Jackpot Party wont give any tilt codes

[TVB2868]

Just a little background first. I picked up a nonworking Jackpot Party off Ebay with some help from tollguy316.(Thanks again, Bill) It originally had a low battery alarm displayed. I replaced the battery and the adventure started. After the battery replacement I got the dreaded dot fail message. Sure enough after replacing the upper power supply the dot screen came to life. Next I got a ram match tilt code. Tried to do a soft ram clear-nothing happened. So, I did a hard ram clear and the machine started working. (The red cherry switch on the card cage door worked as it should during the ram clear. This will become important later). Played it for a while and even got to the bonus round. BUT, there is STILL a problem. As you know, after the hard ram clear everything seems to go back to factory presets, which means the sound is pretty loud. So, I go to hit the diagnostic button (red cherry switch) to adjust the volume and nothing happens. Then it occurs to me when I opened the door I didn't get a door open message. Without touching the door switch (pulling it to the outward position) the machine plays like the door is still shut. So now I start checking things that I know have a switch---bill door, bill cassette, and card cage. The only one that stops the machine is the card cage. So what this boils down to is that I can run this machine with no bill cassette, the bill door wide open, and the main door open and can't get into Administration mode to make adjustments. I reseated both boards. All the switches have wires going to them. I actually took the wires off and put them back on just to make sure they were making good contact. It seems like ALL of the switches except the card cage are disabled somehow. Has anyone ran into anything like this before?

Thanks, Terry

[Neonkiss]

Just a little background first. I picked up a nonworking Jackpot Party off Ebay with some help from tollguy316.(Thanks again, Bill) It originally had a low battery alarm displayed. I replaced the battery and the adventure started. After the battery replacement I got the dreaded dot fail message. Sure enough after replacing the upper power supply the dot screen came to life. Next I got a ram match tilt code. Tried to do a soft ram clear-nothing happened. So, I did a hard ram clear and the machine started working. (The red cherry switch on the card cage door worked as it should during the ram clear. This will become important later). Played it for a while and even got to the bonus round. BUT, there is STILL a problem. As you know, after the hard ram clear everything seems to go back to factory presets, which means the sound is pretty loud. So, I go to hit the diagnostic button (red cherry switch) to adjust the volume and nothing happens. Then it occurs to me when I opened the door I didn't get a door open message. Without touching the door switch (pulling it to the outward position) the machine plays like the door is still shut. So now I start checking things that I know have a switch---bill door, bill cassette, and card cage. The only one that stops the machine is the card cage. So what this boils down to is that I can run this machine with no bill cassette, the bill door wide open, and the main door open and can't get into Administration mode to make adjustments. I reseated both boards. All the switches have wires going to them. I actually took the wires off and put them back on just to make sure they were making good contact. It seems like ALL of the switches except the card cage are disabled somehow. Has anyone ran into anything like this before?

Thanks, Terry

Shopped out a machine and sold it to a customer. He said the volume was too loud so I went to change it for him. The keyswitch on the side of the machine had no function so I could not move through the menu.
Had to change out the I/O board to get it to work. All the machine wiring was good, just a bad I/O
I traced the wires through the backplane to the I/O board and to a chip on the board. I replaced that chip with a new one, but the board still has the same issue. I just threw it on the stack of boards for repair and moved on.

[tollguy316]

Hey Neon... I was helping Terry with his Jackpot Party project and never ran into this issue ; so he  came to the conclusion that posting the problem would be best... Thanks for your input.   Bill

[Styx]

I once had all doors as open. We disconnected and re connected each switch one at a time until we saw all relevent doors close when we disconnected the problem switch. I guess it was some sort of short in the optics of the main door (that happened to be what we had disconnected for the doors to register as closed). Once we re-connected the optics, the issue cleared up.

I've also had machines not registering open doors, or the game menus, or even just the reset key not working, or parts of the diagnostics not working that have needed to be power cycled, or ram cleared. Not much help I know.

-Styx

[Neonkiss]

Bill, Do you know of anyone doing board level repairs on the MPU and I/O's for this platform?

[tollguy316]

Neon; I don't know of anyone... I wish I did though as I've had several bad boards in my day  !!!  Terry's issue is that the game works fine  with NO cash can, bill door OPEN, and the main door OPEN without pulling the door switch to that third position.  None of these are acknowledged with an alarm  as you can just keep playing the game..... He wanted to adjust the volume but isn't able to get to diagnostics ( red cherry button) because the game won't show that the door is open when it isindeed open ..... I'm thinking on of the boards or possibly the backplane board.... Any ideas ????    Bill

[TVB2868]

I just want you guys to know I have a High Speed (non dot) machine I could use to do board swaps for troubleshooting if that's a possibility. I don't know if they are interchangeable or not or maybe just have to swap eproms to the other board???? Just wanted to let you know. Thanks for the help.

[dale]

Start with the IO board, just make sure your jurisdiction jumpers are the same. You can swap this board out without any menu changes or chips.

[tollguy316]

The boards are interchangeable... Do you have a clear/denom chip ?    Also; the jurisdiction might be different between the games, so make a note of that. 

[Neonkiss]

Ya, the way WMS wired the machines is then a switch is open the machine reads it as normal operation.
When the wire is grounded it reads a trouble condition as in a open door. With that said a lack of ground will read as normal play status.

I just made a harness to the lights on the top of my High Speed kit.
Can you please post a picture of your top glass with the wire harness. Mine works but I think the flash pattern is off

[TVB2868]

Dale: If I have to do a jurisdiction change, I would then have to do a ram clear...is that right?

tollguy316: Yes I have a clear chip. If I have to change the cpu(bottom board), do I have to change all the eproms just like doing a game change or can I just leave the High Speed chips in it?

