Bought 3 dotmations, starting from scratch...

[iramack]

Well that's OK.
I thought you might want to use it as example of how the others should be when working/complete...............

Good luck with the Dot's................they are fun, but after them, you will want to move up the ladder a bit.

Steve

[Mk1Mod0]

It looks like the power supply is missing.......should be attached to the 4 screws.


Correct, but the result is the same with or without it there. Either way, shouldn't I be getting 115vac at J-5, 6, 7, 8 and 9? And at the two service outlets by where the line cord plugs in? All I get is power to the service outlet next to the on/off switch which is present whether the unit is on or off. I'm just trying to follow the path from outlet to the upper power card in the PDU and am getting stuck somewhere.

[rokgpsman]

Have you checked the fuses? There are 2 on the power distribution board and 1 on the front of the gray box near the large red on/off switch. Also, the giant transformer in the bottom of the machine probably needs to be connected to the pdu to work, it is part of the 115vac input to the pdu. The giant transformer is there so that the machine can work in countries that use either 115vac or 230vac. The side of the gray box has a voltage selection switch, for USA it should be in 115vac position [ok, that probably wasn't necessary to say]. This switch connects thru the giant transformer connector so the pdu can properly work with either line voltage.

On the outside of the gray pdu box are 2 rows of connectors. The bottom row has several identical connectors that each have 6 positions. When power is connected up there should be 115vac present on each of these 6 position connectors, measured at positions 1 and 6 on the connector. Fuse F2 on the power distribution board is inline with these 115vac connectors, they provide power to the fluorescent lighting and the dot matrix box. Fuse F1 on the power distribution board is inline with circuitry on the power distribution board that creates the +18vdc and the +5vi voltage. F1=10amp, F2=3amp.  I think the main fuse on the front of the pdu near the main power switch is 4 amp but I can't find my info right now.

[Mk1Mod0]

Checked all three fuses. They are of the correct size and good.  So the big transformer gets 115 from and gives back to the PDU? Interesting... I will look into that.  Thanks!

[rokgpsman]

Checked all three fuses. They are of the correct size and good.  So the big transformer gets 115 from and gives back to the PDU? Interesting... I will look into that.  Thanks!

Yes, that giant transformer in the bottom of the machine is part of the main 115vac power input to the pdu. It has a double primary winding and a double secondary winding, that way the same pdu will work with either 115vac or 230vac line power like in foreigh countries. The little orange slide switch on the side of the pdu makes the right connection thru the giant transformer.

Here is a drawing of the power distribution board inside the pdu, there were 2 versions of the board. The part number is written on the board somewhere but the easy way to know which one you have is to look at the molex connector on the side of the pdu where the giant transformer cable plugs in. It will be a 16 position connector on the older pdu with the -01 version of power dist board and a 12 position connector on the -03 version. This is the molex connector on the top row of connectors on the side of the pdu that is closest to where the 115vac line cord connects. It is called J10 and the giant transformer connects to it.

Another difference between the older -01 power distribution board and the -03 version is that they moved the 18vdc bridge rectifier BR1 off the -03 version board & mounted BR1 to the pdu chassis. They had to add a new internal connector called J300 to make the connections. This was probably done to keep BR1 cooler and reduce failures. Anyone swapping a -01 power distribution board for a -03 during repair should keep this mind.

Notice that J10 is a 16 position connector on one drawing, 12 position on the other. In their wisdom the Williams engineers sized all of the pdu molex connectors differently to prevent getting the cables plugged in wrong but we can also use that to identify which is which by counting the positions and looking on the drawing for the same size connector. (all of the bottom row of molex connectors are the same size since they are identical 115vac outputs)

Sorry for quality of these drawings, don't have a better one, I found these somewhere and they look like they are the 29th photocopy of an original years ago. If you want I can email you these drawings in bmp format, they might be more clear to read. NLG doesn't allow bmp attachments since the files are so much larger. But the real problem with the clarity is the orig image is poor.

[rokgpsman]

Here is a drawing of the giant power transformer, the cable from it to the pdu can have either a 16 position connector or a 12 position connector. The transformer itself is the same in both cases, only the cable is different. Both have the same signals, just that the 16 position connector had more unused positions. I guess they went to a smaller connector to save on production costs.

[Mk1Mod0]

Ok. Now we are getting somewhere. In an extreme stroke of my kind of luck, it seems two of the machines have the 16 position transformer plug and one has the 12. Both of my PDUs have 16 position receptacles. Guess which machine I have been trying to get going?      So after wiping the egg off my face I will swap one transformer for another and give it another whirl. Results to follow...     Ah, so can I simply swap the 16 for a 12 and make it work?

[Mk1Mod0]

A dongle. Ha. Go figure...

[rokgpsman]

Ok. Now we are getting somewhere. In an extreme stroke of my kind of luck, it seems two of the machines have the 16 position transformer plug and one has the 12. Both of my PDUs have 16 position receptacles. Guess which machine I have been trying to get going?      So after wiping the egg off my face I will swap one transformer for another and give it another whirl. Results to follow...     Ah, so can I simply swap the 16 for a 12 and make it work?

After rereading your post I think I follow what you are saying. You are working on the machine that has the 12 position transformer cable, and that is a dead end for now since both your pdu's are the 16 position style. So yes, you can swap the giant transformers around so as to have a 16 position transformer in that machine. I've never done that but don't see any reason for it not to work.

Are you working on this machine because it is in the best shape and most complete of the 3 machines?

