Putting together 3 WMS 40x machines from parts

[Calfdemon]

Before I even start this thread, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to a handful of you here on NLG that have helped me tremendously without even knowing it.  I have spent weeks reading through old threads involving troubleshooting and pretty much anything to do with these machines.  I have learned so much just from reading your old posts and without the knowledge you guys have put in these old threads, I would not be as far as I am...


So thank you in no particular order to Dale, Tollguy316, Fusco, rokgpsman, rickhunter, and Mk1Mod0 (I read your stuff on Pinside too  ).
There are others as well that I am forgetting, but thank you to all of you for your past help and for any future help as I am sure I will be asking plenty of questions.


Now, the reason for posting this thread right now is twofold.  One is to "check my work" and see if I have diagnosed my current situation correctly as I think I am stuck in the water for now until I can acquire some needed parts.  The other reason is so that folks having future problems have another thread to maybe find an answer or two in, much as I did looking through all the old posts.  When you guys post your knowledge publicly, it really helps and it is a crime to troubleshoot in PM's as then that knowledge is lost to people looking for answers. 

To fill you in on what I have, I acquired 3 machines which I have currently nicknamed "Mostly There", "Partially There", and "Hardly There".  Mostly is a 16" top which I was told was working recently until it developed a dot fail error.  Previous owner took the game kit out of it and sold it to me for a great deal.  I figured that was the best machine to try and get running first and figured it was probably just a power failure.  Easy enough fix, so I thought...


Partially There and Hardly There were leftover parts machines that belonged to a friend of mine which he used to get 3 other machines up and running.  One of which is my working Mermaids Gold that has been running great for a couple of years and is my example machine to troubleshoot these other 3 as I work on them.  Partially was a 16" top and Hardly was a 9" top.  For the time being, I swapped the tops (even though the exteriors do not match) because I want to get a 16" and a 9" up and running first as those are the kits I have.  I am not swapping games in my MG because of the deck lid with the 3 chest buttons.  It wouldn't make sense to put any other game in there.  Besides, I gave it to the wife for valentines a couple of years ago and she would kill me if MG came out of it.  The Hardly machine which was the original 9" machine was obviously left outside in a past life somewhere as the inside has a LOT of surface rust on it.  This is the reason that it will be the last machine and the reason that I swapped the tops because the lower cabinet on that machine will take a lot of work to get back in shape and going again.  If I end up getting all 3 machines up and running, then I will swap the tops back.   

So, I spent all day today messing with Mostly and trying to get it up and running.  When I powered it up, I did not even get the dot fail that the previous owner told me was there.  All I got were the fluorescent lights and that was it.  Nothing else.  A quick check with my multi-meter told me that it was a lower power problem.  Well, that, and the fact that only the 2 outer lights were lit on the I/O board.  I went ahead and removed both upper and lower power supplies and did the ATX power mod running both upper and lower off the same unit. 

Once I powered the slot up, all 5 lights came on on the I/O board so knew that was a good sign.  But then the 6th light on the far left came on.  There also was no bong on start up and nothing was happening on the DMD.  Door showed a dot fail error.  Figured I would start with the absence of a bong.  Swapped out the coin tray to a known working speaker.  Still no bong.  Swapped in the CPU board from "Partially There".   With this CPU board in, I got a bong, only it wasn't just a bong.  It was a very high note followed by an immediate bong.  One second later, another high note immediately followed by a bong.   Rinse and repeat.  The high note/bong combo never stopped until I killed power.  The far left light came on with this CPU board in as well.

This time, I pulled my CPU board out of Mermaids Gold and put it in the machine.  Got a single bong at startup (and the machine starts a LOT faster with this CPU board for some reason) and no left light.  However, after the initialization, it still came up with a dot fail and no display at all.  But at least this time, the slot booted.

Between the 3 machines, I have 3 dot controller boards.  That's pretty much the only board that Hardly had with it.  I try each board while running my MG CPU.  On 1 dot controller, the red LED on the board comes on very faint and no green light at all.  On the other 2 dot controllers, the red LED lights fine, but the green LED blinks.  I got a dot fail on all 3 boards.  I went and got the dot controller out of my MG and put it in.  It gave me a solid red and solid green and loaded up perfectly with full display.  I was actually able to play without having to do a hard clear.  It even took the 3000 credits I had on my MG machine and when I put the CPU and Dot controller in the other machine, I had 3000 credits and it played fine.

So, it looks like I have 2 bad CPU boards and 3 bad dot controllers.  The one thing I wish I had tried, but can do it another day, was to swap the I/O card from "Partially" to "Mostly" and check that it works with the MG stuff.  I know the I/O card in Mostly is working anyway.

So did I diagnose this properly or is there something I am missing?  Has anyone seen the flashing green light on the dot controllers before and are those cards toast, or is there a fix for them?  Also, why would I be able to play MG on the Mostly machine without doing a hard clear?  From what I was told, it was running Stroke of Luck last and should have needed a hard clear.

I know folks like pictures, so I will put up a couple of what I am starting with and then one of "Mostly" when it was alive and running Mermaids Gold.  In the meantime, I am on the hunt for parts and software.  I think I might have a line on a couple of CPU boards, but now I am going to need 3 since both are bad and "Hardly" didn't have one.  And now I have to find 3 dot controllers too, unless there is a way to get these old ones running again? 


Any pointers or info would help!! 

