Newbie help identifying Joker Wild Poker IA76C

[LuckyDog]

Hi All, contributing newbie here. I'm glad to have found this group. Just acquired my first machine: Joker Wild Poker.  No experience with THESE machines, have been working with all kinds of electronics for the last 40 years.

Need help identifying what I'm looking for.  I've found the awesome download area here, but don't know which schematics and manuals apply...PE?  Plus?  S  or... ?

present issue is "Call Attendant".  While attempting to follow the Reset & Key reset  sequence, the results scrambled the top half of display during powerup; muted the speaker; sent the sytem into a blank screen with a repeating sequence of blinking hold buttons while blinking the bottom 1/2 of the attendant light.

Battery Voltage is 3.6V

any advice appreciated.  Thanks LuckyDog

[rokgpsman]

Welcome to NLG   

and thank you for your contribution to help keep the site going!

Your main circuit board (called the "mpu" board) looks like a PE+ board to me. Others will say for sure. It is commonly called a PE+ "superboard", it has software in eproms that will let you run 5 different games. There is also a standard PE board that only allowed one game to run in the machine.

Inside the machine, usually near the mpu board, is a white TEST button. Pressing that will bring up your machine's Test and Setup screens. It will also display the game software that the machine has installed. I think you may need to use the reset key to access some of the information screens. The manual should have the instructions for that.

The software on the PE+ "superboards" usually has 5 different poker games, when you turn the machine on a menu screen will appear and you can select which game you want to play. The game software is contained in those socketed chips that have labels, plus the U43 chip without a label, it is also in a socket and marked "CAP PROM" on the board. The large chip that is near the battery, marked "MOSEL" on top, is the "cmos ram" chip. When the machine doesn't have power turned on the 3.6 volt battery keeps the data inside the cmos chip intact.

When the machine is powered ON it will first do some selftests, like checking the ram memory. If it detects a serious error it will not start the game, will display an error message.

For the error you are getting you can try this:

[EDIT - thanks Jim!]

turn on power to the machine, press and hold the white TEST button, turn on power to the machine, hold TEST button down until you hear a "ding", or for 10 to 15 seconds if speaker isn't working. That will sometimes reset things and clear out the error.  But your video display breaking up may be caused by something else. Check that there are no bent pins on the mpu board connectors and the backplane board that it plugs into. Also, the monitor has a set of adjustment pots, maybe the horiz or vert hold pot is flaky?

[Jim]

turn the machine off, press and hold the white test button, now continue holding the button while you apply power, keep holding until you hear a "ding" from the speaker.  this should restore the picture.

any other information displayed other than "call attendant"?  that is a PE+ machine,  picture of the inside will confirm that, you should have the board mounted in a metal housing above the monitor.  does the bill unit cycle when power applied?

Jim

[knagl]

Pictures of what you're seeing on the screen, or a brief video uploaded to YouTube with a link posted here will help with diagnosis.

The typical procedure to clear a PE+ machine showing "Call Attendant" is to open the door, press and hold the white Self Test button until you hear a ding (about five seconds), then close and latch the door and turn the jackpot reset keyswitch on the side of the machine once.  You may have to open the door and press and release the Self Test button again after that, depending on the errors displayed.

[Badbaud]

To be exact it is a PE Plus super board.

[LuckyDog]

Great response guys.  THANK YOU!  yes, it does have MPU above display in tray
rookie mistake...I hadn't found the power switch behind the hopper yet, and was turning the unit on/off by plugging in the power cord.  The white reset button worked right away when using the internal on/off switch!


Was able to play several hands successfully before display went black.  Coins in & out worked.  Bill changer took $1 OK.
The bill changer sounds like it goes thru a power-on sequence at turn-on, when opening/closing door; and every now & then; might coincide when display changes.  I've tried to keep on-time to a minimum so as to not cause any damage from error conditions.

Youtube video of display issue: 



Display went completely black after several minutes.  bill changer cycles at about 1 minute into video.

[knagl]

After your monitor cools down does it work again for a while?

The monitor issue is definitely that -- a CRT monitor issue, not PE+ specific.  I'm not a monitor expert, I'll defer to some of the other folks who know them better.  If after a while you don't get enough help with that aspect of your machine, I'd suggest trying a new post in the monitor repair tech support topic (here: http://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?board=30.0 ) along with that helpful video.  Give it a few days here though, first.

For what it's worth, the color pallete on the multi-game menu is wrong, which is an indication that you have the wrong CAPX chip on your board.  No harm from that, just wrong colors on the display.  Your multi-poker chipset requires a CAPX2174 for proper color display. 

