www.newlifegames.net/spset/SPSS.htm (http://www.newlifegames.net/spset/SPSS.htm)

Yes, Bulls-Eye.  I had a brain fart and couldn't remember the title when I was posting it.

I just pulled the board and there are NO stickers on the Game or Reel EPROMS to know what they are :(

Like I said it played fine for about an hour or so before it started nudging in the wrong direction....

I would do the payout test ,  test #5 in the coins paid window,  press the spin button, every combo should come up on the reels starting with the jackpot and going down. you can also check the payout , it will display the first and last coin payout for each combo.

this will check if you have the right reel strips, and if they are in the right position.

Hope this helps.

Jim

Good tip!  Thanks Jim

Also are you sure the strips are on the right reels? The bullseye symbol should be on reel#3. It might have just looked like things were paying out ok because it had not hit the right combinations yet.

#1: 858 140 00
#2: 858 142 00
#3: 858 169 00


Other things to check.
Are the strip notches lined up with the reel 'detent'?
Are the reels for the proper machine (i.e. upright in an upright and slant top in a slant top)? The reels are different and won't pay out correctly if the wrong ones are used.

So digging into it a bit more.   The reel strips are the correct ones in the correct order and on the reels aligned properly.

The exact issue I'm seeing on all 3 wheels is that it ALWAYS nudges down even when it should nudge up.  They payout matches what it should have been IF it would have nudged in the right direction.  It never nudges up at all.  So guessing this is a PCB issue with whatever chip controls the stepper driver I'm guessing.

Anyone seen this before?

I haven't seen that before. Do you have a spare MPU board to swap in to narrow down the cause of the problem?

Yeah was thinking about doing that.  I've got an S+ of my own here.  Since the one I'm troubleshooting doesn't have a DBV and mine does that means the sheetmetal isn't compatible and I have to swap the bare PCB between metalwork.  At least I have the ability to swap it though.

Am curious if anyone else has seen this happen before??  Given it was reported as being intermittant and indeed it wasn't doing this for the first hour I was playing it last night and then it started doing it on all 3 wheels I think that rules out motors and wiring and pretty much just leaves the PCB.

Looking at the schematics it looks like it would pretty much HAVE to be U23....

Have you gone to the link above
http://www.newlifegames.net/spset/SPSS.htm (http://www.newlifegames.net/spset/SPSS.htm)
and gotten the SS and SP numbers?

Are you absolutely sure it nudged the other way before? Spin Till you Win reel chip is very similar to Bullseye except it only nudges one way.

As I said back in post #2, the stickers are missing on both the EEPROMS, so there is no way for me to know what the SS and SP numbers are for the ROM that are in there.  I am certain the wheels were nudging correctly before.  The folks that had the slot before me said it worked fine for about 6 months before starting this behavior.  I played for over an hour watching each spin closely and the payouts to verify correctness.  I did see the wheels nudging correctly in both directions during that time.  It was very apparent when they only starting nudging in a single direction after more than an hour later.

I simply refuse to believe that statement and now we KNOW
you did not go to the link I gave you in Reply #1    !!!  :30-   :72-
Here's a way for you to "know" what chips you have...>>>


Open the door, turn on the power and push the little white button
on the MPU tray about 9 or 10 times until you see the number "4" in the "Coins Played" window.

Report back the numbers that you see alternating in the "Winner Paid" and "Credits" windows.
Those are the numbers of your SS and SP chips that are installed on the MPU board.

OK.  Winner Paid is 4163 and 5

Credits is 0731

Ok, so you have the right chips.

Next, with power off, I would pull the MPU and check for bent pins on the bottom. Also check that all of cables are seated well that are connected to the motherboard aand by the top of the MPU.

Agreed, the chip number matches the bible entry (here (http://newlifegames.net/igtbible/IGT%203CM/Game%20Library%20-%20S-Plus%20-%20Bulls-Eye%20(3%20Coin%20Multiplier).htm)).

