july07 kp.pmd 1 6/22/2007, 2:24 PMslot-tech.com/members/magazine/lores/july07.pdfDear Readers, This month, I am happy to introduce you to Bill Mikulski from Greektown Casino. As you

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Page 4 - Editorial

Page 6 - LCDs and Fans need PMsToo

Page 12 - Quick Simple Repairs #27

Page 18 - New Addition to the Axis945 Family

Page 20 - Building a BEII test fix-ture

Page 26 - Game Level Trouble-shooting

Page 32 - New Guide to PowerFactor and Harmonics from StacoEnergy Products

Page 33 - FutureLogic Printers WinAward

Page 34 - TL431 and FrequencyCompensation

Page 38 - Subscriptions and OrderForm

July 2007

Inside Slot Tech Magazine

Peace

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July 2007Slot Tech MagazinePage 4

Slot Tech Editorial

Randy Fromm's

Slot Tech Magazine

EditorRandy Fromm

Technical WritersTed Befus, Marv Cohen,

Jason Czito, Herschel W.Peeler, Pat Porath, Ryan

Young

International ContributorMartin Dempsey

Slot Tech Magazine is publishedmonthly bySlot Tech Magazine1944 Falmouth Dr.El Cajon, CA 92020-2827tel.619.593.6131 fax.619.593.6132e-mail [email protected] the website at slot-techs.com

SUBSCRIPTIONSDomestic (USA) 1 year - $60.00 2 years - $120.00International 1 year - $120.00 2 years -$240.00

Copyright 2007 under the UniversalCopyright Convention. All rights re-served.

Slot Tech Editorial

Randy Fromm

Randy Fromm

Hi Randy:

Just wanted to share thiswith you. It is because of yourstyle of training that I wasable to do this. I rememberyou saying about power sup-plies on a CRT Monitor thatbasically a power supply is apower supply is a power sup-ply. They are all the same.The other day I took off theback of an LCD monitor thatwas in a blackout state. Itook off the back access paneland right in front of me wasa power supply board withthree capacitors staring mein the face that were blown.I replaced the three caps andvoila! It came up. You know

when I came to your [Tech-Fest] training, my main inter-est was trying to learn asmuch as I can about theLCDs. I guess it was a goodthing that I was paying atten-tion when you explained thediagnosis of CRT power sup-plies.

I’m looking forward toreading the upcoming articlethat we were discussingabout the Atronic and theissue with the fan stoppingand overheating the LCDs. Ifyou need any furtherinformation that I may helpyou with on this issue, I’vedone a lot of investigating onthis and have talked toAtronic I would be more thanwilling to share anything onthis subject.

Bill MikulskiGreektown Casino

Dear Bill,

Thanks for the nicecomments. As you havediscovered, electronic repaircan be just as simple as that.Most of the time, you don’tneed to be a genius to repairpower supplies and monitors.

Regarding the problem withAtronic’s e-motion fans:Since you know so muchabout this problem, whydon’t YOU write about it? Ithink it’s an importantarticle. Please consider andlet me know.

Randy

Dear Readers,

This month, I am happy tointroduce you to Bill Mikulskifrom Greektown Casino. Asyou read above, I met Bill atTechFest 15 andsubsequently asked him towrite up the issue with this“hidden” fan. Bill’s premierarticle begins on page six.Nice job, Bill.

Of course, you’ll also find PatPorath’s Quick and SimpleRepairs column as well as anice piece on general gametroubleshooting fromHerschel Peeler.

Also this month, we continuethe saga of the Acres BonusEngine II. In this issue, you’llfind an easy to build a testfixture for the BEII and its as-sociated peripheral devicessuch as the card reader, key-pad and Vacuum FlourescentDisplay (VFD).

See you at the casino.

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Slot Tech Feature Article

In this article, we are go-ing to direct our attentiontoward the Atronic e-mo-

tion games. I first noticed anissue with our e-motiongames approximately fivemonths ago; we were havingsome LCDs go out on us. Af-ter about the fourth LCD go-ing out, I started taking acloser look at why this mightbe happening. We have hadour e-motion games a littleover two years now. Thisseems to be the age of thegames when these problemsfirst occur.

With this new game design,some of the fans for keepingthe machine cool are not ob-vious. They’re kind of hiddenaway. I had been looking intothis issue at our casino, andI was amazed at where someof the fans are located andhow fast they get clogged. Itis easy for this fan to be ne-glected and overlooked be-cause it is so well hidden. Thedays of rebuilding hoppersare mostly in the past but theneed to do preventative main-tenance (PM) in games maybe more important than ever.It is time to look at taking

care of our expensive compo-nents. For instance, ourLCDs (yes, our LCDs) needPMs too!

I would like to take a momentto elaborate on the labor re-quired to change these LCDs.I would say to anyone whohas not yet changed one ofthese that it is a “challeng-ing” repair, which is a sort ofpolite way of saying that it’snot much fun. The labor timefor an average tech is aroundninety minutes. However, Imust say that if it takes youthree hours the first time,don’t be discouraged. Theyget easier as you changemore of them. I've provided adirect link to the Atronic’sservice manual. This givesyou step by step instructionson how to remove theplayfield and change outthese LCDs: http://tinyurl.com/27j3c7 The fileis actually located on Slot

Tech magazine’s technicalserver. I must say if youhaven't been there yet, takethe time to look around atslot-tech.com. There’s tons ofgreat information on all thethings we do as technicians.

I recently attended Tech Fest15 at Mystic Lake Casino inPrior Lake, Minnesota andwas curious to talk to othertechs across the nation aboutthis issue. I was very muchsurprised when I broughtthis up. The attention andquestions came up about thisproblem and one of the waysto help or fix it. As I was dis-cussing this with one of thetechs during break-time, wehad more and more techsgathering around and gettinginvolved in the conversation.This is where the idea for thisarticle came about, becausethere were so many ques-tions. So as a slot tech my-self, I thought this might also

LCDs and Fansneed PMs Too

By Bill Mikulski

Every fan is important. Whenthis fan becomes clogged itcan cause premature LCDmonitor failure.

