Aristocrat/IGT slot machine

[seinologist]

Hi,

I picked up a slot machine on ebay which has both Aristocrat and IGT tags.
The Aristocrat tag says - Date of mfg is 9/23/82. IGT tag says model no. R45NBL.

Searching online for a manual turns up nothing yet.

Anyone have any suggestions or point me to where I can get a manual?

Any help is much appreciated!

thanks,
Doug

[Op-Bell]

It's an Esprit, an Aristocrat model IGT imported when they didn't have their own reel machine. Several people here have one and there's a manual around, though unfortunately hard copy and not in electronic form. What's wrong with it, and what's that black thing on the panel next to the coin slot?

[seinologist]

I haven't power it up yet. On the top of it there is writing, barely visible, says "No power up".

That black thing looks to be a button that lights up. Possibly to spin the reels??

I'm not sure everything is there but am only going by what the seller had said.

[seinologist]

Ok, I powered it up and the bottom lights up and has a runaway hopper. No power to the circuit boards, reels, or top glass.

I'll check the fuse in a bit, gotta eat dinner.

At the bottom of the cabinet mounted to the back wall is a transformer thingy...power supply??

[seinologist]

Ok, found the power supply. Pulled it out and will check things out.

From the looks of it, it has been worked on before and is kinda hacked up. Anyone know where to get a used working one or perhaps a NOS one??

[Op-Bell]

It's Australian, it's a 220V machine. The transformer on the back wall is a step-up 110 to 220. Watch where you put your fingers! 220 hurts a great deal more than twice as much as 110. Lights, solenoids etc are all 24V AC and the logic is 5V DC. Get the logic package out, open it up and inspect it - no doubt the batteries have leaked all over the main PCB. Replace them with a couple of NiCd AAs. Look for burns and damage on the other (non-battery) board, that's where all the IO drivers are.

You should have a sinking feeling about now, full buyer's remorse will set in around the 4th week. It took me more than three months to get mine working.

[seinologist]

It's Australian, it's a 220V machine. The transformer on the back wall is a step-up 110 to 220. Watch where you put your fingers! 220 hurts a great deal more than twice as much as 110. Lights, solenoids etc are all 24V AC and the logic is 5V DC. Get the logic package out, open it up and inspect it - no doubt the batteries have leaked all over the main PCB. Replace them with a couple of NiCd AAs. Look for burns and damage on the other (non-battery) board, that's where all the IO drivers are.

You should have a sinking feeling about now, full buyer's remorse will set in around the 4th week. It took me more than three months to get mine working.

I'm in absolutely no hurry in getting this done. I have a Bally 809 that's been sitting in the garage for over 2 years now waiting to be repaired.
I want to get this working and then decide what I want to do with it, keep it or sell it. Leaning towards keeping...I only paid $20 for it. )

[seinologist]

Took apart the power supply and nothing seems to be burnt up but I still want/need to check the components out to see if anything is out of the ordinary.

The 24VAC fuse is blown but all others look and test fine.

Schematics and/or wiring diagram would really help if anyone has them. [crossing fingers]

[seinologist]

Get the logic package out, open it up and inspect it - no doubt the batteries have leaked all over the main PCB. Replace them with a couple of NiCd AAs.

No batteries present and there is no acid damage at all!

[seinologist]

I didn't have a 7A fuse so I put in a 5A. Disconnected the hopper and powered it up.
Reel motor keeps running so I disconnect that.
Eventually the top lights up, after about 45secs.
I look up and a small amount of smoke is coming out of the circuit board cage.

Well I guess this would explain the runaway hopper and constantly running reel motor...bad component(s) on the circuit board.

Anyone repair these?

[Op-Bell]

Do your boards look like these?

[seinologist]

Yep, that's them.

[seinologist]

Put the boards up on the bench today and removed them from their cage and didn't see anything burnt up from the smoke that I saw previously. I repair arcade boards so I have a jamma wiring set up. I popped in a blank jamma adapter and wired up +5v, -5v, +12v, & ground. I soldered those wires to the bottom side of the power board and turned it on. After running it for 5 mins or so nothing smoked. I jumped +5v to the other board and nothing happened there either.

Behind the front of the cage where all the connectors are there is a 7905 volt. reg. which has been changed out previously. It was soldered on the bottom side of the board which
is ok but they didn't check the top as 2 of the legs weren't in contact with the traces. In the picture below it's the 2 left legs that need to make contact.

I installed the cage and fired it up, without the reels and hopper connected. A very small amount of smoke, barely visible, came out of the cage but that was it. I let it run and while I was poking my head around near the inside of the cabinet...music started to play and it scared the crap outta me. Everything seemed to be working, the fan, all lights, and of course the music.
Reinstalled the reels and they just keep spinning. Reconnected the hopper and it just runs.

So I need to figure out if this is a board problem or something in the cabinet that is causing the reels and hopper to run continuously. Anyone have any pointers?

[Op-Bell]

I'll take a guess that there was an old electrolytic capacitor shorted on the 5V line, and after a few minutes it dried up and burned out so that the 5V could come up. If so, you should be able to find it by inspection, as it will have popped its seal. There should be batteries on the CPU board to support the RAM. If someone removed them, as sounds likely, you need to install two AA NiCd cells in series. The RAMs are two 22 pin 5101s in the middle of the board. They were bad on my machines so you might want to have a couple of spares handy.

The +12V and -5V were needed for the 3-supply 2708 EPROMs originally fitted in the CPU board. If yours has a mezzanine board with 2716 EPROMs, like mine (top picture, previous page), chances are you don't need the -5 any more and the 7905 is irrelevant. +12V is needed in other places in the cabinet but I don't think anything else needs -5V.

