Author Topic: Bought 3 dotmations, starting from scratch... (Read 39242 times)

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #80 on:** November 28, 2014, 09:24:51 AM »

Really enjoying the Jackpot Party and getting anxious to get another up and running. The spousal unit was playing it yesterday when for no apparent reason it said (literally) "Surprise!" and gave her a Jackpot Party. Nothing good on the reels, it just gave her one. Never seen that before.

rokgpsman · « **Reply #81 on:** November 29, 2014, 01:24:32 PM »

I've played that game and the video version some but haven't seen that happen. Maybe it is triggered by some random or unusual thing that doesn't come up often. Sounds like your machine has been played several hours so far and it is working well, good to hear it is in solid condition. Did it come with a working coin hopper and are you using it or putting the winnings on credit to play off of?

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #82 on:** November 29, 2014, 02:41:06 PM »

Got a hopper, but no tray. We can feed coins in but it only pays in credits. Since I put in the ATX power supply it has been smooth sailing on the bottom half. Occasionally the top will go into dot fail and sometimes the lower right corner gets a little dim. (Open door, push button, close door and go on playing.) When it happens enough to bother me, I'll add it to the ATX supply. Meanwhile, I'm getting together an electronic component shopping list for a couple of pinball machines I am refurbishing and will add components to repair the upper part of the lower PDU. I also built a simple wooden stand to put it at the right height for the wife to be able to sit in a chair and play. She loves it. She's also dying to be able to run it solely on coins(tokens) so I am pursuing several potential sellers for a hopper tray.

rokgpsman · « **Reply #83 on:** November 29, 2014, 04:43:24 PM »

I found a photo of a hopper that looks like the same one I have in my dotmation machine. From what I understand Williams used the same basic hopper for all their dotmation machines, just had to change a few parts to configure it specifically for quarters, nickels, etc such as the knife and coin wheel. These coin specific parts are covered in the WMS 4XX manual on the parts pages for the hopper.

I think Williams got most of their dotmation machine hoppers from a company called Asahi Seiko. That company is located in Las Vegas and has a website but I didn't see the model used on the dotmation machines (I think it is a DH750) among their current products, I guess it has been discontinued or was a custom hopper just for Williams. There are several companies that have used hoppers and hopper parts for sale. Is the tray that's missing from your JP Party the upper stainless part of the bowl or something else? Maybe someone here has a junked hopper and they can pull off the metal part you need.

I've also attached a couple of manuals on the Williams dotmation machine coin hopper.

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #84 on:** December 05, 2014, 07:43:03 AM »

Well geez, it never ends, does it? Humming right along, playing like a champ when suddenly, we are out of credits. I hate it when that happens. So a quick trip to the wallet to retrieve a $20 and... nothing. The DBV appears dead. And after working so well before! Long story short, after much hemming / hawing / troubleshooting / etc it dawns on me that I haven't put any paper money in it since I put it on the stand I built. Which means I haven't put any money in it since I did the power conversion. Hmmmmmmmm... So a DBV-200-A344 is 12vdc... tracing the power wire... aaaaand bingo! No power, no workey. Snip snip, trim, trim, solder, solder and we are back in business. Checked to see and there is nothing in the fixes posted for re-powering that mention getting power for the DBV. Lots of extra 12vdc rail wires and grounds in that ATX power supply I put in so an easy fix.

rokgpsman · « **Reply #85 on:** December 05, 2014, 07:53:22 AM »

Quote from: Mk1Mod0 on November 23, 2014, 11:21:46 AM

Up and running fine on the combo of the PDU and the PC ATX power supply giving it the +5, -12 and +12. Pulling the plug from under the bill holder solved that problem. Now I'll go ahead and T/S the upper part of the PDU and see what I can find.

I wonder if what you said back in msg #68 about disconnecting the cable under the BV after there was a power snafu back then was what disabled the BV? Was that the power cable or one of the other related cables that go to the bill cash compartment??

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #86 on:** December 05, 2014, 10:33:48 PM »

Here is where the DBV normally gets its power from the PDU.

