CON1 to Cham44 (LED4) display

[jay]

I was doing some bench work and thought I would take a moment to pictoralize the interconnections of a CON1 to a large display.

First is the PC connection.
The (OLD) PC is running Windows 98 and PSP in a DOS window, It is using a serial cable to the CON1.

[jay]

The CON1 interconnects to the Cham44 (also known as a LED4).
LED = Link Extension Device.
The CON1 is capable of connecting to many Cham44s and Cham1s (also known as a LED5).
A Cham1 is a similar unit to the Cham44 but is used to drive smaller 12cell in machine displays.

The interconnection from the CON1 to the Cham44 is a 2 wire serial connection. In this picture I am using 2 alligator clips.
We believe the protocol is a RS422 serial connection.

This is my backup CON1, the one in production in the basement drives 3 of the LED5 displays (one in each slot) + a mikon gateway so I can display the jackpot amount on the screen of the video poker along with a LED4 for a 1x2 overhead display. At my last home I also had a 1x10 setup.

Note there is a serial connection on the Cham44 but it is not used. Any of the documentation we have gives no indication as to why they spent the $1.50 to put it on the board.
The LED5 is a Cham1 and it also has a serial port. We have "heard" about an actual standalone Cham1 that is its own progressive but I have never actually come across one. Perhaps there were standalone Cham44s ?? but again at this juncture it would still be urban legend. These are clearly LINK-only devices.

[jay]

The CHAM44 is sitting on a powersupply (above).
Each power supply is capable of running 4 devices.
In my case this is 2 display panels and the Cham44 (3 devices).

I have used a second power supply to drive another 2 panels.

The panels are simply daisy chained together with ribbon cables.

[jay]

The Cham44 picture  is running code 7.22 and came stock with a 1 x 2 chip (27c256).

1 x 2 reflects 1 panel tall and 2 wide.

I have several Cham44s - some are running 7.15 and 7.21. I have tried interchanging software chips and there must be other supporting logic on the board as the boards do not function when interchanging code. You would think that 7.21 and 7.22 are close enough to be interchangeable but no go.

I have modified the software to support 2 panels high and 2 wide. This is the very first Cham44 that I have ever seen running 2 tall. It appears that this is the maximum height as I have tried modifing the code to make it larger. It appears the first byte which was 00 when changed to 01, 02, 03, 04,05, 06 etc makes it go to the 2 panel high mode.
The second byte reflects the number of panels.

I burnt this onto a 27c512 using an offset of 8000 as I did not have any 27c256 spares.

My intention is turn this into a 2 x 9 or 2 x 10 (18 - 20 panels large).



  ff00:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff10:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff20:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff30:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff40:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff50:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff60:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff70:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff80:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ff90:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ffa0:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ffb0:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
  ffc0:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 01 00 00 01 02 00 ................       ffcd & ffce
  ffd0:  00 03 01 00 00 99 99 99 99 99 00 00 ff ff ff ff ................
  ffe0:  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff a8 eb a8 eb a8 eb ................
  fff0:  a2 86 a5 f4 a8 eb a8 eb a8 e2 a8 eb a8 eb 80 20 ................

Credit goes to Westec1 for finding the FFCE byte, I just hacked around the same area (blowing through chips) changing the 01's to 02's etc. Turned out the 00 just preceding it was the trick to making it double high.

[jay]

Here is the oversized display @ 2 x 2

[StatFreak]

K+ Jay, and thank you for taking the effort to document the setup.

[jay]

This was the 1x10 ... in actual fact there were only 9 panels in use here.

[jay]

This is where the panels came from.....

[jay]

When I moved I took the panels out of the bar header (left the header).

This is the new basement in the new house..... it needs a large sign.
It will find a home on the white header on the left hand side......

[tacman]

Jay what would you need to do to be able to use animations on the display? Use a different controller?

 Dan (tacman)

[Ron (r273)]

Hay Jay, I see your bench is your wife's dining room table again. You better be careful when you solder .

Your work is great and glad you documented it. And your new basement casino looks even greater!
Let see some more pics of it.

I want to thank you for all your help in getting my little Cham1 going.

And what would it take for animations?

Ron

[jay]

I don't believe the CON1 is capable of animations and I do not believe that the LED4/LED5 units can link to a CON2.

What I do find interesting is that there are two dials on the Cham44 (LED4) board and when you use these to put it into test mode
You get a series of triangles and other shapes that are not sequenceable from PSP.

ASCII has an extended character set and you can access it even in DOS.
IE Hold down the ALT key and type 65 on the number pad and you get a Capital A, 97 is a lower case 'a'
169, 170 gives some funky block graphics, 171 gives a 1/2 symbol etc.
While you can make these special characters display in the PSP console unfortuantely when you send them to the display they don't show up.

To date I have not been able to do any animations other than a brief pacman chase scene.
This consisted of using block mode to display [ { < - four characters in each spot.
Normally I use the JPOT.DO to simply display the progressive amount while playing the slot then a different message under Mess.do while it is sitting idle.