Neonkiss: I am not an electronics guy by any stretch of the imagination! With that being said, before I do all this board swapping, are you telling me that my switches not operating may just be a bad ground somewhere? I'm guessing that since I have multiple switches not working, they share a common ground??? Where should I be looking for this common ground wire to be attached?

As far as your picture goes, no problem. My wife took the camera to Boston and will be home late tomorrow night. I will take a pic and send it to you on Thursday, but, the more I think about it I don't think I can help you. If you are talking about the police lights that were on some of the 16" machines, I don't have that. I have a 9" machine.

[dale]

Jurisdiction change does not require a ram clear, that's why you should try the IO board first. The IO board can cause many unusual problems in these WMS40X. Try this first then post your results, you might get lucky.....

Dale

[Neonkiss]

Yes, change the I/O board only. Not the MPU with the chips.
The I/O board control all the Information Out to the machine reels, lights and buttons.
That is why we suspect a bad I/O board.

[TVB2868]

OK, switched the I/O board, no change. I did notice that while it was booting up, after the "dot init", it cycled through all the Door Access tilts. I had: logic POFF, bill POFF, drop POFF, and door POFF. I wasn't expecting it, but, I think that's all that showed up. I only had the main door and the card cage open, but, got all those tilts. Does that mean it's seeing them as open, but then just clearing them somehow?

 I found the following in the manual:

Door Access Tilts
Door access tilts provide information on the Stacker, Logic Door, Drop Door and Bill Door. An open door or missing stacker produces a tilt. To clear door access tilts, close the open door. Uncleared power-off ("POFF") door access tilts self-clear after seven seconds.

Sure enough it was about that long and the machine was up and running again with the same trouble as before. What do you guys think I should try next?

[Neonkiss]

Good news is the I/O boards appear to be good.

Now for the silly question, Is the wiring on the door switch on the correct leg of the Cherry switch?
Have you tried to pull the door Cherry switch out (door closed) and tried the red diagnostic button to flip through the menus.

[TVB2868]

Yes, went through the whole door switch thing with Bill (tollguy316). It doesn't matter what position it's in, it acts like it's not even there, just like all the other doors except the card cage. My wiring had the two wires on the bottom two terminals of the door switch. Bill had me switch them to the top two terminals.

[dale]

Can you swap out door switches with your other machine, a known good one?

Dale

[tollguy316]

Per what Terry told me.... He is also not getting an alarm when he opens the cash door on the side; so noting alarm related seems to be working ( hence I'd suspect the I/o board, CPU board, or backplane board)... He already tried the I/O board.    Terry; You'll need to switch out the chips on the CPU board to try it.   

[TVB2868]

Okay, tried swapping out the door switch with my other machine. No change-still acts like it's not there. Going to switch out the chips on the CPU and try that. I'll let you guys know as soon as I get done it. Wish me luck!

[TVB2868]

Okay, last night I tried to switch out the CPU boards. I switched all the chips from my high speed board to the jackpot party board and reinstalled. When I booted up the jackpot party, I got a ronn in the credit display and a 1 in the bet display, not a ronn1 in the credit display like it shows in the manual. I tried to do a soft ram clear but that didn't work. So, I tried a hard ram clear, that didn't work either. I even tried unplugging the thing for a while and no surprise, that didn't work either. I really didn't know what to do with the jackpot party because the whole reason I was doing this was to troubleshoot the board, and now I had a tilt code I couldn't clear. I changed all six EPROMs, so I don't know if it was something not matching with the other board, I don't know. So I took the suspect board that I took out of the jackpot party, put all of my high speed chips on it and reinstalled it into my high speed machine. Sure enough, I powered the machine up and the high speed works fine. I get all the tilts I normally would when I open the bill door, front door, cash can, everything's fine. So that tells me the board out of the jackpot party was okay. So I switched all the chips back to their original boards and reinstalled in both machines. Now the jackpot party booted up fine and I'm right back where I was in the beginning, the machine plays fine. It just doesn't recognize any doors being opened. This thing is enough to drive you crazy!!!
So what should I try next?
Neon: Do you have any advice on that grounding problem you thought it might be?

[rickhunter]

Have you tried removing the backplane board looking for something that might be shorting?  Maybe something fell and it is stuck under the backplane?  If you have a spare backplane board, maybe you could switch it to see if that fixes the issue?

[tollguy316]

That's my suggestion as I don't know what else it could be.  I wouldn't think it's a software issue.

[TVB2868]

Removing the backplane board looks pretty involved. Do you have any suggestions on the easiest way to do this?

[Neonkiss]

I'm trying to remember how the ground loop runs. I can't look at a machine right now.
I believe when you look at the wires that run to the switches you will find one (black w/white trace??) that is double. It runs from one switch to the next. If the ground is open, just take one of those spade connectors and touch it to any metal cabinet part. Then see if your switches change.

Sorry I don't have my machine to give you exact details.

[TVB2868]

First off, I just want to apologize for taking so long to get back to my issue. I'm juggling a few personal issues right now and didn't have time to work on the machine.
With that being said, I would like to thank everyone for their help, and let them know that we have achieved some success, and Neon gets the gold star on his forehead. As soon as I grounded the door switch,(used a quarter, didn't have a jumper wire handy), I got the door open message. After a little digging around in the back of the machine I found the bundle of wires that's in the picture. Apparently someone has butchered the wiring harness for the switches. So, I grounded the switch so I could get into the administration mode, adjusted all the settings that I wanted to change, and then ungrounded the switch. As neon stated in his post, one terminal on the switch should have two wires coming off of it and the other one should have just one. As you can see in the picture, I only have a single wire on each terminal. So, if anyone has a wiring harness for the switches they would like to get rid of, I think I would be interested.

Can anybody tell me why someone would want to disable all of the switches by cutting the wiring harness up like that?