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #87 on:** December 05, 2014, 10:35:17 PM »

Here's where it plugs in to the DBV.

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #88 on:** December 05, 2014, 10:40:05 PM »

Now I get why they had coins glued to the hopper wheel. Every now and again, despite being set for credit, it tries to pay out a large jackpot in coins. Will solve that problem soon enough...

rokgpsman · « **Reply #89 on:** December 06, 2014, 12:43:21 AM »

I think you can increase the hopper limit setting in the diagnostics so the machine won't pay out thru the hopper, all winnings will go to the credits. You can open the main door and then press and release the diag button on front of card cage multiple times until the word "HoPr" comes up on the digital display. When you see "HoPr" then stop pressing the diag button and to the right on the other digital display there will be a 4 digit number that represents the hopper setting. This setting is the level of a jackpot that when exceeded the machine pays thru the hopper instead of putting the win to credits. You can increase this to 9999 so the hopper won't get activated since no win is that high. Setting this Hopper setting is covered in the manual, I think you use the MAX BET or SPIN button to change the number in each digit of the display. And you use the reset key to move right to left from one digit to another, changing each one until you get the 9999 hopper setting. The digit that can be changed will be flashing. I'm going by memory, the manual explains it better.

On the ATX power supply main connector I believe there is a wire that is the Power Enable, grounding it will cause the power supply to operate and you won't have to use a lamp as a load. At least that's how I remember it. Here is a diagram of the ATX power connector on some power supplies, you can probably google a pinout of your ATX power connector if it is different but I think they are standard.

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #90 on:** December 06, 2014, 07:55:14 AM »

Yup. This one I set up years ago for testing boat electronics and pinball components. It has an on/off switch and the idea with the bulb is that you won't have to "restart" it when you switch from one item to the next. If I can't repair the original game PDU, I'll set it up for permanent residence and remove the bulb. It generates as much heat as the rest of the machine does.

rokgpsman · « **Reply #91 on:** December 06, 2014, 09:14:55 AM »

Ha! It does provide light to work by and some warmth on a winter day!

What if the 12v bulb was connected to the 5v wire? The bulb won't care, it would glow about half as bright and produce less heat, maybe would still be enough of a load to keep the power supply running? Back in the old days of pc repair I used to keep a 5.25 floppy drive plugged into the bench ATX power supply for the same reason. So maybe even a small load is enough to keep it running.

rokgpsman · « **Reply #92 on:** December 06, 2014, 12:37:47 PM »

Quote from: Mk1Mod0 on December 05, 2014, 10:40:05 PM

Now I get why they had coins glued to the hopper wheel. Every now and again, despite being set for credit, it tries to pay out a large jackpot in coins. Will solve that problem soon enough...

That was clever of a previous owner to glue the coins (or tokens) to the hopper wheel. That way they didn't have to keep a bunch of coins in the machine, the wheel would spin until the correct number of coins passed by the coin counter. And they didn't have to have a complete hopper bowl to hold the coins. But when you insert coins to play I imagine they fall loosely inside the machine unless they somehow get diverted back to the coin tray.

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #93 on:** December 14, 2014, 02:42:53 PM »

mustangjeep you need to clear your inbox.

Shawn

Tmmybahama · « **Reply #94 on:** December 14, 2014, 03:01:14 PM »

I had someone send me the same thing... ANd then I saw you were talking to Bud... Ooops.....

mustangjeep · « **Reply #95 on:** December 14, 2014, 03:56:53 PM »

All clear Shawn,,,, sorry bad at this techy stuff.

