Aristocrat/IGT slot machine

[seinologist]

Ok, I pulled the circuit boards and replaced all of the 6821's and touched up some cold solder joints. Without any real means to power up the boards on the bench I replaced any TTL that I could which was most of them. There isn't that many so it wasn't a problem doing it.

Installed the boards and on power up no more spinning reels or runaway hopper. 
I'll test the pulled 6821's later.

But there is no power to the LED board. And looking on the back side there seems to be 3 fuses missing on the right hand side. What value though?
The fuse on the left hand side says 24v 3w.

Also, inserting a coin does nothing. It doesn't register, drops to the tray. Not sure if the LED being out has anything to do with this.

But it seems I'm getting close to having this running!

[Op-Bell]

All the "fuses" on circuit boards are lamps, 24V 3W as you noted. On the LED board some of these shine through the fiberglass of the board, which presumably acts as a diffuser. The only fuses in the game are the row of five in the black holder, top left.

[seinologist]

I measured the 24v on one of the lamp sockets and it's only at 21v.

[Op-Bell]

That's ok for a lamp. Some of them have resistors and you lose a volt or two in the triac switch.

[seinologist]

On the front of the cage that houses the boards there is a label that says "3 coin multi-fruit" and the machine has bars and sevens and is a 5 coin.
I wonder if I have the right set of boards and/or game roms?

[rocketrod]

Hi, I have a couple of these machines of which I can only get 1 to operate but lately it has been in a tilt condition and I have not been able to reset. You should be able to find a sticker on the back of the machine which will tell you the game combination or name, and the program number, this number should be the number on the game roms. I did manage to find a manual for this machine on ebay which then got lost in transit. Does anyone know were I can locate 5101 ram , I do remember on the old site that someone posted a schematic for upgrading these 5101 chips, would anyone have a copy of this and an idea of the fault codes for this machine. Cheers

[seinologist]

Hi, I have a couple of these machines of which I can only get 1 to operate but lately it has been in a tilt condition and I have not been able to reset. You should be able to find a sticker on the back of the machine which will tell you the game combination or name, and the program number, this number should be the number on the game roms. I did manage to find a manual for this machine on ebay which then got lost in transit. Does anyone know were I can locate 5101 ram , I do remember on the old site that someone posted a schematic for upgrading these 5101 chips, would anyone have a copy of this and an idea of the fault codes for this machine. Cheers

Well I don't have a sticker on the back of the machine and any other stickers don't match anything on the eproms so I'm SOL there.

You can get 5101's here - http://www.coinopchips.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=37

I think you're talking about the 5101 to 6116 upgrade? I really see no reason to do this as 5101's are still plentiful.

[Op-Bell]

On the front of the cage that houses the boards there is a label that says "3 coin multi-fruit" and the machine has bars and sevens and is a 5 coin.
I wonder if I have the right set of boards and/or game roms?

I ran your game ROMs through the magic lantern and can confirm they're for a 5 coin, 3 reel, 1-2-3 bars and 7s. According to the ROM, the strips are:

0 3 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 2 7
0 2 0 1 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 1 7
0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 7

0=blank, 1=1 bar, 2=2 bar, 3=3 bar, 7=seven - The double blanks indicate this is a five-line.

Payouts are 777 - 200, 333 - 100, 222 - 50, 111 - 20, mixed bars - 10

Per cycle (10648 bet), 777 once, 333 8 times, 222 24 times, 111 45 times, any bar 571 times. Payout percentage is 82.74%, hit frequency 6.1%

[Op-Bell]

I'm the member who posted the RAM upgrade, because 5101s weren't plentiful in Vegas at midnight on that Saturday when I just worked out that the RAM was bad and I wouldn't be able to sleep until I fixed the damn thing. I used a 6264 because it needs a RAM with both positive and negative chip enables. I would repost it for reference, but I had a disk crash of my own last month and it seems to be gone.

[seinologist]

On the front of the cage that houses the boards there is a label that says "3 coin multi-fruit" and the machine has bars and sevens and is a 5 coin.
I wonder if I have the right set of boards and/or game roms?

I ran your game ROMs through the magic lantern and can confirm they're for a 5 coin, 3 reel, 1-2-3 bars and 7s. According to the ROM, the strips are:

0 3 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 2 7
0 2 0 1 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 1 7
0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 7

0=blank, 1=1 bar, 2=2 bar, 3=3 bar, 7=seven - The double blanks indicate this is a five-line.

Payouts are 777 - 200, 333 - 100, 222 - 50, 111 - 20, mixed bars - 10

Per cycle (10648 bet), 777 once, 333 8 times, 222 24 times, 111 45 times, any bar 571 times. Payout percentage is 82.74%, hit frequency 6.1%

Awesome! You're proficient in assembly language?
BTW, what is "the magic lantern"?

[Op-Bell]

Some people like to do crosswords, some people like to do that game with squares of numbers, and some people like to do reverse engineering    (it's a lost art, but still in demand). With disassembled code it's more a case of deciphering it than actually reading it, since you have no idea what any piece of code actually does until you trace it all the way through. It's a nice intellectual challenge.

The Magic Lantern? I have a suite of disassemblers. In this case, though, I just opened the binary file in WinHex. I've fully disassembled my own game ROMs and know where the game personality is stored, so I can go straight to it.

[seinologist]

Some people like to do crosswords, some people like to do that game with squares of numbers, and some people like to do reverse engineering    (it's a lost art, but still in demand). With disassembled code it's more a case of deciphering it than actually reading it, since you have no idea what any piece of code actually does until you trace it all the way through. It's a nice intellectual challenge.