The “hidden” fanis here, underthe button panel.

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be of interest to other techs(now that I know it is an is-sue in other casinos also).Our games at Greektown ca-sino in Detroit are now some-what close to two years old.We have 30 e-motion gameson our floor and in this twoyear period, we have had tenLCDs go out on us.

What’s going on here? Whatcould be contributing tothese LCDs failing prema-turely? Let me start out bysaying that I love the newdesign of the e-motion cabi-nets. Unfortunately, the cabi-net design may be a contribu-tor to the premature failureof the LCD. In the design ofthe cabinet, they have whatthey call the “playfield” whichhouses the two LCDs. Unfor-tunately, the playfield designdoes not leave much spacefor airflow. LCDs get rela-tively hot and as they getolder, they tend to get evenhotter. In the playfield, thereis a space of less than twoinches between the front andback of the LCD. Also, thedesign of stacking two LCDsin the same space, one on topof the other, creates moreheat in the same space. Al-though Atronic did keep thisin mind when they designedthis cabinet, it still holds heatand the heat seems toshorten the life of the LCDs.

Unlike most fans that ex-haust the air, the fan in thiscabinet takes outside air andblows it up through the spacein the playfield and out thevents on the top of the cabi-net. Unfortunately, the fan(which is located below thebutton panel) develops abuild-up of dust and dirt thatslows the fan, sometimebringing it to a complete stop.

Of course, this also restrictsor stops any airflow throughthe playfield, causing a build-up of heat which causesbreak down of the compo-nents. 95% of the time, itseems to be the top LCD. Thismight be due to the fact thatthe heated air generated bythe bottom LCD rises, caus-ing even more heat at the topLCD panel.

Ok, so here's what we can doto help prolong the life of ourLCDs. This fan under thebutton panel is quite hidden.With the game door open, onthe inside of the door thereare two latches. One latch re-leases the top glass. The onedirectly below it releases thebutton panel. Once you havelifted the button panel, on thebottom right you'll see thisfan. After a simple cleaning,you will see a sub-stantial difference inthe airflow of thefan. Simple, huh?

Unfortunately, bythe time this dirtyfan is noticed theremay have alreadybeen a significantbuildup of heat, shorteningthe life of your LCDs. If thatis the case, I would like toprovide you with some veryvaluable information. Thisinformation will save yourcasino hundreds ofdollars. We weresending our LCDsout in exchange forreconditioned LCDsat $400 apiece, un-til I attended TechFest 15 and pickedup this valuable bitof knowledge. Youcan repair these LCDmonitors for $22.60.

Once you have removed yourLCD, you will find fourscrews, two on either side ofthe LCD panel. With glassside down, carefully removeall four screws. Slowly lift themetal casing (I repeat,slowly). There will be fourconnectors going to a smallboard and one connector go-ing to your LCD inner panel.Carefully remove these con-nectors. Once you have re-moved the back, you will seeone small board, approxi-mately four inches long andone inch wide. This is the in-verter board. Out of all theLCDs I've changed out, 99%of the time it is this board.The part number is 492758-00 and the phone number toHapp Controls (where youc a n buy a replacement)

is 1-888-289-4277.

DIrection of airflow

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Troubleshooting LCDs

An LCD can be broken downinto just a small handful ofsub-assemblies: LCD glasspanel, CCFLs, Inverter,Power Supply and Video Con-troller board. The CCFLsthemselves can be replaced.The topic has been covered acouple of times here in SlotTech Magazine. If you look atthe CCFLs, they’ll likely bedarkened at the ends. If thisis the case, you most likelyhave a bad CCFL. Bad CCFLscan also cause the inverter toshut down. The symptom inthis case is a lamp that turnson for a few seconds and thenwinks out. CCFLs are avail-able from many of the adver-tisers you’ll see in this veryissue of Slot Tech Magazine.

The inverter board is used toconvert 12VDC to high volt-age AC to power the CCFLs.A volt meter can be used todetermine the working stateof the inverter board. Expectan AC output as high as 2kV.There is a three amp surfacemount fuse that blows onthis inverter board. I am nota board tech so I can't breakdown the components anyfurther. Some of the techswere telling me that they ac-tually jumper the fuse. I can’trecommend this but if itworks for you, it’s hard to

argue against it. However, for$22.20, is it worth the risk?Changing this inverter boardis quite simple.

I truly hope you all find thisinformation useful. And I'dlike to thank Randy for giv-ing me the opportunity andmost of all the encourage-ment to write this article. Ihave been in this businessover 25 years now. I startedout in the vending businessrepairing pinball machines,jukeboxes and amusementdevices. I have been atGreektown casino in Detroitsince they've been open, al-most eight years now in Oc-tober. I truly mean this: If anyof you techs out there arethinking of attending one ofthe TechFests, don't hesitate.As I said, I've been in thisbusiness quite a while but Ihave learned so much in thethree days that I attendedTechFest 15, I just can’t be-lieve it. It started the momentI walked in the door. Eventhough I'm pretty secure withmy tech skills, I was walkinginto a room 700 miles awayfrom home with 50 or 60techs from across the UnitedStates and from other partsof the world. So I might say Iwas a bit nervous, and curi-ous. But once Randy startedthe training I knew I hadmade a good choice and I

started to relax.

One thing I enjoyed the mostthat I didn't expect was talk-ing to all the other techs fromacross the nation. From timeto time, we would take a 15minute break and then anhour or so lunch break. Onthese breaks, we would dis-cuss the different problemswe would have at our casi-nos. This is where I pickedup a lot of great informationfrom other techs just like youand me. This was an addedbonus. We discussed every-thing from ticketing issues tohow the food was at their ca-sino. And this is how it cameabout that I wrote this article.

