Noise static speaker mod verification

[newkid3]

Hello everyone,  I have an IGT S2000 I am getting ready to do the speaker mod by adding the resistor on each one. The fan was unhooked but I thought it probably needs to be running to help keep things cooler. I can here the fan in the top box a little but I can here it more thru the speakers. I just want to make sure i have the correct wires. In the top box on the left the wires are white with green tracer and green. On the right the wires are white with blue tracer and green with blue tracer. The coin tray wires are white with yellow tracer and green with yellow tracer. So I should be putting the resistors inline with the white wires on each one correct?  I have a red arrow pointing at the white wire in each pic. That is the wires I think I need to use. Just want to make sure I dont mess something up bad. Thanks

[Stayouttadabunker]

Those are the correct wires for that speaker buzz mod. that uses 10k potentiometers....being used as a variable resistor so you can adjust the buzz better.
You set the machine's volume up to 6 or 7, then you lower the volume on each speaker - with the pots.
I've never tried it but it's depicted here, in this thread ...>>>

https://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=324.0

I found a real good video about these variable resistors/pots.
Just watch the first two minutes of it...the guy nails it and now you'll know why Foster threw 10k pots on the speaker wires to reduce the poor speaker grounds on the older MPU's (501's, 502's)..>>>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1rchgJ4dvs

[newkid3]

Stayouttadabunker, thanks for the fast reply. I am going to try resistors first and if I cant get it good enough then I will go to potentiometers. I read a bunch of different stuff about it and it seems there is a lot of contradicting ideas of what works. I am just going to try it and see what happens. Thanks

[RB]

Better yet, send your MPU board to Lookes for the 504B audio upgrade an don't butcher your wires.

[newkid3]

Well the thing is Lookes reworked this board and I am sure he did that. I sent him 5 boards at the time and they were all great. The thing is there is no noise in the speakers unless the top box fan is hooked up. I guess that's why who ever had it before had the fan disconnected. So that mode was most likely already done. So maybe it's the fan itself that is causing the issue some how and I dont need to do the mode. Thanks

[RB]

I would be disconnecting the fan or replacing it if you feel it's necessary. The top box of a standard S2000 doesn't retain a lot of heat
anyway. You lessen that by installing an LED tube in place of the fluorescent.

[newkid3]

Let me ask this. I was thinking 10k meant 10,000 ohm does it really just mean 10 ohm? Always trying to learn. It did have noise even with the fan unhooked. i just did a temporary setup without cutting any wires with just one speaker hooked up with a 10 ohm resistor and it took away all of the noise. But I had to turn the machine up to 10 for the volume to be where it should be. In my mind I was thinking 10,000 ohms is overkill and would definitely be hard to adjust. So please enlighten me. So if 10 ohms is right then I would need a smaller at least 1/2 watt resistor to get more volume control. I wish I had a place local I could buy the potentiometers. Thanks

[newkid3]

Just thought I would post my results back here. I ended up using a 3.3 ohm 1 watt resistor on each speaker wire. It did away with all of the noice. Very clear and crisp sound now. Also it only cut the sound down like two levels.
Example volume levels after mod
Before mod          after mod
          1                         0
          2                         0
          3                         1
          4                         2
          5                         3
          6                         4
          7                         5
          8                         6
          9                         7
          10                       8
So it will only get to the old volume level of 8 but that is louder than it would ever be used at home. Probably loader than it was used in the casino. The top box fan is hooked up also.
 

[Stayouttadabunker]

Oh... that is good work!
You used 3.3k resistors on the white wires only?? Cool!
May I mark this topic as "SOLVED"?

