Ultra magic doubles troubleshooting help

[oneslot]

I am new to this site and am trying to get my first slot machine up and running. I have some experience with early Williams solid state pinball machine troubleshooting/repairs so I figured I may be able to get this slot working. At this point this machine has been in the hands of 2-3 people and I am unsure what was removed/unplugged/messed with prior to me getting it. I pulled the main board, removed the battery, cleaned some battery corrosion, and wired in an off board rechargeable battery in hopes of getting the board to boot up so I could start troubleshooting error codes. All I can get to work are the lights,red led glowing on the bill validator after it cycles at power on, red light on the magnetic door switch and humming sound through speakers, No error codes whatsoever. There are a few loose wires... 2 near the reset button, a small 2 prong connector in the back right corner behind the reset button, a 3x5 connector and 2 single wires hanging behind the coin hopper, there are 2 unused connectors on the back board (no clue if this is correct), the white switch by the reset button has no wires connected, I have another white switch that I assume was removed from the rectangular hole closest to the yellow reset button.
I am going to add pictures (hopefully I will get them to work the first try). As you can see I took a flash picture of the main board but did not think about the camera flash possibly erasing the rom/eprom chip.

Thanks in advance

Ed

[UNIMAN]

Hi Ed, welcome to NLG.
Magic Doubles is the game that got me into Universal slots. My wife used to play that game all the time in the 90's!!

Ok, first thing to check for are the four red LED's on the board. When you start the machine do they light up? And, do they blink left to right.
Do a RAM clear on startup. Right next to the four LED's are three little buttons. Hold all three down while turning on the machine. Put your thumb under the board while pushing the buttons so as not to flex the board. Then after a RAM clear observe the four LED's. What are they doing?

The BIGGEST problem with the Ultra Series is the board connecting to the backplane. With machine powered off, unplugged, I spray the board pins with contact cleaner and use a small brass brush to clean the pins. Make sure no brass brissels left behind on pins. Then I spray the pins holes on the backplane, really wetting them down, and insert the board in and out several times. This connection between board and backplane is loose, (design error) and the board needs to be seated properly. Sometimes need to wiggle it left to right. Very touchy!

You have to have those four LED's blinking left to right. If not, board problem. BUT, board problem could be corroded ground pin on back of board. So inspect and clean the pins.
Let me know what you find.
Jim

[oneslot]

Jim,
thanks for the tips. I never got any LED activity and Last night I pulled out the box with the red and green test buttons to find chewed wiring (nothing looks to have shorted) Checked fuses and replaced the 15A with the proper 1.5A and the 10A with the proper 3A (amazing how so many people do not understand that a specific fuse is used for a reason). Will have to address the wiring first, Luckily I have most of the connectors on hand to rewire.

Ed

[oneslot]

Luckily I have most of the connectors on hand to rewire.

So I thought, turns out these are a slightly smaller dia. than the .062 crimps I have. Oh well, repaired wiring while reusing the old crimps. I tried plugging and unplugging the boards several times with no luck, Absolutely NO LED activity, tried holding down the 3 switches at power up also. Battery 3.6V is good. I cleaned the male pins but did not try the female side yet.  I do need to figure out the wiring for the white door open/closed switches.
   What is the ground pin on the backside of the board you are referring to?
    Worst case board scenario.... what is the availability and approximate cost of a replacement board?

Ed

[UNIMAN]

There are several grounds on the pins, need to make sure all pins are free of corroision.

Worst case scenario are that boards almost impossible to find! Sorry.

The power supply output comes out of the back box in the bottom of the slot. Look for a pink and black wire in the connectors coming out the top of that box. Pink is always 5vdc and black is ground. Unplug a connector and check for 5vdc in the pin holes for the pink and black(ground). Need 5vdc for the board to operate, maybe power supply not putting out 5vdc. Wish I could be more specific about which connector but my machines are in storage, haven't worked on them in awhile. Any pink wire should be 5vdc.

[oneslot]

I think I understand now that when you said "back of board" ground pins you meant the edge pins where the boards interconnect. I pulled both boards and cleaned up the connectors (there was some green so I am not very confident). I want to apply power on the bench to see what I get. I looked online for a manual/schematics and could not find anything for the ultra series. I am not 100% sure what I am looking for either. I found an archived post here from a member TXtech (Ian) who said he was able to help with an Ultra manual but I could not find this user name on the site.