On the lighter side - As Iwalked in the casino, Ipassed some Siamese twinson their way out. I said, “Didyou win?” They said, “Yes andno.”

Okay, okay, okay, I did men-tion I was a technician not acomedian.

I would like to leave you withthis thought. Always remem-ber: Have fun! That’s ourbusiness.

- Bill [email protected]

.

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The DBV Without VDC

While working on aDBV 200 bill accep-tor assembly, noth-

ing I did would make a dif-ference in the operation. Thepower connector was un-plugged and re-plugged nu-merous times, the stackerbox was reseated a few times,connections were checked onthe bill acceptor power sup-ply end and nothing. Thewhole unit was completelydead, no sign of life at all. So,it was off to the shop to lookfor a replacement bill head.

With the replacement bill ac-ceptor head installed, it wasstill dead. Back to the shopagain to look for a power sup-

ply. No luck. I didn't see acomplete spare. Maybe therehappened to be one at ourwarehouse. I let a co-workerknow I was headed over thereand I would be off the floorfor a few minutes. He men-tioned that there should bespare DBV power supplyboards in the shop. Darn! Ididn't think to look for that.It ended up that there werethree spare boards waitingand ready.

Back at the game with thepower supply removed andthe cover off, it was obviousthat the unit was fried. Therewas the classic smell of"cooked electronics.” The fusewas blown badly and therewere some black spots on theboard. Once everything wasput back together, it was timefor the test. As soon as power

was applied to the gameand it started to initialize,the bill acceptor cycled justas if it were new. A simplereplacement of the bill ac-ceptor power supply boardand it was good to go.

The IGT AVP ThatWouldn't Boot Up Prop-erly

This particular game wasrunning fine until the bill

acceptor was cleaned, thenthe slot attendant called andstated that the gamewouldn't boot up properly. Itended up that the bill accep-tor had nothing to do withthe game not coming up. Itjust happened to have an er-ror at that time. The weirdthing was that the game dis-played something on the or-der of "authentication re-quired."

I asked a fellow tech whatwas up with this thing. I

Quick Simple Repairs # 27By Pat Porath

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hadn't seen this before. Hesaid that the game was stuckin the "boot menu." I hadn'tnoticed the lower left cornerof the screen where it dis-played "boot menu."

Some way, some how, thetest button had been pressedin and wouldn't release. Inother words the test buttonwas stuck in the "on" posi-tion. When this occurs on anAVP, it goes to the bootmenu. We tried to make theswitch release, but no luck,and to have a game downbecause of a faulty switchwas unacceptable. We couldhave replaced the completeprocessor board but then, asmost of us know, it would bequite the procedure. Break-ing the EPROM tape, a RAMclear, having to keychip thegame, etc.

In the end, we simply re-placed the switch. There wereonly five solder points. Ifound a bad board and weused the good switch from it.With the processor ready forboot up, power was appliedand the game was backonline.

IGT PE Plus

This was an older IGT PEPlus progressive that didn'thave COM to the sign. Whatan ordeal this game was. Theproblem was the machinewould not communicate withthe progressive sign. Thegame was gone through up,down and sideways. Darnnear everything was checkedand rechecked, still when thegame was being played, thesign would not increment. Wecould not leave it runningbecause if a customer hit the

royal flush jackpot and thesign didn't lockup, therewould be MAJOR problems.

One of the first things thatwere checked was the gameoptions. If "SAS" wasn'tturned on, then the gamewouldn't communicate. Sureenough "SAS" was on and theaddress was set the meterincremented. The laptop waseven taken out to have thegame checked but still no sig-nal was sent increment to thesign. A RAM clear was per-formed and game optionswere set up but still nothing.

Connections were checkedand rechecked under thegame where it plugs into theprogressive wire harness,connections were alsochecked at the backplaneboard of the game. Nothingmade sense, everythinglooked in order. It was pos-sible something on the pro-cessor board died, so thatwas replaced. STILL no sig-nal to the progressive sign.

One thing that is fortunatefor us is good old"swaptronics." This is whereit is sometimes possible toswap parts back and forthfrom a game next door totroubleshoot what is goodand bad. Two similar games,one working and one not.Since practically everythinghad been checked and thegame had been "gonethrough" I thought to checkout the game next to it. Ma-chine options were checkedonce again, wires werechecked for good connec-tions, wait a minute... Whatwas this? Why in the worldis this progressive cableMISPINNED? Ok, this game

is working fine, talking to thesign and the cable ismispinned? I've seen weirderthings so why not? The non-working game was shut downand the cable was put backon, displaced by one pin (thesame as the working game)and guess what? The gameworked perfectly! Logicallylooking at the cable, a techwould think “Off by one pin?Connect it properly and itshould work.”

Not in this case. Sometimesslot repair doesn't makemuch sense. Like the timesworking on a bill acceptorand it is totally dead, youswap it with the game nextto it and BOTH work. Or anLCD that is black and only asimple reboot gets it workingagain. Anyway, by compari-son with the game next to thebad one the game finally wasput back in play.

Atronic e-motion ThatWon't Show Bill DoorClosed

On the e-motion games, thebill door switch is located atthe far lower left of the game,behind the hopper door. Thedoor has to come off so theswitch can be examined tomake sure that it's hooked upand didn't get smashed. Toremove the hopper door, sim-ply unlock it, slide the doorto the left and lift upward.The switch is in the upper leftquadrant of the hopper area(if the game has a hopper).When you look at the door,you can see where the"switch striker plate" toucheswhen the door is in the closedand locked position. The

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problem with this particulargame was that the bill doorswitch wasn't getting pressedenough to ensure a switchclosure. A VERY slight bendin the "striker plate" curedthe problem. Once this wasdone, the game showed theproper "open and closed" billdoor display on the gamescreen. Be careful becausetoo much of a bend in theplate may break the switch.