[playklax01]

Goodness!  I'm trying to follow everything here, but having a little trouble.  You may need to break it down better so we can track what's what with all of this.


- When you changed the dot boards, did you change the Roms?  It's not necessarily necessary, so just asking for now.  And you're not even getting the Williams startup screen with the bad boards?  Personally in my 20 years of working with these machines, I've never had a dot board go bad.  Doesn't mean they won't, but I wouldn't assume that just yet.

- When you changed that machine to your MG and it did not give any error about a game change, something is definitely up with the backplane.  Williams machines are so picky about game changes, that should not happen at all!  Even though that machine seems to work, something isn't right...


- And obviously the power supplies are the most likely culprits here anyway.  They will cause the strange bong sounds with high pitched squeals.  They will cause the incorrect status LEDs to light up.  They will point you in the wrong troubleshooting direction all the time. 


So my 2 cents is to get known good power supplies in place before anything else.

[Calfdemon]

Thanks for your reply...  I had good power for both upper and lower in place when I did the troubleshooting.  I did change some eproms a couple of times and other times I didnt.  But with the exact same machine and setup, 3 of the dot cards did not work and my known working one did.  All 3 gave me dot fail errors and did not show the William's screen.  1 had faint red led and no green, and the other 2 the red led was lit but the green was flashing.  I just acquired another working machine with good power so I will try them all again with that machine just to see if I get the same results.


As for being able to swap games without a hard clear, yeah, something must be up with that one machine because now it is running Jackpot Stampede Deluxe and I didnt have to do a clear when I put those boards in either.  But it is running fine aside from not having to do a clear.

[Calfdemon]

Goodness!  I'm trying to follow everything here, but having a little trouble.  You may need to break it down better so we can track what's what with all of this.


- When you changed the dot boards, did you change the Roms?  It's not necessarily necessary, so just asking for now.  And you're not even getting the Williams startup screen with the bad boards?  Personally in my 20 years of working with these machines, I've never had a dot board go bad.  Doesn't mean they won't, but I wouldn't assume that just yet.

- When you changed that machine to your MG and it did not give any error about a game change, something is definitely up with the backplane.  Williams machines are so picky about game changes, that should not happen at all!  Even though that machine seems to work, something isn't right...


- And obviously the power supplies are the most likely culprits here anyway.  They will cause the strange bong sounds with high pitched squeals.  They will cause the incorrect status LEDs to light up.  They will point you in the wrong troubleshooting direction all the time. 


So my 2 cents is to get known good power supplies in place before anything else.

Thanks PlayKlax01..


I followed your advice and tried it again on a known working machine and all 3 dot controller cards that failed me before are working.  Both of the CPU boards are still bad with the far left light coming on, one with no bong, and the other with a high note/immediate bong repeat...


Strange thing is that I tried those dot cards on a machine with the ATX power hooked up and without changing anything, my MG dot card worked fine after the other 3 failed.  So not sure how that happened, but with this other machine and stock power, all 3 powered the display and went to the game.


So now I will hook them back up to an ATX powered machine (different machine than before) and see if they continue to work with the modification done.  Now I don't have to worry about the displays but still dead in the water until the CPU boards get here.

[Calfdemon]

Ok, I was able to get my hands on a couple of working CPU boards and now have 3 working dotmation slots and 2 still in pieces (acquired another one since last post).


Strange issue I am having with one of the machines and only when I install BBPB in it.  Maybe someone has a clue and can help me out?


The BBPB software I got works from 2 different people I got it from, but when I put it in one of my machines, I am getting an error code of PROG NONE.  When I look it up in the manual, it says that this is caused by a bad or missing progressive controller or the controller isnt connected to the machine..  Solutions are to check or replace the cable, or connect controller to slot machine.  This error falls under the "Progressive Troubleshooting Guide" in the manual.


Prior to trying to run BBPB on this machine, it ran Winning Streak just fine.  I tried installing a 2 coin version of BBPB and got this error.  I then tried installing a 3 coin version of BBPB and first got a jurisdiction error.  I changed it to Las Vegas jurisdiction which fixed that, but then got this same PROG NONE error again.


Does anyone have a clue?  I tried researching this error or what the progressive controller is, but I cant seem to find anything on it...


Attached are photos of the error and the section of the manual that addresses it.

[Calfdemon]

With the help of Fusco, we figured out that I had an extra cable plugged into the backpane in the communications spot that was not needed, and my dipswitch 8 on the I/O board was partially flipped downward (which turns on progressive mode).  It was not enough to trigger any problem with Winning Streak, but when BBPB was installed, it had a problem.  Removed the cable and put the dip switch in the proper position and everything works as it should.


So now, 2 of the 4 parts machines are no longer parts machines and are sitting in my game room on either side of my Mermaids Gold.  I have enough parts left over to get at least one of the machines in my garage working, just wish I had the room for it.  I think I may loan it to a friend down the street for his game room, that way I still own it and can swap games with it from time to time.


Thanks for the help from those of you that chimed in either here or in messages.  I appreciate it and brought a couple of classics back to life because of it.

[Terps]

Congrats!! They look really nice. Always happy when we can save the early WMS machines.


Fusco

[Calfdemon]

Thanks!!  Just to update the thread, I got another one up and running and mostly put together.  Just need a switch cam for the handle mech to get the handle working, but otherwise its done.  That leaves one to go for now.  I still have no clue where these last 2 are going, maybe on loan to a friend's house.  But at least they will be alive and playable.