New Life Games Tech Forums

Hi,
Just bought my 1st Williams Machine. Model 400 built Aug 30th 1996. It has the game called Heat Wave on it. Is this a good game?

Thank you,
Joe

"Good" is kinda relative....play it and see if you like it!  :89- Widely popular, no, but that doesn't mean much. Let us know what you think of the game!

Hi,

Game plays fine but I do not get sound when I hit on one of the bigger pay outs? Checked the setting and I cannot find where the problem may be.  Help please

Joe

Hi,
I have a 400 machine that has the game Heat Wave installed. I do not get any different sounds (songs) when I hit some of the higher payouts. I checked in the manual and all the settings and cannot find where this might be turned off at.

Thank you,
Joe

You don't have to post the same question twice.  Does the game have spin sounds and the ding per credit as it counts up when you hit a winning combination?  To the best of my knowledge, there is no sounds for jackpots setting, you can only control the volume setting.  There is a possibility that you could have corrupt sound eproms.

Sorry about the question twice. Wanted to make sure someone saw it. Yes I do get all the other sounds. Was looking at the board and I may be missing a sound chip? There are 5 chips on the board but the manual shows there should be 6? I do not know if this is game specific or if there is really a chip missing.

Thank you,
Joe

Some games have 3 sound eproms, others have 4. Those plus the game chip and data chip make for either 5 or 6 eproms depending on the game. If you had a missing sound chip it should be detected on startup and give an error.

I believe there are 3 sound settings in the menu, SND 3 controls the jackpot sound level. Download this manual from the library (if you don't have it already), I think it will cover your model:

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=943 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=943)

Look near pdf page 16 (the actual page in the manual is Section 1, Chapter 2, page 4). Not sure but I think you may have to have zero credits on the machine to change some of the settings. On some WMS 40X games you can only set SND 1 volume, then SND 2 and SND 3 are automatically set. On other games you can set each one separately.

Is this the one from the Milwaukee craigslist? Can you post a picture of your machine here, I've never seen a Heat Wave. Thanks!

I just looked at my eprom sets, and I have the heat wave set, it only uses 5 eproms.

I think the JP Stampede and Stampede Deluxe also only have 5 eproms (3 sound, 2 for game).

I can't find any photos of a Heat Wave machine. Was this a WMS 3 reel model?  Google search showed one recently listed on craigslist but it has been deleted already, was hoping to see a photo there.

Hi,
Yes this is the machine that was on Craigslist in Milwaukee. I have attached a picture. I am going to change the game the Jackpot Stampede. I hear that is a fun game. If anyone is interested I am going to sell the Heat Wave Game as a kit. Chips, glass and reel strip. I already have an extra game that came with it called American 7's. So with the Jackpot Stampede I will have two so don't need 3 games.

Thank you,
Joe

Thanks for putting up the picture Joe, it looks to be in pretty good condition from what I can tell from the picture. I have played Jackpot Stampede and it is a fun game with good sound effects, plus the reels chatter/jiggle during the bonus (due to the mighty herd of stampeding cows shaking the ground). WMS made an upgrade to the Stampede game in their Dotmation model line, called it Stampede Deluxe.

I haven't played Heat Wave, don't know much about it. In addition to where ever else you list your game parts for sale you might also list them here in the Classifieds section in case someone is interested. There are a lot of hobbyists & collectors that visit this website. Also, I would play all 3 games for awhile to see which is the most fun to you before selling one of them.

Don't some themes use a mechanical bell I stead of electronic sounds for jackpots over a set amount? If this is the case, as it is with my bally Monte Carlo, then you may have a problem with your mechanical bell. Might just be unplugged because it was irritating also. Wish my ex had a plug to pull out :30-

A bell is possible but the WMS 40X manual doesn't show one in the parts breakdown. But that could be an oversight in the manual. A good visual inspection as you suggest might find out some things.

[I can't comment on what should be plugged in or pulled out of an ex-spouse]
 

I can, bit as good as that was it couldn't overcome the irritating part, lol

For testing all of the sounds a good way to check is to go into the Diagnostic Menus and there you can actually play every sound/tune the machine will make. Instructions are in the manual beginning on page 2-14. Basically you get into the Diagnostic Output Tests, Series 2, Sequence 2 (a number "1" will appear in the credit meter display, blank in the Win Meter display). You can then turn the reset key to display a number that represents each sound in the chart shown in the manual that you want to hear, press the SPIN REELS button to have the sound/tune played, then turn the reset key for the next sound/tune and press the SPIN REELS button to hear it. This way you can check all of the sounds that the game software is capable of, as well as hear what each one of them sounds like. The Sound Tests table shown on page 2-14 shows 19 sound/tune assignments for events that can occur, such as coin accepted, small jackpot, large jackpot, etc. Some of the sounds/tunes are used more than once and they will vary with each game.

Another part of the Diagnostic Menu allows you to set the volume level of the 3 categories of sounds. All of the sounds/tunes are separated into one of these sound categories. SND3 is the category for the large jackpot sounds, you can make sure it isn't set so low you can't hear it. Many people set it to somewhere around 003 to 007 for home use. It can go much higher so it can be heard above the ambient casino noise. SND1 and SND2 can also be set this way. Some game software will only allow you to set SND1 volume, then SND2 and SND3 are set automatically. The machine will tell you this by displaying "AUTO" for the volume setting and you can't change it, can only be indirectly controlled by changing the SND1 setting.

Try going into the Diagnostic Menu System, use the manual to follow along and you will see how this works.

Joe-

Here's a good place to get up to speed on the history of your machine model (WMS 400) and many of its game variations, although the specific game Heat Wave and some others are not mentioned. The guy that put this together is a very experienced hobbyist on this website, he has a particular liking for the "Dotmation" model (WMS 40S5) games so didn't list all the various WMS 400 game models. Basically Williams came out with the 3 reel slots called model 400 such as yours and later improved it with a dot matrix animation bonus feature, as well as improved sound effects. These were the model WMS 40S5. There were also some slant top models of some of these games.

http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/wmsslot.htm (http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/wmsslot.htm)

Hi,
Thank you for all the information. All the regular sounds work and I found the bonus sound does work. Was playing it last night and hit the jackpot. Machine started playing the music and did what it is suppose to do. I had expected it to play music for some of the other larger hits but I guess it does not. Be nice to find a spec on what all the games are suppose to do so you would know if there was a problem or not.

Joe

That spec for all the sounds the game is supposed to do is what that Diagnostic Output test does, mentioned in the message post #14 above. It will let you step thru each game event that has a sound and play the sound.