Aristocrat System BonusProblem

Aristocrat has come out witha newer version of the SPC2EPROM. (A.K.A. the commu-nication board chip). If yoursystem is running "SASBonusing" you may need theupgrade to prevent errors.The upgrade starts at version01.04.04 or higher. We re-cently did a conversion on abank of Aristocrat pennygames back to the popular"CASHMAN" theme. Includedin the conversion kit was thenew version of the SPC2 chipwhich was 01.04.07. It iseasy to spot the SPC2 boardand the EPROM. Take off thegame top glass and on mostgames it is right there. Thechip is marked U3.

No Power to the Bill Accep-tor on an Upright Aristocrat

This was a weird one. Thesymptom was obvious. Therewas no power to the bill ac-ceptor. I guess it could havefried, but none the less, thereweren't any of the powerlights lit up on it. The unit inthe game is a UBA and it wasswapped with the game nextto it. Same outcome though,no power. The boards werereseated. Maybe the I/O

board came loose somehowbut that didn't help either.Power problem right? Whynot check the power supplyconnections and swap powersupplies? It was done, stillthe same thing. The 24 pinconnector directly behind thebill acceptor assembly waschecked again and somehow,some way, it had beenplugged in BACKWARDS(which included bent pins).Finally the problem area hadbeen identified, now the cure.The 24 pin "union" betweenthe connections got straight-ened out and carefully putback into the game, withpower off of course. Once themain power switch wasturned on, BINGO! Bill ac-ceptor power had been estab-lished. It cycled and lit upbeautiful.

IGT Indiana Jones - No Dis-play

I received a call on an IGT "In-diana Jones" progressivegame. It didn't have the sevensegment display lit up. A cus-tomer was in the middle ofplaying it and she com-plained that she couldn't seeher credits. That is a prob-lem. One of the first items Ichecked for was loose I/Ocards. Sometimes there aretwo in the main slot door andone inside of the game. Withthe power off, I lightly pressedon each of the cards on theslot door and one was loose.With power back to the gameand snug I/O cards, the dis-play and credits came rightback. Be sure to power downthe game when checking forloose cards. First, look closelyto see if one sticks out far-ther than the other or fartherout of the frame. If so, it may

be loose. Be sure to power thegame off BEFORE pushing inthe cards. They do not like tobe "hot swapped" and theywill go bad if plugged in "hot."

Numbers Inoperative onthe CDS Keypad

At the casino I work, we arerunning CDS also known asthe "Oasis" system. Once ina great while, a select few ofthe numbers won't work onthe keypad so a slot atten-dant can't punch in his or herfailure or repair code. Re-cently, the number fivewouldn't work when pressed,the first thing I thought ofwas to replace the unit. ThenI thought again. Why notcheck into the problem first?

With the player trackingbracket removed and thecables still attached, I useda small flat blade screwdriverand pressed each wire firmlyinto its place. Next, came thetest. The number five and allof the rest of the buttonsworked great. This saved atrip to the shop and savedtime by not having to replaceit. So, if a number or two isn'tworking on a CDS keypad,check to make sure all of thewires are snug in place. Notonly have I seen this with thekeypad but also with COM inand COM out cables on theSentinal end. A poor connec-tion makes for poor slot ma-chine communication. Cardreader cables too. If it isn'tworking properly, it may havea poor connection.

- Pat [email protected]

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Troubleshooting andtesting the Acres track-ing system and its as-

sociated parts can be simpli-fied by building a bench testfixture. The “brain” for thetest fixture is the Acres BEII,which is short for Bonus En-gine Two. The BEII connectseverything together inside thegame machine and the testfixture. Two notes before weproceed: For this article Iused the VFD (Vacuum Flo-rescent Display) version ofthe BEII setup. There is atouch screen version calledNexgen, but that is reservedfor a future article. For thisarticle, I have used the VFDand card reader programs.The versions are both 4.02D.The menu version for theBEII is 18.08L-00. IGT haspurchased the Acres playertracking system and re-named it IGT Advantage sys-tem. Because of the namechange, IGT may have madesome minor changes to newerinstallations to which thisarticle does not apply.

This test fixture will let youcompletely test the cardreader, keypad and the VFDdisplay easier than if you had

to do it on the casino floor.Also, using a little known andundocumented featurewithin the BEII program, youcan test the BEII RAM and I/O ports.

To assemble the test fixture,you will need one BEII as wellas one of each of the follow-ing sub-assemblies: a cardreader, keypad, VFD andpower supply. Don’t forgetthat you will also need all ofthe harnesses that connecteverything together to makeyour test fixture functional.The UID (Unique IDentifier)harness which connects tothe game machine harness isnot required for the test fix-ture to operate. If you havetrouble identifying har-nesses, the game machineharness is the one with the

long white 26 pin connector.The UID harness connects tothe game machine harnessand has a small black shrinkwrap covered circuit boardattached. The UID harness isgame specific and sometimesthe UID harness can be quitelarge. You can easily testthose harnesses at a laterdate. Don’t forget the BEII toVFD 7 pin harness, the VFDto card reader grey 16 pin rib-bon cable and the short 3 pinkeypad to card reader har-ness. There will be a few morecustom harnesses you willneed to create to be able doadditional testing. I will coverthose later.

As you can see in the picture,I assembled everything on apiece of wood that was about17 inches by 12 inches that

Building a BEII test fixtureBy Vic Fortenbach

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was lying around the shop. Iused some wood screws andVelcro to attach everything tothe wood. To make testing thekeypad and card readereasier, I used a standardmounting panel from a gamemachine. The Acres VFDcome in three sizes: a fiveinch, a seven inch and a largemounting seven inch. I choseto use a large mounting seveninch VFD for the test fixturefor a few reasons. The largeseven inch VFD is only usedon a very few machines andwe had a stockpile of them.There is less chance of some-one stealing it off the test fix-ture in using it for a game onthe floor.

