Progressive Machine Questions

[RobinAK]

Howdy its me again. So came across this machine today. Have not seen it in person. Guy says something wrong with coin in. I think it has different issue and is just rejecting coins as it should be. Anyways.. Its a progressive machine... I have never had a progressive. All I know is there are stand alone and linked progressive machines. So is there a way to tell if is stand alone or linked? How exactly does the progressive work? I assume jackpot increases as more money is pumped into the machine.. if so how does it display the current jackpot amount? Should I buy this thing or should I pass? I se coin tray is missing.. I assume someone here has one available. here is pic of machine.


Thanks!
Robert

[rickhunter]

If it doesn't have progressive displays, it means it was a linked progressive,  part of a larger bank of machines that had one of those big progressive signs.  It is easy to remove the progressive link from it, and since it doesn't have any display hardware on it, just doing that will make the machine look, act, and behave like it was never a progressive, other than removing the sticker that says progressive on it and putting in the max bet top jackpot.  If the machine has issues, it shouldn't be that difficult to get it back to working, the S+'s are built like a tanks and they will work forever with minimum maintenance. The price is the main factor here though, you need to think you will need to spend at least $100-$150 to get it going if it is known to have issues.

[RobinAK]

Thanks for the information. I got a couple more questions now. To disable the progressive is that just the DIP switch settings? Also if I did return it to non progressive how do I know what that jackpot amount should be? And is it possible to install a progressive display and make it a stand alone progressive?

Thanks!
Robert

[rickhunter]

The procedure varies somewhat depending on the game eprom being used on the machine, but essentially it involves turning off the linked progressive programming.  On some chips you can just flip the switch to turn off the progressive, in others you will need a SET90 chip to disable it.  Also on these S+ machines that were part of a linked progressive, the progressive controller kept all the progressive data.  There was no data kept about the progressive on the machine.  The only things the machine communicated to the controller were coins played (to increment the progressive) and jackpot trigger, if the progressive combination was hit.  There is no other information kept on the machine, so there would be no way to know how much the progressive was at when the machine was removed from service.  The machine in question is a 5 line RW&B, the top prize is 12,000 coins, so you would replace the sticker that says PROGRESSIVE with a 12,000 label.  If you notice all S+ award glass have a sticker for the top prize, that is because it allowed the casino to make any of them progressive machines.

Yes it is possible to make an S+ a stand-alone progressive.  You will need a mikohn stand-alone controller (Cham II+), a display that works with it, some cabling, and a way to program the progressive controller.  The controller is SO old, it requires an MS-DOS machine to run the program and connect the controller to a pc through a serial port using a null modem cable.  The program is called PSP.   It is not easy to do, but also not really difficult.  There's a relatively steep learning curve, but once you get over the hump, it get easier.

Here's the thread on how to do it that has been passed down from site to site when I originally posted it in 2006! (YIKES!)

http://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=742.msg2973#msg2973

[RobinAK]

Perfect thank you very much!