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Author Topic: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile  (Read 1299 times)

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Offline gamesmedic

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As an arcade specialist for over 25 years, branching out to slots and jukeboxes has pretty much been a necessity since all the old veterans have all but gone in my area. Being a brilliant, yet absent minded sort, with a penchant for too much coffee and ADHD, I try all sorts of crazy ideas out.


Pinballs had been heavily plagued with ruined boards due to battery corrosion over the decades and many new options have come out for replacing the ram chips with non volatile memory. This gets me to thinking about doing the same to these CDS units. Possibly even IGT S units to stop the ever plagued battery replacement and reinitialization rampant in these units, now in private and collectors homes.


Has anyone ever thought about this or attempted it?


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« Last Edit: November 20, 2017, 04:06:07 PM by shortrackskater »

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Re: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2017, 04:55:57 PM »
As a second thought... It would be nice if anyone had the schematics.. Help?

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Re: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2017, 05:18:52 PM »
I contacted Alltek about the possibility 3 years ago. I didn't see any reason the non volatile memory and new board setup wouldn't be great. After about a minute of stammering and stuttering, the Crickets got so loud, I figured I got my answer. That was my venture into a new replacement board.

Dave
"All things being equal. The easiest explanation and the easiest answer is probably the right one".

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Re: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2017, 05:29:30 AM »
I did some research. Mouser has NVRAM but I wasn't able to find a 512K x 8 IC in a 32 pin package.
The sram on board the motherboard is K6T4008CIC-6870 [or GB70, Having a hard time reading it]
At any rate it is part of the K6T4008CIC family. See attached PDF.


If anyone can find an NVRAM cross for this that is compatible please let me know.
Also, has anyone every done a surface mount replacement on a motherboard of this type before? What precautions should one take when handling/desoldering/soldering?

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Re: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2017, 06:01:47 AM »
I want to give this a go. I am looking at SMD rework stations and reballing equipment.  But before I even think about going further, I need all of your help. If anyone has a working spare motherboard for me to try this out on, please hit me up. I am not about to try it without back up spare parts in case something goes wrong.


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Re: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile
« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2017, 12:27:03 PM »
The cmos static ram chips used on slot machine boards have very fast access times, often it is somewhere around 50-70 nsec. Most NVRAM chips are not this fast, many are -100 or even slower. There are NVRAM chips with access times that are faster but they are several times more costly. Also, the cmos ram in the slot machine has new data written to it frequently by the cpu and its operating software, that data is changing all the time. An NVRAM chip has a limited number of write cycles before it deteriorates and can no longer function. So if you use an NVRAM chip you'd need to change it now and then when it stopped working. They don't last for years and years if you write new data to them all the time.

NVRAM is great for electronic applications where the data is not changed that often, like in a stereo to store your favorite stations. Or in a radio scanner to set your favorite channels to scan. But it doesn't work well if the data it stores needs to be changed all the time.

The electrical engineers that design slot machine cpu boards know about NVRAM, that technology has been around for quite a while. They could easily use NVRAM if they wanted to and that would avoid requiring a battery. But there are good reasons they don't use NVRAM in place of the cmos static ram. If you are wanting to avoid battery damage to the slot machine cpu board it is much simpler and lower cost to simply remove the battery from the cpu board and put it in a battery holder, mount it nearby and run a couple of wires to where the battery was connected to the cpu board. That way if the battery leaks it doesn't get onto the cpu board. This is one of the strategies that slot machine and pinball owners have used for years and it works.





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Re: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2017, 06:23:31 PM »
Alright. Far be it from me to ever "buck" the engineers. But, as usual, as an engineer myself, albeit not clearly as qualified [mechanical, not electronics], I have 1 small issue in that as you say, nvram may be slower to read and write from, and yes it usually does so many times, and under normal circumstances, being in a casino environment and on 24/7, obviously nvram would probably fail within a couple of years. However, I am not talking about fully operational units that are still commissioned. I am talking about units [decommissioned, but operational] primarily used for home and collectors. Maybe on 3 or 4 times a month at best, and only for a hew hours at a time.
There is also the possibility of other types of non volatile ram available such as flash ram. But I won't discuss the details as that entails a whole new set of hurdles to overcome outside my purview.

Suffice it to say, I have also run across a few articles about rechargeables. A simple replacement of the coin with an external rechargeable battery. Simply replacing a diode in line a the Vcc to the battery with a zener diode of say 4.7 volts of say 200 mA. Simply cut the trace going to the SRAM and making a point to point wire to the battery. This way the battery will be charged while the machine is turned on without overcharging. As long as the machine is turned on at least once a year, for a couple of hours this should charge it enough to last as long as the rechargeables do.

Your thoughts?

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Re: CDS Heart Throb - Evil scientist at work - Volatile memory to non volatile
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2017, 08:15:06 PM »
Before the day of long-lasting lithium batteries older slot machines and other electronic equipment used NiCad or NimH type batteries that were connected similar to what you are describing. There was a charging circuit to recharge the battery while the machine was powered up, it had a limiting resistor to set a safe trickle charge. They used a blocking diode to isolate the battery voltage from the power supply voltage so that only the cmos ram got battery voltage with the machine turned off. I think the early Bally E-2000 had this scheme for their cmos ram.

But batteries can leak, and having one that conveniently charges and recharges doesn't prevent that. In fact, some would say it is better for the battery to periodically go dead so you have to replace it with a new one, rather than leaving it in the equipment for years and have a good chance it will leak. But if you locate the rechargeable battery off the circuit board and have it get recharged when the machine is powered on that would work.

In your drawing showing the zener diode it sometimes has to have a dropping resistor connected to it in series, otherwise the zener can burn up. The zener connected alone like that will try to conduct infinite current and the pn junction will vaporize if the current is allowed to go too high.

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« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 12:16:19 PM by rokgpsman »
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