Because the chosen VFD hadlarge mounting, it would notfit on the metal bracket. Imounted the VFD on 2 anglebrackets and bent them forthe desired viewing angle.This makes it very easy to seethe VFD display when the

test fixture is on the bench.For the test fixture’s on/offswitch, I connected a whitecherry switch up to the powersupply. This type of switch isperfect, since it has a mo-mentary push on, as well asa pull on to stay on feature.The push on function of theswitch to monetarily powerthe test fixture is handy fortroubleshooting.

You don’t have to follow myplacement of the compo-nents, feel free to arrange thecomponents to make testingeaser for you. You shouldhave no problems connectingup the harnesses to the vari-ous devices. All the connec-tors are the same as if youwere connecting everythingto the BEII and to a gamemachine’s player trackingpanel.

Once you have assembled,connected, and double-checked your work, quickly

push and release the powerswitch. If there is no smoke,it’s safe to pull the switch towatch the test fixture cometo life. If all is well, the cardreader will beep and the cardreader’s LED bezel will lighta flashing yellow color. TheVFD will display the words“Acres Gaming VFD16B0.02I Player Tracking.”Then the VFD will then dis-play “COMM.” COMM isshort for communicating andis an indicator that the BEIIis trying to download code orcommunicate to the network.

I know what you’re thinking,“I can’t test a BEII system ona bench since I do not have aconnection to the network.”

You really do not need a con-nection to the network to testall the functions of the BEIIand its related components.You probably already knowabout the dip switch testmode that is available on the

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:28 PM22


VFD. By moving dip switch number 8 on theVFD to “on” to enable the “test mode 0” youcan then push buttons on the keypad ormove additional dip switches to enable a se-ries of test modes for testing the VFD dis-play, card reader, card reader bezel colorsand keypad functions. Since this test is prettystandard, I’m not going to spend a lot of timeon this. While these tests are good, it doesnot do any “in depth” testing of the BEII. Spe-cifically, it does not test the I/O ports andthe BEII RAM

To do a more complete test on the BEII, youwill need to access the undocumented testmode I mentioned earlier. This test mode isalready built into the BEII and accessed onlyby the pressing bonus button. Again you’reprobably thinking that the bonus button isno longer used. True, it’s not used for playeruse but that does not stop the technician.To access this test mode, you first need toconnect the bonus button. On the cardreader board are three connectors: P1, P3and P6. The bonus button is connected tothe card reader on a four pin connector la-beled P3. There are a total of three connec-tors on the edge of the card reader’s circuitboard. P1 is for a key switch that is not usedand P6 is for the keypad.

The bonus button connection to the cardreader uses the two pins closest to the P6keypad connector. The other two pins on thebonus button connector (P3) are for the bo-nus button light. Since the bonus buttonlight will not function, you can use any nor-mally open push button switch. You can seethe bonus button mounted on my test fix-ture below the cutout for the VFD on themetal panel.

Once you have connected the bonus button,you will also have to create the previouslymentioned additional harnesses to performsome in depth BEII testing. On the BEII thereare three data ports. The first one is the OLnetwork isolated port, labeled P3 on the BEII.Do not confuse this P3 connector on the BEIIwith the Bonus button connector also labeledP3 on the card reader. The second port onthe BEII is the game machine port or slotmachine interface (remember the long 26 pinconnector) and the third one is the account-

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:28 PM23


ing port. I’m not going tocover the accounting port,since very few casinos use it.I’m sure you’re familiar withthe OL port; it’s the four pinconnector that is connectedto the OL wire that is run be-neath the game machines inthe base area. You also usethis port to “shoot” the BEIIwith game data from a lap-top computer called the Li-bretto. The game machineport is the long series of pinson the edge of the BEII. Totest either the OL port or thegame machine interface port,you will need to create a spe-cial harness. This harnesshas two connectors and iscalled a “loop back.” The loopback harness does just whatits name implies. It will “loopback” a signal or pulse gen-erated on its output port toits input port to be read bythe BEII. This test checksboth the input and the out-put port circuitry at the sametime. Obviously, if the outputsignal does not loop back intothe input port, something iswrong with the ports cir-cuitry. To assemble the loopback connector harness, youwill need a one, four pin and

one, six pin connector body,eight male pins and somewire. I made one completeharness assembly for boththe OL and game machine’sports. The picture shows theconstruction of the loop backharness and connectors.

Since the BEII I/O ports areisolated from the rest of theBEII, you will need to providepower to the ports for themto function. Normally thebank controller and the gamemachine would provide +12volts to the I/O ports, butsince +12 is not easily avail-able on the test fixture, Ifound that +5 volts providesenough voltage to power andtest the I/O ports with noproblems. For the OL connec-tor, pin 1 (+5, Vcc) and pin 4(ground) provide power to theport. For the game machineinterface connector, pin 4 is+5 and pin 9 is ground. Thefirst three pins on the gamemachine interface are for theUID harness connection. Thepin labels are silk-screenedon the BEII board for easilyidentification. The easiestway get a power connectionto the I/O ports is make the

loop back harness so it sim-ply plugs into the keypadharness, in place of the key-pad. Since you are not goingto test the keypad and per-form the BEII I/O port testat the same time, this +5voltconnection is ideal. Once youhave created the loop backconnectors, you’re good to gowith testing the BEII I/Oports.