Ed

[UNIMAN]

Here is a link to the pinouts of the edge connector. http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=14641.msg125331#msg125331

It is TZtech, not TXtech. Ian is a slot tech in South Africa.
No real manual for the Ultra.

jbshocks is another good contact. Jerry has done a lot with Ultras.

[jbshocks]

Your pictures don't show a battery installed did you put one in?  NICD I hope  if lithium you need a blocking diode.   Your main board is in terrible shape.   that battery corrosion is terrible.   I bet it could be saved but it will likely be a lot of work.  What is your board repair skills?   What I would do is remove the battery and all removable chips.  Make sure to label them well.   The put the thing in the dishwasher by itself.   No dry cycle.   Hopefully you will lose all the green crap.  When it comes out pour 90%+ isopropyl alcohol on both sides of the board.  If there is still much green slime scrub it off with a tooth brush.  If you have some around fixed chip legs then use a tooth pick to carefully clean between the legs.   You will then want to replace all the chips but make sure the legs are clean.  You can carefully clean them with like 200 or finer sand paper.  If you are lucky it will boot or show some sign of life.   I suspect to fix this board you will need to replace the sockets on the chips near the battery as well but you could get lucky. 


I know the dishwasher sounds strange but it works.   Nothing wrong with getting it wet as long as you don't power it on.   That is why you must remove the battery.   Also don't power up the board for a day or 2 after ward. 
Your game sounded like a soaring eagle casino machine so I looked to see if you are near but it looks like Holland Michigan.   I am in south east Michigan.  I could try your board in a working Uni if you are ever this way.   
[size=78%]  [/size]

[oneslot]

Sorry Uniman for my typo ( TX instead of TZ) will try to not let this happen again to avoid confusion. Thanks for the pinouts but really not much help as I need to apply the Correct DC Voltage power for bench testing.
   Jbshocks..... yes a battery has been installed (3.8V NI-MH), The board has also been cleaned/acid neutralized since the Initial picture was taken. I just replaced the 4 chip sockets (all I had on hand were machined pin type) and have 3 different resistors on order. 10K Ohm 5%, 8 pin array 510 Ohm, 9 pin array 330 Ohm. So if anyone needs some of these I will have spares.

Ed

[jbshocks]

so does it run now?  If not check the traces coming off the battery

[oneslot]

Not yet. It may be a couple of weeks as....... "have 3 different resistors on order."

Ed

[oneslot]

I just noticed a missing capacitor at location C13 (pretty sure this is correct) but have no idea what value it was. It is towards the front from the battery location directly next to another capacitor. Should be able to see this in a previously posted picture. Anyone have a board to look at so I can get it replaced?
Thanks Ed

[jbshocks]

for the record c13 is not used. 

[jbshocks]

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=14751.0


Test point values for the MPU

[oneslot]

Hi Ed, welcome to NLG.
Magic Doubles is the game that got me into Universal slots. My wife used to play that game all the time in the 90's!!

Ok, first thing to check for are the four red LED's on the board. When you start the machine do they light up? And, do they blink left to right.
Do a RAM clear on startup. Right next to the four LED's are three little buttons. Hold all three down while turning on the machine. Put your thumb under the board while pushing the buttons so as not to flex the board. Then after a RAM clear observe the four LED's. What are they doing?

The BIGGEST problem with the Ultra Series is the board connecting to the backplane. With machine powered off, unplugged, I spray the board pins with contact cleaner and use a small brass brush to clean the pins. Make sure no brass brissels left behind on pins. Then I spray the pins holes on the backplane, really wetting them down, and insert the board in and out several times. This connection between board and backplane is loose, (design error) and the board needs to be seated properly. Sometimes need to wiggle it left to right. Very touchy!

You have to have those four LED's blinking left to right. If not, board problem. BUT, board problem could be corroded ground pin on back of board. So inspect and clean the pins.
Let me know what you find.
Jim

Jim,

It has been almost a year. Basically gave up on it until today, turned it on and one LED on MPU came on (#3) for the first time. Messed around with board and it is a VERY touchy connection to the back plane board. Took a close look at MPU board and ended up soldering about 30 wires to legs to bypass corroded traces to get continuity from point to point (call it a Hail Mary play), repaired several chip socket legs. I did get the 4 LED's lit, #1,3,4 are dim and #2 blinks (#3 did blink at one time also), RAM clear upon startup makes no change to this. I was able to get some numbers to show on the front displays but they were all 8's, (no error codes)

[jbshocks]

proper lights would be all 4 lights blink together I think 4 times.  Then they scroll one at a time.