The IO board has 6, 6821 PIAs handling both input and output. The inputs go directly to the PIA pins, making them a bit vulnerable to damage from cabinet shorts. Most if not all of the outputs are triacs, not power transistors, as the cabinet power including lamps is all 24VAC. The triacs that turn on the hopper and reel motors are up on the power supply board, not in the cage. Again these are switching 24VAC. There's a relay board on the hopper that turns on with 24VAC and switches 110VAC (I said 220, but I was wrong) to the hopper motor. The reel motor is directly 24VAC.

I don't understand when you say the "reels keep spinning". On the Esprit, they should be free spinning. Spring loaded hooks snap down when released by solenoids and set them spinning, and they're stopped in sequence by cams on the motor shaft. Does your motor drive the reels directly? Or do you mean the cam motor keeps cycling?

I have a circuit diagram for the power supply board. I'll scan it and post it tomorrow.

[seinologist]

I did replace one cap on the power board that was slightly under value and didn't find any others like that. Everything looked good on both circuit boards. The two 5101 ram chips looked to be new and I tested them in a Centipede board and they're good to go. I'll have to install a lithuim battery with blocking diode after I get the machine running. I'm geussing that if I got music playing that everything else with the circuit boards are good and I should be looking elsewhere for my problems.

This IO board has four 68A21's and two 6821's. The 6821's look to have been a replacement at one time as they don't match with the other 68A21's. I'm not sure if 68A21's are needed all around or if the two 6821's will do.
 
The reels are going through the sequence as if you had pulled the handle to play a game and this repeats over and over.


Thank you for your help.

[Op-Bell]

The reels are going through the sequence as if you had pulled the handle to play a game and this repeats over and over.

Sorry to labor this, I'm trying to decide which hardware issue it is. Do the solenoids snap and spin the reels and the motor runs to stop them, and this cycle repeats over and over, or is it just the motor cycling without spinning the reels?

As part of the power-up sequence the CPU cycles the motor in the reel mech, but it shouldn't release the spin solenoids. Sometimes they go off on their own on power up but that should only happen once. If the motor cycles and doesn't stop, it's probably the home microswitch

[Ozzy]

The 6821's will be the same as the 68A21 PIA's you have on the PCB, see pin out of both IC's (attached) I would also say home micro switch is OOO.


cheers


Ozzy

[seinologist]

the solenoids snap and spin the reels and the motor runs to stop them, and this cycle repeats over and over

This is exactly what is happening.

As part of the power-up sequence the CPU cycles the motor in the reel mech, but it shouldn't release the spin solenoids. Sometimes they go off on their own on power up but that should only happen once. If the motor cycles and doesn't stop, it's probably the home microswitch

I'll take a look at that switch. When I had the reels out my eye caught that switch and I thought about it for a few seconds but I went back to doing whatever I was doing.

In front of the coin counters there are 4 fuse holders and the fuses are missing. Can you let me know what values go in each holder please?

[seinologist]

The 6821's will be the same as the 68A21 PIA's you have on the PCB, see pin out of both IC's (attached) I would also say home micro switch is OOO.


cheers


Ozzy

Thanks for the pinouts Ozzy. From what I have read the 6821 is 1mhz and the 68A21 is 1.5mhz, IIRC.

[Op-Bell]

In front of the coin counters there are 4 fuse holders and the fuses are missing. Can you let me know what values go in each holder please?

Those are not fuse holders, they're lamp holders for 24V festoon lamps. The operator can turn on the lights to view the meters through the top glass. The switch for these is a keyswitch on the left of the belly (anticipating your next question; now you know what it's for). It's been disconnected (wires cut) on all the machines I've seen.

The real fuse holders are on the left side top and are (in order left to right) 7A (24VAC), 1.5A (+12VDC), 1A (+24VDC), 1.5A (-12VDC), 7A (+5VDC). Note, although I listed the DC outputs affected, the fuses are all on the AC input side. Also, while you're poking about with a meter, the 24VAC supply is commoned with unregulated +12V, not ground. So it swings around +15V, not 0V.

[Op-Bell]

the solenoids snap and spin the reels and the motor runs to stop them, and this cycle repeats over and over
This is exactly what is happening.

In that case I think you have a software problem. What should happen is this:
1. On power-up, the reel motor powers up and runs to home. One or more reels may spin due to startup transients, but it's not intentional.
2. The reel motor may power up a second time and run to home, but the reels will not spin.
3. The game goes into idle mode, or tilt if there's a problem.

It should most definitely not keep spinning and stopping. That sounds to me like one of your EPROMs is misinserted or maybe they're in the wrong sockets. On the bright side, it does sound like most of the machine is in working order. Perhaps you can tell me if it goes through the initial step (just homing the motor) before it starts spinning the reels - also, does the coin lockout operate, and at what point in the cycle, and does it click in and out as the reels spin?


 

[seinologist]

I just checked the microswitch on the reel housing and it tests good.

There is a thick gray wire running throughout the machine. At the bottom of the cabinet it has been cut off and is frayed, not connected to anything. Any idea what it is?

[seinologist]

Do your boards look like these?

Op-Bell, The pictures you posted of your(?) boards...The small daughter board, there is a chip next to the far left eprom (IC1) and 2 chips up from the ribbon cable. What chip is that? I don't have one there. Is it TTL or a prom?

 

[Op-Bell]

What chip is that? I don't have one there. Is it TTL or a prom?

It's an unconnected socket, a place to put the TTL prom that used to be in the socket on the main board where the ribbon cable is now plugged in. Your EPROMs are in the right sockets.

Do you have a way to read them and send me the files? I've disassembled and commented the program in mine and I'd like to compare them - I believe the entire game personality is in the A800-AFFF chip and the others are common to the whole series of games.

[seinologist]

Yes, give me a few minutes and I'll email them.