Each I/O port on the BEIIhas a red and green LED in-dicator near each connector.This LED indicator will be thekey to troubleshooting the I/O ports. The red LED is forthe data in to the port andgreen is for data out from theport. If you watch the portLEDs when the BEII is in-stalled in a game machine,you will notice the red LEDis brighter and lit more of thetime than the green LED is.The reason is because moredata coming in to the BEIIfrom the network than thereis data going out. When youtest the I/O ports, the pulsesignal is so fast, both colorsof the LED will appear to belit for the same time, al-though the red LED will seem

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:28 PM24


brighter.

You already know that thebonus button accesses thein-depth mode of the BEII. Iffact, there are over 16 differ-ent tests you can perform onthe BEII using this test. A fewof the tests are duplicatedfrom the VFD dip switch testso you can use either testmode but I find using onlythe bonus button mode is theeasiest.

Connect the loop back har-ness you made to the cardreader harness, P3 on theBEII OL connector and to theSlot Machine Interface. Afteryou have powered up yourBEII test fixture, you shouldhave the familiar COMM onthe VFD. Don’t panic, this isgood. Start the in-depth testby pushing the bonus but-ton. Since this in-depth testis undocumented, there area few tests that I have not fig-ured out what they do.

Chart #1 lists each test andwhat it seems to do. The firsttest displays the letters AFKU01 on the VFD. The A and theF “map” to the Aux inputs(P9) below the game ma-chines interface connector. Ifyou want to see this test inaction, take a screwdriver orclip lead and short togethertwo pins on one of the twoaux ports, The A or F letterwill not be displayed whenthe aux port is shorted. Thetext for which aux port andpins is silk screened on theBEII board. Very few casinosuse these AUX ports. Thesecond test is for the cardreader. This is self-explana-tory. The third test is the UIDtest. This will display the se-rial number of the UID chip.If you do not have an UID

harness connected to the testfixture, the VFD will displaythe numbers 4294967295.The fourth through theeighth tests, again, are selfexplanatory. The ninth testdisplays letters ABI on theVFD and turns on the“beeper” on the card reader.Test number ten is for thekeypad. The VFD displayreads KEY: the other two ab-breviations are ATT and SVC.

Now this is where it gets fun.The eleventh test is the nowfamous BEII RAM test. Youdo not need to do anythingto start this test. This testsall 16 pages of the BEII RAM.An OK will display after eachpage has been tested. I setthe test fixture to run thistest overnight when I have aproblem with a heat sensitiveBEII. So far I have foundthree BEII boards with badRAM pages. The twelfth testseems to be for the account-ing port, but I’m not sure. Itdisplays on the VFD, NIKONo ACT. The last three testsutilize the loop back harnessyou created earlier. The VFDwill display the following textfor each push of the bonusbutton; OL LOOP FAILED (orOK) EGM LOOP FAILED (orOK). The accounting loop isthe last test in this set. Thesecond test is labeled EGMbut it actually tests the gamemachine interface connector.Like the OL LOOP, test failedor OK is displayed. After youhave advanced though thebonus button tests, thewords OFF LINE are dis-played. To restart this seriesof tests, just push the bonusbutton again.

- Vic [email protected]

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:28 PM25



All techs face this prob-lem every day: Gamedown. This is what we

are there for. Most problemswe have seen a zillion timesand know what the problemis from first hand experience.But how do you approachthose problems that are newto you or intermittent prob-lems that only come up oncein a while and then magicallydisappear? Most of the fol-lowing will be obvious to sea-soned techs. For those ex-perts, y'all can pass on thisarticle unless you just wantsomething to read. For newertechs, you might find it help-ful.

Just tell me what part tochange! Nothing wrong withthis at all. The likelihood thatthe problem you are experi-encing has been experiencedby somebody else before ispretty good. Don't be afraidto “phone a friend.” The SlotTech forum is a great placeto reach other techs at other

casinos in one user-friendlyplace. This can be found atforums.delphiforums.com/slottech. There is no fee tojoin Delphi forums at the ba-sic level but joining can bedone at a small fee with morethan basic features. My anti-virus software flags the forumas a "dirty site" because ofsome adware they use. Ithink this adware is harm-less. I just have the softwaremark it as friendly. It is notmalicious or viral. Perhapsyou can just look at it as thecost of joining the forum thatis otherwise free. I have neverhad the hint that they sell myemail name. I use my realname on the forum and havenever had any trouble be-cause of it.

Those who hang out in theforum are people of the bestquality, not hackers, gamersor spammers. There are quitea few top-notch techs on theforum that freely share theirknowledge and experiencewith others.

What does the error reportactually mean? Sometimesyou get no actual error re-port. The game just malfunc-tions with no message. Forthose times when you do get

an error report, make an ef-fort to understand what theerror report actually means.Sometimes they will pointyou to an operation you canrelate to a circuit. Sometimesnot.

The game just hangs up!

What is the game trying todo? In many cases the gamecannot do another operationuntil the present operation iscompleted. The game is notmalfunctioning. It is doingexactly what it is designed todo. The next game cannotstart until the accounting ofthe last game is properlycompleted. If the customer iscashing out, the game maynot be able to do a differentoperation until the printingor cashing out is properlycompleted.

Identify what the game lastwas doing before it hung up.Try to figure out what thegame is trying to do now.Most games have an actionslist that describes what thegame is doing at any giventime. Somewhere in the bow-els of the menus is a historyof operations where it makesa note of what action it startsand what actions get com-

Game Level TroubleshootingBy Herschel Peeler

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:29 PM26


pleted. This can give you anidea of what circuit is mal-functioning.

RAM Clear

Clearing RAM does not fix aproblem. It only makes thegame forget that there was aproblem. Whatever it wasthat caused your problem isstill in the game. When thatcondition occurs again thegame will fail again.