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #96 on:** December 16, 2014, 10:01:42 PM »

...and then there were two!! Got the JSD up and moving thanks to some fellow NLG members. Sadly, the DBV-200 will not take ANY new bills. The one in my JPP will take the new $20s. Is that an easy upgrade? PITA to load it up with $1. Looks like I got some DMD troubleshooting to do as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdGD1BMflIc&feature=youtu.be

Tmmybahama · « **Reply #97 on:** December 16, 2014, 10:17:27 PM »

Quote from: Mk1Mod0 on December 16, 2014, 10:01:42 PM

...and then there were two!! Got the JSD up and moving thanks to some fellow NLG members. Sadly, the DBV-200 will not take ANY new bills. The one in my JPP will take the new $20s. Is that an easy upgrade? PITA to load it up with $1. Looks like I got some DMD troubleshooting to do as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdGD1BMflIc&feature=youtu.be

The newest update you can get (I actually bought some chips for some of my DBV 200s from Vendors on here), is THE BIG HEAD 5.00 BILLS... That would then cover 1s, big head 5s (prior to the purple money obv.), orange 10s, 20s, 50s, and 100s..... That chip is the newest you can do with the DBV 200.... Make sure you CLEAN your Bill Validator well, and that all the belts are as tight as you can get em, and that they still have "grip" to em for the bills coming in.... (easy to get replacement parts on the site too; much cheaper than buying a newer bill validator)... I had a few that wouldnt take anything but one dollar bills UNTIL I CLEANED THE OPTICS and tightened it up and got some old gunk out of the cog wheels from just being used alot, and then BAM, reading everything but 5s (I literally cannot find the old school small head 5s anywhere; govt, and/or currency collectors have snatched em up to collect or destroy.....

rokgpsman · « **Reply #98 on:** December 17, 2014, 09:06:30 AM »

Quote from: Mk1Mod0 on December 16, 2014, 10:01:42 PM

...and then there were two!! Got the JSD up and moving thanks to some fellow NLG members. Sadly, the DBV-200 will not take ANY new bills. The one in my JPP will take the new $20s. Is that an easy upgrade? PITA to load it up with $1. Looks like I got some DMD troubleshooting to do as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdGD1BMflIc&feature=youtu.be

Good job on the repairs! Unfortunately, the vertical lines on your DMD are usually caused by the dot matrix screen itself, but you can make sure that's it by swapping around your other DM screen to verify. I've read of some people having luck in repairing the screen by resoldering some connections along the edge of the screen or something, maybe you can find out more with google & give it a try. The DM screen has a circuit board mounted to the back of it.

The DBV-200's are made with either a replaceable eprom that is in a socket, or they have a flash type memory that is soldered in. You can remove your DBV-200 head from the machine and turn it over to see which it has. On the bottom there is hopefully a long chip with legs along both sides that is plugged into a socket. This chip has the software that determines the paper bills the DBV accepts. You can carefully remove the chip from the socket and replace it with an updated one. You have to make sure the replacement chip is for your machine, this is identified by what is called the "ID protocol". (this is because different slot manufacturers use their own comm protocols for the BV to talk to the MPU control board)

The updated eproms are available from many sources here on NLG, ebay, slot machine parts places, ets. Here is a link to one place so you can see how it is listed:

http://rudysdeals.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1039&search=DBV

If the DBV-200 has the flash type memory then you need special equipment to update the software. In this case there are places you can ship the DBV-200 to and they will install the new software for you, sometimes the complete thing is as low as $15. Some of the vendors here on NLG can do this, as well as sell you the replacement eprom if that is all you need. You can look at your DBV-200 that is already updated & accepting the new $20's to see what the software label on the eprom says, it should give a version of the software and the ID protocol, such as "ID-044/045" or similar.

Mk1Mod0 · « **Reply #99 on:** December 18, 2014, 09:32:36 PM »

So I switched out the display in the JSD with the one in the (game formerly known as) Perfect Match. Obviously, the problem is in that display. I fear, however, that the power supply for the display is on its' last leg. It came on bright and clear and worked fine for awhile. Then , it would kinda dim. When the picture changed it would be bright again, and then dim. Finally it went into continuous dot fail. Has anyone here attempted to replace the display with an LED or similar? I have found same size led displays that simulate a DMD on AliBaba and was wondering about compatibility/power requirements/etc.

Side note: A fellow member was kind enough to make me the game roms and said they are "97%" chips. I firmly believe that the wife is benefiting from the 97% and I am getting the 3%.

News:

NLG Site Navigation Menu

Author Topic: Bought 3 dotmations, starting from scratch... (Read 39242 times)