The problem with PSP is you are limited in the size of your message. So to do the pacman scene I ended up using JPOT1 through JPOT4 so I could get a lengthy message.
To do the Pac scene you start out with "[" then replace it with the next character etc. However with PSP block mode centers your message so you need to pad each character with spaces. Then there are the obligatory control characters as well. Start Paragragh is a single character as is block mode as is speed followed by a number then what you want to display. It goes something like this....

"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "["
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "{"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "<"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "-"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" " ["
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" " {"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" " <"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" " -"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "  ["
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "  {"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "  <"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "  -"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "   ["
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "   {"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "   <"
"Start Paragragh" "Block Mode" "Speed 6" "   -"

I also failed to mention there is no cut or paste. I then tried to edit the files found in the PSP directory with a DOS editor and this does not work because there are a lot of hidden characters. You can use a Hex editor but that is almost as painful.

I once invested in a CON2 with the thoughts that I would get around to doing this all again with supremes etc. Unfortunately my first expensive melay into this ended up with me buying a CON2 non I version so I could not use this with my IGT machines. I have since donated it to Joey so he could sell it to a Bally or Universal person with the proceeds going to NLG.

I had high hopes that the serail port on the CHAM44s might be used for a graphics download, but to date I have not found any supporting info.

Ron - you will note the use of Aligator clips. The soldering iron has been banshised to the garage (and me along with it).

[stayouttadabunker]

oh yeah...I'm only allowed to solder in the garage too....lol

[westec1]

Nice work Jay 

Now I'm going to have to hunt down some more display panels.
The new game room looks great, it's going to look even better with that new sign

Wes

[stayouttadabunker]

I am considering changing a couple of bytes in attempt to make a "3x2"
or a "3x4".
Have you tried that with any success?

[jay]

So far my testig has only allowed me to go to 2 high (any non 0 byte)  but you can go as wide as 255 (FF).
If you figure out how to go taller I would be interested to know.

I have 20 panels to play with.  My sign is going to be 2 x 9 using up 18 of them........ for 12ft long.
Its sitting on my dining room table pretty much wired up.
Everything has been tested as 2 sets of 1x9.....

Right now I am missing the 12ft long ribbon cable between one end of the sign and the other.
I have ordered 100ft from Mouser - along with some spare eproms.

I am missing one power supply and harness so I have 3 power leads unconnected.
I have 3 spare power supplies in the basement but don't have any harnesses - these also have LED4 & Led5 boards on them so I don't really want to tear them apart.
John4535553 (or integer version there of) was kind enough to supply me with some harnesses - these are in transit.

I also have some more parts coming in terms of power supplies so I am in wait mode......

[stayouttadabunker]

Ohh......johntoomanynumbers is such a helpful guy!

[jay]

Here is a Project Update ....... and it is NOT good.......

I am using the 7.22 code of the Mikohn Cham44 board.

I am trying to build a 2 x 9 - 18 panels (12ft long 9 x 16" per panel) and it appears that I am limited to 16panels.

I have programmed 01 09 into my code, 01 0A  .... 01 0b.... 01 10 and the results are the same.

I get 8 of the top panels scrolling the message. When it gets to panel 1 it then displays the bottom of panel 1 on the top of panel 9.

                                        Top of the Message starts here
                                       /
    T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9--+
                                                |
 +--------------------------------------------+
 |
 +--B1 B2 B3  B4 B5  B6 B7 B8 B9
                                  \
                                    Bottom of the message starts here.

I believe this is what I am actually seeing.....

                                        Top of the Message starts here
                                       /
    T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 B1--+
                                                |
 +--------------------------------------------+
 |
 +--B2 B3 B4  B5 B6  B7 B8  B9  BA
                                   \
                                    Bottom of the message starts here.

When I disconnect 2 of the panels all is good at 16panels.

I am going to try a few other things but I think 16 is the hardwired max.......  

[jay]

I have just tried 02 12 (12h = 18) and it did not make any difference.
I also tried 00 12 to make an 18 panel single high long sign. The message starts at panel 16 and the extra 2 panels just display random garbage.

I am out of ideas.....

Does anyone know if there is anything newer than 7.22 code for the Cham44 ? that might support longer signs....

How am I expected to live with a sign that is only 10' 8" ... 12' or bust

[stayouttadabunker]

I am going to try and look at the V7.22 and try different stuff with it...maybe I'll get lucky.
Only problem is...many of us do NOT have 19 panels and power supplies like you do...

[stayouttadabunker]

The FFCA byte on the V7.22 stands out like a sore thumb on that line...
I've highlighted it.
Have you tried changing that one at all?
I don't have my programmer nearby for I would do it.
Click on photo to enlarge>>>

[jay]

Hi,

I changed the 01 to a 02 and it made no difference..... that is until I got it loaded up with a message. Then it corrupted.

I think I am going to have to live with the 10' 8 restriction (16panels).

[jay]

Ok - Just an update on this project

I have built a box to hold my 16 panels 2 x 8.
It still needs to be stained but the electronics are all ready to go.

These things put off a fair bit of heat so vents built into the back and top.

[jay]

This will be mounted over the bar.....

[stayouttadabunker]

It'll take me a few weeks to get out there with my crane
but we'll get that big puppy up there!...