New Life Games Tech Forums

Hi NLG Community,

I recently picked up a non-working Bally E-2224-21 on Craigslist, and I am trying to get it going for our gameroom.  It is looking to be more of a project than I anticipated.  It had been sitting in a storage locker for some time, so the reels needed a full cleaning to get rid of the old grease.  It is showing an error code on startup, and does not respond to the test or reset buttons.  The error is shown in the pictures below.  Although sometimes it shows a 4 in the first digit, and a zero in the last digit.  I have checked the fuse holder, and tested all of the fuses with a meter.  The voltages show 4.8, 7.3 and 10.4 at the test points.  I have pulled all of the ICs on the MPU, and the cables, and reseated them.  I pulled the I/O board and tried it in our E1000 machine, and it worked fine.  I have gone through the cabinet and checked all of the wire connections.  No sign of corroded wires, or loose connections.  The battery shows 4V, and there does not appear to be any corrosion.

The cabinet and the reels show E-2224-21, however the boards appear to be pulled from several other machines based on the stickers.  I don't know if this matters??

Any suggestions on what I should try next?

Thanks.
Vincent

More pics.

More pics

I have a very similar machine, E2224-30, with no P2 on the CPU board, and has 89% payout percentage. The machine looks to be virtually identical, same setup as yours.

(http://www.ramegoom.com/john/E2000/e2224-30-2-1200.jpg)

The CPU uses identical game chips as well:

(http://www.ramegoom.com/john/E2000/e2224-30-1600cpu.jpg)

If there is any way I can help, let me know. I believe you can use the same program as I have for the P1 chip, and remove the P2 chip.

Vincent/VinceK, I must say, that is, indeed, the most extensive and thourough homework I have EVER seen on this site by a new member! Hats off to you, as you have a done an excellent job of identifying and troubleshooting each component. Wow, if every new person would do this, we would never have any new members! (We are grateful for every new member, dont get me wrong. Homework done or not, we will gladly take you in.)

Glad you are here. I'm sure someone can get you going (wish I could, but E2000 knowledge is limited).

Again, excellent job on the homework and troubleshooting! Karma plus to you!!!! )it's a weird thing we do, like kudos, kind of. It's above your user name in the posts, over there to the left!)

Can you post a pic of the I/O board?

Thanks all for the responses.

tkrozleski:  below is a pic of the I/O board.

CVslots:  Thanks.  All of the steps that I have taken so far were learned from this site.  I would not even be attempting to fix a non-working machine without this NLG forum.

ramegoom:  Thanks for pics.  That machine is really clean, and has almost identical payouts (the only difference is the third line 777).  I would love to be able to test components/boards in your machine one by one to isolate my problem.  I tried powering up the machine without the P2, but got the same error.  After I get it working I will need to look into getting another P1 with a higher payout percentage.

I also tried swapping out some known good 5101 memory chips on the MPU, but still got the same error.

Have you gotten the manual?
Have you tried to reset it with the 2 buttons
on the hopper?
You are putting the reels in when checking the codes!
All parts must be installed when testing.

Yes, I have the manual.  However, what I am seeing in the display does not appear to be addressed in the manual.

Yes, I tried both buttons, but the error codes remained.  Although, I do get a click from the hopper when I press the reset button. 

And, when checking the codes, I have been doing them with and without the reels.  I have been getting the same error codes either way.  Is it possible to mess something up by powering up without the reels installed?

Just by looking at the garbage on the display I would think that you have a problem on the MPU board.

I once had an E1000 board with a similar display and it turned out that the IC socket for U29 was bad.
On an E2000 board this would be IC U19. It is also possible that one of the bipolar proms are bad
since these are primarily address decoders. Even more probable is bad connections on the IC's that
generate the most heat. Those IC's would be u8, u17,u19 (bipolar proms) and u5, u6 (8T28)

I have had a surprising number of defective bipolar proms that were bad. I fixed a batch of MPU boards
5 E1000 and 5 E2000 and had a total of 5 bipolar proms that were found to be bad. The problems
were not exclusively the chips, most also had bad connections with those on U29 being the most
common for the 5 E2000 boards that I fixed.

One more common  problem is the 4 Mhz crystal, I replaced 4 out of 10 crystals

Thanks dhellis,  I will check the sockets on the MPU.  Is there any way to check the ICs with a multimeter, or does it take a special reader?

You really can not do a good job of testing IC's with a multimeter though you can check the inputs and outputs to see
if there is a short. Shorted IC's are rarely a problem, in most cases there is a fault in the chip that prevents the output
from going high to low and vice versa. There are a few Chinese eprom programmers, as well as others, that not only
program eproms but will also test a wide variety of IC chips. The test is not equivalent to what the manufacture does
since they measure current outputs in and out and will measure how quickly a gate will transition from high to low. These
cheap testers will however perform functional tests. The do not test complex IC's such as the MC14020 which is a rather
critical component for the watchdog circuit on the E2000 board (not that they fail that much)

dhellis, you are the man!!! I checked all of the sockets, and there was one pin on U15 that was not making a connection in the socket.  Now it looks good.

Thanks everyone for all your responses.

Really glad that you got it fixed. I always suggest checking the high heat components for bad connections, obviously I failed to
mention U15, it is the biggest chip of them all. Thanks for posting an update.

Dan.. Your the man.. I just picked up another E1000 MPU to ad to the box I'm getting ready to ship your way for testing and repairs. K+ for your help and hard work..

Gary

Thanks Gary....