Since you have a spare MPU board, I think now is the time to swap out the questionable board (label it somehow so you know which board is the potential problem child), put in the replacement board from your other machine, and see if the issue appears again.  I'm guessing there's something eventually heating up and flaking out on the MPU board that is currently in there.

Yeah, I'm gonna do an MPU swap tonight.  Since all 3 wheels behave the same, it is very very unlikely it could be either a wiring/connector issue.  Even bent pins on the EEPROM would be unlikely to manifest such a narrow issue as this.

My own guess is that it is going to be U23 which is the decoder that drives the CW/CCW pin on the stepper driver chips.

This is the award glasses of the 95% game in question...>>>

You would be surprised at the odd behavior one bad connection can have.

When you swap MPUs you will have a few errors to clear. If it works, I would still try the original MPU again. That is not a problem that is common. At least not one I've seen or heard of.

I totally agree.  But I've got a lot of experience designing stepper motor drive systems that are much more complex than these.  There is no connection issue with the steppers and encoders they are using that could affect the direction on all the reels in this way.

At any rate,  I swapped in my own MPU board and everything was fine.  Consistently nudged properly in both directions.  I swapped the suspect MPU board back in and the problem returned immediately.  Looking at the schematics, U23 is the *only* thing I can see that would explain this behavior, unless someone has some other suggestions?

Thanks.
Scott

Looking at an S+ MPU board, what's the difference between U23 and U24?  :129-
You think it could be a locked up logic gate inside the U23 chip?

ADD>>> WOW...!! I have two 10MHz MPU's in my hand....they are totally different!

An S+ MPU marked as "REV.B" has a UCN5810AF 18-pin chip in both U23 and U24 locations.
However, the other S+ MPU marked as "REV.D" has UCN5810AF 18-pin in U23
but has a TLP504A-2 16-pin chip in the U24 location.

Two different beasts altogether!
I hope your schematics match your board revision?
Which MPU revision are you looking at?

Bunker,

The UCN5810AF is a serial input line driver with 10 outputs. Basically serial input that tells which outputs to drive high or low. U23 drives some of the meters and also controls the stepper direction. U24 only uses two outputs one for the bell and one spare. So I would assume on newer revision boards they used the TLP504A-2 because it only has 4 outputs (opto isolated). Does that board have a K7 & K8 (solid state relays)? It may also eliminate the need for those. If the spare was never implemented, all they need to do is drive the bell and would only need one output.

I can verify that only the K8 location on the REV.D MPU board is occupied with a PS1201X7 relay Poppo.
The K7 location exists but there's nothing in it.
However, there are K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, and K6 locations that are all occupied w/the same relay.

You're right about the K7&K8, there are both occupied on the REV.B board.

Man! You guys are excellent with board schematics!  :131-
Good stuff!  :3-

Can these relays also possibly cause the reel [41,42,43] tilts as well?
I tried swapping out resistors on the row of R1 - R5 bank,
 but that didn't always solve the reel tilt problems on my bad boards.

No, they have nothing to do with the reels. They are used to switch higher voltage/current devices like the meters, bell and other devices that use 24v.

K7 is for the bell and K8 was a spare. So I guess they figured it would never be used for anything and left it off.

Oh! Okay...that makes sense.  :71-
I have about 30 bad boards that all have various reel tilts.
They just keep rolling.
Sometimes the problem was resolved by swapping out old coin-in optic boards
or aligning door optics or changing out the R1-R5 resistors.
I suspect that the R1-R5 bank was primarily used for "holding" the reels at "attention" during non-play/idle mode.

U2, U10 & U11 are most likey to cause reel problems as they are the stepper drivers. U1 and U5 are for reels 4 & 5 and can often be used as a spares if you only have 3 reels.

Yes, I forgot to mention those ones.
I've changed out a few of those as well.
Various board revisions have them marked at different locations and to make matters worse -
some have unoccupied sockets!
Most REV. MPU's have just a socket at the U3 location with no "butterfly" chip in it.
I assume the "butterfly" wings on those chips was to act as sort of a heat disperse / heat sink.
Because of all the different revisions of MPU's - it is nearly impossible to track what is what anymore.
There's no way I could obtain that many different schematics to try and decipher what was going on.