[newkid3]

Why do a lot of people put a k on every resistor.  What I used was a 3.3 ohm resistor not a 3.3k resistor.
A 3.3 ohm resistor is 3.3 ohm. A 3.3k ohm resistor is a 3,300 ohm resistor.
K stands for 1,000 so you take the number times 1,000 to get the ohms.
That's why I was so confused reading all the posts about it. A 10k potentiometer is over kill. Would be very hard to adjust all three speakers the same. A 10k resister there would be very little or no sound at all.
I even asked a local electronics repair person I went to high school with to make sure I did not have things mixed up. He said the k means you multiply the value by 1,000.
I put the resistors on the cabinet side that way if anyone had to change a speaker out on down the road the resistor would stay in the machine cabinet like it needs to so it would sound right with the other two speakers. The resistors are put on the white wires only.

[Stayouttadabunker]

O "k"! Good job! lol
You might be right about the "k's"
Just for kicks, what are the 4 colored rings on the resistors you used?
It might help someone later on.

[newkid3]

The four colored rings are Orange Orange Gold Gold. Here is a pic of them.

[Stayouttadabunker]

Awesome!
Those add up to 3.3 Ohms.
Don't ask me why but they put a "k" often, after the number because the 3rd gold colored ring is the multiplier of 0.1k

[newkid3]

I have been very sick for the last 10 days or so. That is why it has taken me so long to get back to this.
I hope this helps someone else on down the line. Because it was very confusing to me.

The 4 bands on a 3.3 ohm resistor are
Orange.     Orange.        Gold.           Gold
      3                3                .1k               5%
1st num.    2nd num.   Multiplier variance
K being relative to 1000
The reason the multiplier uses .1k is because
.1 of 1000 is 1
So 33 × .1 = 3.3 ohms
3.3 percent of 1000 equals 33
That makes it relative to k which is 1000

But it does not make it a 3.3k ohm resistor.
A 3.3k ohm resistor would be 3,300 ohms

Just because the multiplier has .1k in it does not make the figure you come up with a k figure.

Look at the pics from Digi-Key they do not use the k in there multipliers until it becomes relevant.
The places that have the k in there multipliers it is just because those multipliers are based on a percentage of 1000.
Hopefully this makes sense. The best I can explain it.

So with all this said and my experience with mine in my opinion a 10k potentiometer is way over kill. It would make it very hard to adjust them. They would be very touchy to get them set.
Think of having 10,000 volume positions and you have to turn it to position 3 or 4.
Where with a 10 ohm potentiometer you would have 10 volume positions and you have to get it to position 3 or 4. About like a knob on the old home stereos.

 A 10 ohm potentiometer would be plenty big enough.

[Retro tech repair]

The resistor mod is just the equivalent of permanently lowering the volume it doesn’t do anything to fix the actual issue. If lookes upgraded your board and your still having issues most likely the attenuation jumpers on the amp harness are wrong.

[newkid3]

I am not sure if Lookes actually did the upgrade to the board. I really just sent that one to get the Varta battery damage repaired. I do know he did some upgrade stuff on some of the 5 boards I sent him. Some of the updates where the sound updates. The noise was not very bad and it did not really get louder when you turned it up higher. All I know is the 3.3 ohm resistor totally did away with the little noise that was there and lost very little volume. It will still get up to about where it did before the Mod at about 8 or 9. Louder than I would ever want it in a house or playroom. Louder than you would have it in a casino. Actually I think that machine had a 504b board in it but I am not positive. I will have to see if I can find the box that he sent it back to me in. The machine is not here now. The main thing was that a 10k potentiometer was overkill. I was talking to a guy just yesterday that said he has had some arcade games and pinball machines that had some static noise like this and he tried everything to take care of it. The only way he could get rid of the static was a resistor in parallel with the speaker wire. He told me the resistor does lower the volume a very little but it does kinda filter out the electrical static noise. I do not know because I dont have enough experience with this kind of stuff. I was just going by what I read in a sticky on this site.  I was just letting people know what I experienced.  So when they tried a 10k resistor or potentiometer and got no sound or could not adjust it in good they would know why. I am definitely not saying I know better than anyone else I just know I read a bunch of post in different places that said they tried the 10k mode with no success. Just trying to help out. I will check the attenuation jumpers on the amp harness the next time I am around the machine.