Most events that occur in agame are represented by datathat is stored in RAM. Clear-ing RAM erases the fact thatthe problem existed. Unfor-tunately, clearing RAM canalso lose accounting and/oroptions. Most games havedifferent levels of clearingRAM: Clearing errors, clear-ing errors and accounting orclearing options and every-thing. If you do a RAM Clear,it is always a good idea to goback and check options tomake sure you didn't changeanything else that was impor-tant. When in doubt, checkoptions with a similar gameto be sure they are set right.

Clearing RAM also does notactually Clear RAM. It setsRAM back up to a knowncondition, sets specific op-tions, enables or disables cer-tain features in the game. Theconditions it sets are not al-ways zeros.

Get it down to an assembly

If you can, swap out the mostlikely assemblies. Firstchoice is to swap in a knowngood assembly from a stock

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:29 PM27


of good assemblies. Anotheroption is to swap assembliesfrom a known good game. Ineither case, make sure theassemblies are swappable. Abill validator for a Bally gamemay not work on an IGTgame. A bill validator for onemodel IGT game may notwork on another model of IGTgame. The wisdom is inknowing the difference.

MAKE A NOTE. Make a clearnote in the involved game(s)that you have changed theassemblies so somebody fol-lowing your act can clearlyunderstand what was done.

Does the Game Pass Power-On Self Test?

I can't think of a game thatdoesn't have a POST. Your PCdoes this on power up. Themicroprocessor goes out andchecks as much of the sys-tem as it can. It checks formemory and I/O to be whereit is supposed to be. Checksmemory to be the right type.It tests RAM. It does achecksum of EPROMs. It maygo out and check a disk, DVDor CD drive. The morememory the system has, thelonger it can take.

Memory tests are probablythe biggest reason it takessome games so long to powerup. Many games are notstate-of-the-art but are 16-bitmachines running at lowtwo-digit speeds. This putsthem on par with the pro-cessing power of an originalIBM PC AT. It just doesn'ttake much to play a game.Newer games may be a last

generation personal com-puter with a few bells andwhistles added to make it aslot machine. If you under-stand what POST does andhow your computer (or game)works, you can make goodsense of POST failures. Inthis is the value of A-Pluscertification that somemanufacturers are starting torequire of their techs.

POST is not all-encompass-ing. Passing POST just saysthe game does not have ma-jor integrity issues. Tests goby fairly quickly in POST. In-termittent problems can beglossed over quickly and notfail in POST.

Does the problem show upin game diagnostics?

I can't think of a game thatdoes not have diagnosticsyou can run to check opera-tion of specific circuits.Memory tests can be run atlength to check for intermit-tent operation. Serial I/Oports can be put in Loopbackmode and tested better thanPOST can. Most major pe-ripheral assemblies also havea microprocessor in them.Tests in peripheral devicescan often be invoked throughgame diagnostics.

Use these diagnostics. If youare having a bill validatorproblem but the bill valida-tor constantly passes diag-nostics, this points to a prob-lem in software that is uniqueto the software version andnot the bill validator itself.Use diagnostics to define if aproblem is hardware or soft-

ware oriented.

Serial I/O Loopback Test

Not done in POST, mostgames have a test that allowsthe transmit side of the com-munications channel to befed back to the receive sideand let the serial port talk toitself. This can be done at dif-ferent levels in most UARTs.The loopback can be builtinto the UART to test theUART. If this works but itfails when the loopback plugis plugged into the backplaneit identifies the problem to bein the interface of the boardor to the backplane. If itworks at the backplane butnot if the loopback is placedat the far end of the cable,you have the problem nar-rowed down to a cable.

The design of the loopback isusually pretty simple. Mostserial ports just use TxD andRxD. Tie them together. Openthe circuit. Insert theloopback and run Loopbacktest.

What Does the Tech ManualHave to Say?

Okay this can be a joke.Some manuals have little orno help here. Some give onlyvague or obvious hints ontroubleshooting. Some techmanuals are good, some arenot. Few are REALLY good.For an example of a good techmanual, look at a Ceronixmonitor tech manual. It de-scribes overall operation ofthe monitor. It breaks downeach circuit and describeshow it works. Compare this

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:29 PM28


to some manufacturer'smanuals that contain in-structions on how to operatethe game and set up options.A few tech manuals are com-plete enough in that they atleast have overall wiring dia-grams and wiring diagramsof the boards with a parts list.

Was the Game Doing AnyParticular Operation JustBefore Failure?

This would help get the prob-lem down to a particular cir-cuit or software routine. Doesit happen when the game isidle, during normal gameplay or just when doing aparticular operation?

Is it Thermal?

A more difficult troubleshoot-ing since I don't think somemanufacturers make a test

fixture for their games. Un-der normal operation (so youare using parts of softwareother than diagnostics andare using the softwareroutines that fail) put a heatgun to the board and see ifyou can find a componentthat fails when heated andgives the symptoms you arelooking for. See if you cannarrow it down with freezespray and a heat gun.

Test fixtures are gamesturned inside out so you haveaccess to the boards for test-ing and troubleshooting. Of-ten the same software is usedas is used in the game. Some-times jurisdictional rulestake over and the software isjust the game diagnosticswith no ability to play a game.If the manufacturer doesn'tsell one, you can build oneby gutting a game and creat-

ing your own. Price is aboutthe same as buying a test fix-ture.

The decision to build yourown test fixture is based onhow many of these games willneed to be supported andhow many board problemsyou expect to run into. It maybe cheaper to just buy yourway out of board problemsinstead of buying or buildingtest fixtures and trainingtechs on component leveltroubleshooting.

Is there a software differ-ence between those gamesthat have this failure andones that do not?

This might point to a softwareproblem that the manufac-turer might have a solutionfor already. Not always anoption in most jurisdictions

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:29 PM29


but if you move that MPUboard to another game, doesthe problem move with it?Same with I/O boards. Canyou get it down to an assem-bly you can move betweengames? Is this problem spe-cific to a particular gametheme? This points to a prob-lem in Game Software specifi-cally, a Game-specificEPROM or PAL. If the prob-lem is experienced on variousgame themes but is limitedto a certain game model theproblem may be unique toOperating System or MainEPROMs.

