How to program my new toy?

[wrybread]

I just got what I'm pretty sure is a header from a slot machine. It says "cash club" and has a bunch of LEDs around the logo, and an LED matrix below that which I'm guessing used to display messages.

I opened it up and the LED sign matrix says "960 NETPLEX SPECTRUM", and one of the IC chip itself says "SPECTRUM II 32808400 REV A 0512701", and the other says SPECTRUM SD0102 04/02/01. Ideally I'd love to program this from a PC.

It was all assembled by Tripp Plastics.

There's a flourescent light inside which takes 25v DC according to the sticker.

The wire harnesses are in tact. The Spectrum board has two wire harnesses, one with 5 green wires, which I'm guessing uses serial communication, and the other harness is a black and a red wire, which I'm guessing is the power supply. Does anyone know what input voltage it would take? I'm thinking if I give it the correct voltage it'll still display whatever the last programmed message was.

And the LEDs that surround the "CASH CLUB" logo also have a single pair of wires going to them, guessing those are power lines as well. Anyone have a guess about the voltage?

This is all brand new to me. I'm decent with electronics, and very good with programming computers... Wondering what sort of steps I might take to bring this unit back to life?

Let me know if any more information or a pic would help.

Thanks for any help. I'll keep this thread updated with progress.

[rickhunter]

Netplex is proprietary IGT protocol.  You'll need to attach it to an IGT type machine like Game King, S2000, Igame.  It does not work on older S+

[wrybread]

So there's no way to program it independently of a game? Ideally I'd love to be able to program it from a PC. I saw an expired ebay auction for a Netplex Controller, but it was expired so couldn't look at it.

I went ahead and connected it to 12v DC, it works, powers up and says "no data".

[rickhunter]

I don't believe there's a netplex emulator type software for the PC in the wild.  But I could be wrong, I've never seen one though...

[wrybread]

I found a picture of the slot machine:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/_images/splash/regisslotmachine.jpg

I have just the topper.

And does anyone know if the ring of LEDs around the "cash club" logo is 12v dc? It has just 2 lines going into it, meaning power only, no data. I'm guessing 12v but I want to be sure since I've learned the hard way that LEDs are very fragile to incorrect voltage.

[Brianzz]

I'm pretty sure all of those topper LED's are 12VDC. Watch your polarity tho' the boards fry very quickly.

[tacman]

Yes, 12vdc for the led chaser lights and spectrum display and 24vdc for the fluorescent light. Here's a pic of mine! Great if you have an S2000 or I game, I'm sure a pain if in another platform since you would not be able to use the spectrum easily.

 Dan (tacman)

[knagl]

That is a lot like my "Drew Carey" topper.  It was also for a S-2000 with a Netplex display.

Check out this post in the "Top This" forum for information on how to power it.

I attached mine to an S+ and took out the S-2000 display and replaced it with a ChamII+ meter (scroll to the top of that linked page to see it on the machine).  If you're not putting your topper on a slot machine, you could put any programmable LED display (like you can buy at Sam's Club, eBay, etc.) behind the glass, provided it was the right size, and then have whatever message you wanted on it.  You're not going to be able to do anything with the display that is in there, though, unless you hook it up to an S-2000 or Game King or IGame.

You could probably sell the display in the classifieds section or on eBay and get some money for it (I'd guess in the $40 range, but I'm not an expert on those displays).

[wrybread]

Really nice job on that Drew Carey topper, absolutely beautiful.

Too bad about the Netplex stuff. Oh well.

I looked on ebay and didn't see any auctions for a ChamII+, any tips on getting one? Any idea what they might cost? If it fits, I'd need 3.

And are you programming yours from a PC?

Any other possibilties for a programmable LED sign that's about 16" wide by 2" high that you can think of?

And if anyone might want to buy my Netplex displays, send me a PM.

[jay]

I don't think the ChamII+ can drive the nextplex.
If you are looking for just a moving sign (non slot) You could do a search for LED signs. There are a ton on ebay that you either program from the provided keypad or a PC.

[wrybread]

What I had in mind for the ChamII+ was to replace both the board and the display. Am I on the right track there?

I looked around ebay and saw a zillion programmable LED signs but not anything near 16" x 2" tall that wasn't like $1000.... There's a bunch of cheap car ones branded as "LED Messenger", but as far as I can tell they're only programmable from an IR remote.

[knagl]

What is your application?  Are you putting these on top of slot machines to have progressive meters, or are you just having these as stand-alone displays to put random (so-to-speak) scrolling messages on?

[wrybread]

> what's your application

Correct, these will be stand-alone pieces since I don't have any slot machines.

[knagl]

Do you have an aversion to the message boards that can be programmed with an IR remote?  The ChamII+ is a minor pain to program, and you really don't need 95% of its functionality.  I would think you could find one of those LED boards for less than the cost of a ChamII+.  I know you said you didn't see any on eBay, but I've found some reasonable ones in the past.  I'll look in the next day or so to see what I can find for your application.

[wrybread]

That'd be great, let me know if you find anything interesting.

I'm trying to automate updating the message boards so they could for example display the weather, the time, etc. I thought it'd be neat to try to make a system where people could send a txt msg to a certain number and it shows up on the sign, etc. I'm a big fan of a little $30 stand-alone computer called an Arduino, and it has excellent serial support, so my ultimate goal is to make it so these are updatable from an Arduino, which in turn could be updated via the web, which in turn could be updatable via text msg, etc. 

Once I can program the sign from serial, the rest is relatively easy. But alas, it takes a sign that has the ability to be programmed from a computer.

It's entirely possible I'm overreaching, but why not.

Ages ago I wrote a little program to update ProLite LED signs, which are pretty nice to work with:

http://gizmoware.net/miscellany/ (search for "prolite")

[knagl]

The ChamII+ uses proprietary DOS-based software to update.  It does use a serial cable, although you have to make a special cable (the pin-out is weird).  Also, many of us have found that in order for the new data to "take", you must power down the controller, power it up, wait until right after the boot sequence is complete, then send the data to the controller.  Certainly not something you'd want to do daily (weather updates) on three different signs.

I really think that a stand-alone message sign that your software would support would be a much better option than using a ChamII+.  It's just a matter of finding the right sign in the right size at the right price.   

Are there any Pro-Lite signs that fit the bill, since you already have written software support for them (cool stuff, BTW)?

[wrybread]

Oof about having to power down the sign for the update to take. Maybe could have a relay in there that automatically powers the sign off and on after executing a command. My guess though is that the Dos app isn't properly terminating the commands and the sign is waiting for the carriage return or whatever string it expects.

If there's a dos program to program it, I'm thinking it should be possible to decipher the protocol using a utility like Snoopy. Or if absolute worst came to worst, could remote control the dos app using something like AutoHotKey, though that's obviously an ugly kludge.

Hopefully I'll get my hands on a sign soon to do some testing. Heck, if someone has one lying around that they wouldn't mind loaning out for a week or two, I'll try to reverse engineer the protocol and post my findings and make a little utility to control it with lots of flexibility.


 

[knagl]

Hmm.  From a brief search so far it seems most (at least of the less expensive ones) are controlled by IR remote only.

This one was the right size and would have been good ($82 each when you buy more than one), but it looks like it's IR only.

I'll keep looking, but the size is a problem as I'm starting to see.