So every time I tried to repair a "reel tilt" board, it was trial and error of swapping IC components to see what was causing the tilts.

Yep.


That's only because you keep getting all of those 'made in Mexico' boards.  :72-

Where do you get that from?  Looking at the schematics, it just looks like R1-R5 are biasing resistors for LED's on the Reels.

No disrespect intended, but some of us have been messing around with these machines for years. Many times we find things that cause problems that don't seem to make any sense. And the resistors are for the reel optics. If they are not working, the machine won't detect the reels moving and hence won't know where to stop them.

No offense taken, that's why I was asking the question and why I'm here to begin with.  From my schematics I couldn't tell those were for the optical sensors by how they were labeled.  The schematics I have are a very poor scan quality and quite hard to follow as a result.

Also as already noted, there are different revisions (plus there are known errors on some of the schematics), so a lot of what people post as possible solutions is from trial and error etc.   :79-  In actuallity, we rarely mess with the MPU schematics. Once we go over the basic steps (i.e. what SS & SP chip, check the pins, check the cables) a MPU swap is in store. Since they are so cheap, most people don't even bother trying to fix them unless it's something common like a bad battery or one of the stepper drivers (since there are spares on the board).

 :172-

Yes...I've used the R4 and R5 as spares to repair any one of the R1,R2 or R3 resistors.
You'll notice that those particular three resistors go out of whack and actually burn into the board!

Take a board and hold it up with a bright light behind it.
(Old way of casino backroom troubleshooting... :72- )
You will definitely see which IC components throw out a lot of heat!
It will be brownish color on the circuit board around the suspect component.

I have found that sometimes changing them out with the unused spares, makes the reels "hold" during idle whereas before,
they would throw out reel tilts and start slowly turning.

Poppo's right about trial & error, swapping and changing out stuff.
That was all we were capable of doing...nobody went to tech school for this stuff!
We didn't have money to go to school!
Heck! Some of us never finished high school!  :97-
I was lucky enough to go to Cornell University but I never took up electronics
but could fix a pinball machine or repair an 8-track player!
Figure that out?!?!

What does a replacement S+ MPU board run out of curiosity?   I'm going to first try replacing U23 on mine when I get back in town and see if that solves it, if not depending on price I might just replace it.

I've seen them as low as $15 + shipping. There are some overpriced ones on e-bay right now, so it's best to just put a WTB in the classifieds here. Also be sure that you get the right one. There is a 10Mhz and a 16Mhz version. You have the 10Mhz. You would need at least a different game chip if you got a 16Mhz one. The reel chip would have be 120ns or faster. The main difference is the 16Mhz board has no dip switches and no volume control knob. The volume is set in the self test mode. Of course the board is a little faster, but it can also cause a buzz in the speaker. I prefer the 10Mhz.

If you're out west, Try slots4home for an S+ board.
He has good prices.
If not, the a WTB ad in the "Classifieds" section of NLG would help!  :89-

On the east coast there's a lotta guys that might help you out.
Blueridgeslots, Raz10, Rudy's Deals are good sellers!
Of course there's Samron slots, Ohio gaming and a whole bunch in Ohio too!
I'm not sure who has them in the Midwest though...Brian of rockymountainslots maybe?
Is the state of Ohio midwest?   :103- lololo
There's a whole bunch of good vendors up on top of the homepage here!

Just to follow up here.  I decided to go the route of replacing the board.  Not because I wanted to but because that is the cheapest option.  The UCN5810A in U23 is one of the chips that got caught up in the Allegro mess when they exited the driver business and there are no suitable cross's to substitute and the one place I found that I could buy one from had them priced more than getting an entire new MPU board (with a fresh battery) would cost.

I'm a bit bummed because I really wanted to fix the other PCB as I am pretty certain it is just U23 that needs replacing....oh well :)

blair,
If you PM me an address - I will remove a chip from one of my old ones
and send to you to see if that will work or not?