[rokgpsman]

A dongle. Ha. Go figure...

That is the Williams 12 to 16 position transformer adapter cable. With this you shouldn't have to swap the transformers around. You're luck is improving!

[Mk1Mod0]

Bingo! You guys rock.

One bong and trouble codes Batt1 and Secur2.  Looks like I need a 4 kbit EEPROM and a battery...

[rokgpsman]

Bingo! You guys rock.

One bong and trouble codes Batt1 and Secur2.  Looks like I need a 4 kbit EEPROM and a battery...

One bong is great - I didn't hear it but feels like I heard it thru you!

Hold on & don't replace that eeprom just yet.

The batt fail is a soft fail, the game will play after the fail is cleared (by opening and then shutting the main door of the machine). But each time you power up you'll get it again until you replace the battery on the CPU board. You can get the new battery from several places, including eBay and some of the NLG vendors listed on home page, they are used in lots of devices. It looks like a fat little AA, shorter in length. I can't remember the voltage but can look it up if needed. Your old battery probably has the info written on it. The battery holder should be a plastic thingy with a snap-on cover, but yours might be different. Some folks remove the battery and add a remote AA or AAA battery holder so they can easily install batteries, like the pinball guys do on SS machines. This avoids the worry of battery leakage onto a hard to find & expensive CPU board.

The Secur2 fail code I'm not so sure about, some of the other experts here may have to help us. I think this fail code comes up if the machine has had a game software change, it is sort of an integrity check to make sure some nonsense didn't happen in the casino. Anyway, there is a security eeprom on the backplane board (mounted on the back wall of the machine behind the card cage). After a software change to the machine the cpu writes a code to the eeprom. On each powerup this is checked to see if it matches what is expected for that game software that is on the CPU board. So, if you swap in a CPU board with different game software it likely doesn't match the last code that was stored in the security eeprom, and that gives the fail code. I think it is cleared by convincing the game that you want to complete the game software change. This is done -my mind is cloudy on this- by doing a soft clear as described in the manual. Look in the section covering game change software procedures.

Another potential problem to be aware of is that the game software on these dotmation machines came in different coin denomination versions. SO if the previous game software was for nickels and that info was stored in the eeprom, and now you insert a CPU board with game software that is for quarters you have to do a hard clear. This takes a special clearing eprom (called a clear chip), it is covered in the manual. Essentially you remove one of the game software eproms on the CPU board and install the denomination clear chip. Then power up the game, the software in the clear chip formats the machine memory for that particular denomination. Then you power down and reinstall the game software eprom. This doesn't have to be done on each game software change, only if the new software is of a different coin denomination. Consequently, Williams made a clear chip for each possible coin denomination, such as 25 cent, 5 cent, etc. Kinda quirky, wish they had taken care of this in the game software itself somehow. Most people with a dotmation machine end up getting a 25 cent clear chip since it is the most popular denomination.

When you take a break from working on the machine or are waiting on parts or other downtime I think it is very worthwhile to read over the manual closely, even a couple of times. I picked up a lot by doing this, I feel Williams did a good job on the manual.

[TVB2868]

I had that secur2 message before. It happened to me after a game change. All I did was re-seat all the chips and did a hard ram clear with a clear chip, and it got rid of it. I don't know if you have a clear chip or not, but you're gonna need one eventually. You can get one from one of the vendors advertised here on the site. Good luck. You're almost there.

[Mk1Mod0]

Performed soft clear and it worked. Playing it now.   

[rokgpsman]

Performed soft clear and it worked. Playing it now.   

That's terrific - now you're qualified to help others that come along later with similar problems.
The best way to test it is play as often as you can. And since you now have a working machine you can swap in parts from the other machines to check them when you aren't sure if they are good or bad.


Would be great to see a picture of the entire machine powered up.   

[Mk1Mod0]

Eyeah... Gimme a day to clean and change bulbs. This thing be nasty. Or what I call most of the pinball machines I buy. "Warehouse fresh!"

[rokgpsman]

no problem, but don't worry too much, no points deducted for non-minty machine. We love pictures here, most of the time it is just words & words.......

Speaking of pinball machines, there were some folks this past week looking for a pinball machine. If you have any for sale you might contact them.

http://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=4042.msg20889#msg20889


http://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=4042.msg20917#msg20917


http://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=4141.msg21445#msg21445

[Mk1Mod0]

How do I post links to youtube video?

[rokgpsman]

How do I post links to youtube video?

Hoping you have something to show us regarding a freshly working machine - great!
 
I've not done a video link posting but I'd think one way to do it is something like this:

go to youtube and bring up your video. Then at the top of your screen where the web address is you put your mouse pointer and highlight the address, then right click on it and select copy.
Then you come here to this thread on NLG and open a message window by clicking on "reply" like normal. Then you put the mouse pointer in the message window and right click, then select paste. This should copy the link from the Windows clipboard to the message window. Then save the message like usual.

There are other ways and shortcuts, this is just one way that is easy to explain. If you can't get it to work you can give us the title of your video, we can search on youtube and find it so we can view it there and maybe post the link to it for you.

Also, there may be instructions here on NLG about how to do it. Posting the link is fairly easy. There is a way to actually embed a video in the NLG posting but I haven't read how to do that.

Here's 2 links to youtube that I just tried using the method outlined above, they go to someone else's video about dotmation slot machines & the method mentioned above seems to work fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nchWpltb-Fw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJba72t1054

[Mk1Mod0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBVDUbdcXl8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fDegST06bc