The Magic Lantern? I have a suite of disassemblers. In this case, though, I just opened the binary file in WinHex. I've fully disassembled my own game ROMs and know where the game personality is stored, so I can go straight to it.

That's awesome! One of the things I've always wanted to do was programming and I can do some simple stuff in VB but assembly is where I'd like to be proficient. One day I'll sit down and tackle it but I've been saying that for the last 10 years.

[seinologist]

Back to repairs...

The first time around when replacing some TTL I had installed a 7493 backwards.   This next round of replacement parts I installed, I corrected it.

On power up the hopper runs continuously and it sounds like the reel motor engages and then stops. I still don't have LED display though and the LED's check out ok.
I have checked the harness for continuity between the LED board and the PL4 connector (to the board cage) and all is good there.
One part(s) I haven't replaced are the triacs (L201E5) on the driver board and looking up on how to test them with a DMM I'm not sure exectly what reading I should be getting for a good part. The readings between parts are off quite a bit on some of them. i.e. 293, 323, 383. (diode setting, measuring m1 to gate and gate to m1)

[Op-Bell]

It's more likely you need to replace one or more of the 6821s than the triacs. It's easier too, providing you can get some, as they're in sockets. Try swapping them around and see if the trouble moves. The motor on the reels always makes one or two cycles when the game powers up, by design. After it cycles and stops, the coin lockout should pull in, or the Tilt light will come on (one of the "fuses" on the display board). The triac for turning on the hopper is on the power supply board at the top. It may be running because it's broken, or because it thinks it's in the middle of a payout. Try powering up while holding in the memory reset button (inside above the reels). If you have spare 5101s try swapping them out, as the game won't come up if it can't clear the RAM.

[rocketrod]

Thanks for the info on were to locate 5101 ram, is it possible for these machines to be in a tilt condition because of a faulty reel optic. Cheers

[seinologist]

It's more likely you need to replace one or more of the 6821s than the triacs. It's easier too, providing you can get some, as they're in sockets. Try swapping them around and see if the trouble moves. The motor on the reels always makes one or two cycles when the game powers up, by design. After it cycles and stops, the coin lockout should pull in, or the Tilt light will come on (one of the "fuses" on the display board). The triac for turning on the hopper is on the power supply board at the top. It may be running because it's broken, or because it thinks it's in the middle of a payout. Try powering up while holding in the memory reset button (inside above the reels). If you have spare 5101s try swapping them out, as the game won't come up if it can't clear the RAM.

I installed all brand new 68B21's and a new 6802 cpu. I also tried powering up with the memory button held in but nothing changed.

I'm getting 28VAC, sound ok?
 

[knagl]

I've fully disassembled my own game ROMs and know where the game personality is stored, so I can go straight to it.

As an aside to the repair discussion that is ongoing, could you, with that knowledge, change the payout of your machine (ie. make it stop more frequently on the "7" than it originally was designed to do)?

[Op-Bell]

I've fully disassembled my own game ROMs and know where the game personality is stored, so I can go straight to it.

As an aside to the repair discussion that is ongoing, could you, with that knowledge, change the payout of your machine (ie. make it stop more frequently on the "7" than it originally was designed to do)?

I couldn't make it stop on particular symbols more frequently with this particular machine, as the reels are free-spinning mechanical. However, the physical reel stop positions are just read back as numbers 1..22 and there's a lookup table in the EPROM to say what symbol is at what number, so I could change that to add a few more 7s - it would then be necessary to paste extra 7s on the reel strips to match. I could change the amount paid out for a particular winner, or add "mystery pays".

With something like an S-Plus there's no mechanical lookup to worry about. I could just change the virtual reel strips in EPROM and make it do anything I want.

[Brianzz]

I think that's been looked at on an S+ machine before and either the prom couldn't be read/altered or the machine would kick it as an eprom error. If you've been able to do it before this could generate some interest to make your own payout chips for home games. Personally I wouldn't mind having a 400 or 500% chip without having to set it to tournament mode especially in those games that don't have a tournament version.

[knagl]

With something like an S-Plus there's no mechanical lookup to worry about. I could just change the virtual reel strips in EPROM and make it do anything I want.

It didn't click in my brain that the Aristocrat was a mechanical stop with an electronic payout.

As far as the S-Plus, I think you could, provided you could figure out how it calculates the checksum.  Have you ever talked to Stolistic?

[Op-Bell]

As far as the S-Plus, I think you could, provided you could figure out how it calculates the checksum.  Have you ever talked to Stolistic?

As it happens I've never examined S-Plus code, but as for calculating the checksum, why bother? Just find the call to the routine that checks it, invariably one of the first things that the code does, and patch it out.

No, I don't know Stolistic.

[seinologist]

Ok after a long delay on working on this machine it's time to get back to it.

I tried switching around the plugs that connect to the main board cage with various results which I expected. The labels on the plugs themselves are not very intuitive on where they should connect so I snapped a picture
and was hoping someone could decipher on where they go. Two results had the reels and hopper continously running, a third left the machine doing nothing.

[seinologist]

Referencing the picture above, from left to right, I connected the plugs to the following spots. PL4, PL2, PL3.

Reels do not spin on start up, hopper runs, and the number 88 is visible on the display. Not sure what the 88 means since I can't find any error codes or that it's programmed to display any kind of error code.

[Op-Bell]

No more questions! Come back 1 year!   

[seinologist]

 






btw, I didn't ask any questions!