I have no personal dealings with this member (so this is not an endorsement), but when I was looking up which CAPX chip you need, I found this recent post from a NLG member who mentioned he has a bunch of them available.

[LuckyDog]

Yes it comes back on after is sits awhile, tho it's on time is getting shorter each time.  Only about a minute the most recent try.  I did rotate the pots on top of display & wiggle, but didn't see anything unusual.  If this is supposed to be a touchscreen?  it doesn't seem to be
I did notice the hold buttons don't seem to light properly.  They seem to activate hold/release of cards, but the indicator lamps do not change, four of them always on.
Is there an easy access somewhere to measure power supply voltages with a meter & scope?
Is the bill changer power cycling a sign of anything?Thanks

[Badbaud]

Bill validator cycling is normal.Our shop repairs those older Ceronix monitors, or you could order a flat screen from Ceronix.Button lights staying on always could be some bad lamp drivers on the computer board.

[Amechanic]

Looks like the Ceronix chassis for the monitor needs to be serviced..

[LuckyDog]

Thanks. Does the entire display assembly slide out if I unplug the cable under the front of the display or are there others towards the back?

[LuckyDog]

Display unit doesn't appear to be mounted solidly to chassis, I can move it around somewhat.   The entire unit was transported (gently) laying on it's back to bring it home.

[rokgpsman]

Do you know if the machine had this display problem before you moved it?

If not, you can check all the cable connectors and connections, something might have gotten loose by vibration & shaking when the machine got moved. Check the power cable to the monitor, the wiring that connects from the machine to the monitor's circuit board, cables from the monitor circuit board to the crt, anything that looks like it might be a flaky connection. It's a good practice to unplug or disconnect a connector, then reconnect it solidly when you have something like this. If you don't find anything amiss then you'll have to decide to replace or repair the monitor.

But be careful, a monitor can have large voltages stored in it even when it is turned off or unplugged. The crt tube itself acts like a large storage capacitor when power is removed. So be very careful about touching the anode connection to the side of the crt (heavy wire that runs under the round suction-cup looking cover). Also the large black flyback transformer (mounted on the monitor circuit board) has high voltage. You'll want to be careful even when removing the monitor from the machine, try to handle it by the chassis frame.

[knagl]

Thanks. Does the entire display assembly slide out if I unplug the cable under the front of the display or are there others towards the back?

I haven't worked on an upright in a while, but I'm fairly certain that there's just the one plug you can access from the front, then the entire monitor assembly slides out towards you using the handles in the metal on the sides of the monitor.  As rokgpsman stated, there is still dangerous high voltage present even with the monitor unplugged, so don't go poking your fingers into the chassis, and do not touch or disconnect the thick red wire that goes into the back side of the monitor without following safe discharging procedures.

[LuckyDog]

Don't know if it worked or not when I acquired it.  Was told everything worked perfectly "Except low batt voltage error". 
No sign of a low battery yet (reads 3.6V ) but several other issues.
Was able to remove the display following the great instructions.
 
Thanks for all the great help guys!!  Likely won't get a chance to go any farther til next week sometime.
 
Have a Great Father's Day Weekend dads!

[rokgpsman]

If the seller was truthful to you and the monitor worked fine before you bought it then the display problem could be related to when it got moved. That can really jostle things around, and if you laid it down on its back or side and moved it then wiring might have been pulled in a direction it doesn't normally get pulled in. So if it worked fine before you moved it that's more reason to double-check all cabling, wiring harnesses, ribbon cables, connectors, power cable to the monitor, etc. On a crt monitor there is often a small circuit board or a cable with a socket that connects to the pins on the small end of the crt. I'd make sure that socket is connected securely to the crt pins. In general, look over all the connections, unplug and then reconnect any connectors that you can get to easily. One of them could be intermittent with a flaky connection.

[LuckyDog]

Thanks again for all the great help!  Units been well identified so I'll mark this as solved.  If we don't get er goin', I'll start a new post.  Thanks again to everyone!
UPDATE: Replacing the Ceronix 1492 took care of the video problem.  THANKS to AMECHANIC for having a rebuilt one avail !

Note to other newbies:  I saw the model #1492 label on the rear of the video enclosure and assumed the entire enclosure was included(Brackets, boards, tube....)  Didn't realize the tag was located on a metal bracket mounted on the Ceronix ckt board.  Purchasing a Ceronix #1492 includes the board assembly only!!  I drove 150 miles to get the unit because I didn't want the "TUBE" to be damaged in shipment. lol  It was a beautiful day for a drive tho.