Call the Manufacturer

Okay, this can also be a joke.Sometimes the manufactur-ers have a quite friendly website or even a forum whereyou can get to the tech sup-port. Other times you get aperson who only reads froma script and answers onlyspecific questions withcanned answers. Sometimesyou can't get any help at all.

Power Supply Related?

AC supply looks good for volt-age and noise? DC power onthe board looks good for volt-age and noise compared to agame that does not show thisproblem? Ideally, this re-quires a meter and scope.Trying to measure AC rippleon a DC line with a meter isquestionable. Most commonmeters will measure accurateAC only at low frequenciesand will not measure higherfrequencies from switchingpower supplies. An oscillo-scope is best for looking at

noise on DC lines. It is hardto do this on the floor. Doingit at the bench requires thatthe board be powered up. Itdoesn't have to be in full op-eration.

No Blinking FluorescentLamps?

Keep in mind the lamp canbe flashing faster than theeye can react so you can't seeit and still cause a malfunc-tion in the game. Remove thelamps and see if the gamestill fails. Blinkingfluorescents create a mess ofelectromagnetic noise thatcan bleed over into over linesand wreak havoc.

These same steps would beuseful on any game or model.It doesn't require a highlytechnical ability to do them,but it doesn't hurt to have aworking understanding ofembedded microprocessoroperations to make sense ofthe symptoms you see. Themore you understand of whatyou see the better you cantroubleshoot the game. Youcan always just change partsuntil the problem goes awaybut there are potential prob-lems here. This will not finda cabling problem. If the ca-bling problem is what is kill-ing the board, you will justkeep destroying board afterboard and come to no con-clusion. If it is a bad powersupply killing boards, youcould kill a lot of high dollarboards before finding theproblem. If it is a board thatis killing power supplies, youcould go through a lot ofpower supplies before realiz-

ing what is going on.

Cost of Repairs

If a game is set for a Hold of5%, every dollar the repaircosts loses the casino twentydollars of Handle. That gamewill not make a profit againuntil the cost of the repair iscovered. A $1,000 assemblyreplaced loses the casino$20,000 in Handle. Just be-cause the game is workingagain does not mean it is cre-ating revenue. Defectivegames can be replaced withnew games. This is the mostexpensive solution but re-quires no technician at all,hardly. Games can be re-paired by replacing assem-blies at high cost. This re-quires a minimal of techni-cal talent. Boards and assem-blies can be repaired at thecomponent level for smallchange or small dollars. Thisrequires the heaviest techni-cal talent. Every casino must,at some point in their devel-opment, decide what methodthey are going to use. Mostfall on some level between thethree choices listed above.

Cost of training

Do you promote from withinand do your own training fortechnicians or do you hiretrained technicians from theoutside? Again, most casinoschoose a point somewherebetween these two extremes.In any case, the trainingshould match the job de-scriptions. Evaluation oftechnicians should match thetraining. What is the cost oftraining compared to the cost

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:29 PM30


of having down games or do-ing expensive repairs? RandyFromm (publisher of thismagazine) offers an excellenttraining program that takestwo weeks to complete. It as-sumes no previous knowl-edge of electronics and cov-ers basic electronics, powersupply repair, CRT monitorrepair and LCD monitor re-pair. It can be customized toadd printer repair and BVrepair as well.

An alternate is to hire a se-nior level tech that can dotraining of the techs. Usuallythese techs ask a higher thannormal price and expect solidemployment in the long run.An alternate is to hire a se-nior level tech for a pre-ar-ranged short period at ahighly salary. Such a tech

should have a very specifictask to be accomplished in aset time of, say, two to fouryears. In that time the objec-tive would be to develop atraining program and set up

operations that would surviveafter he left.

- Herschel Peeler- [email protected]

july07_kp.pmd 6/22/2007, 2:30 PM31



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Slot Tech Electronics 101

Basic to modern,switching power sup-ply design is the con-

cept of optical feedback. Youwill see various modificationsof this design but in general,they are all more or less thesame.

Why Optical Feedback?

In a switched-mode powersupply, circuitry on the pri-mary side of the power trans-former must remain dis-tinctly separate from the cir-cuitry on the secondary. Theymust be totally “isolated”from each other. Isolation, inthis case, means that thereis no direct metallic (Gal-vanic) connection betweenthe primary winding and thesecondary winding.

Isolation is a good thing. Wehave covered the topic of iso-lation as far back as the Oc-tober 2001 issue with a brieflook at the isolation trans-former. In conventionalSMPS designs, isolation isprovided the power trans-former itself. Just about alltransformers (with the no-table exception of the “au-totransformer”) have the in-herent property of isolation,provided by the fact that pri-mary and secondary wind-ings are not connected toeach other. They are simplytwo windings, wound on thesame core. They share themagnetic field of the core,nothing more.

In an SMPS, we maintain iso-lation by using an opto-iso-lator for our regulation feed-back. Again, we have coveredthis topic extensively in pre-vious issues (September2004) and I don’t want to re-hash the same old subject.We light up the LED in theopto-isolator with voltagefrom the secondary output ofthe power supply. The higherthe voltage, the brighter theLED shines. We read thebrightness of the LED withthe phototransistor in theopto-isolator, which is con-nected to the PWM controlcircuitry on the primary sideof the transformer. In thisway, the secondary can “talk”to the primary without actu-ally touching it, which is for-bidden if you want to keepsome and flames to a mini-mum.

But if you want to maintaintight voltage regulation, youneed to go just onestep further. Youneed to control thebrightness of theLED under a vari-ety of changingload conditions ofboth high and lowfrequencies. Youneed one more el-ement in the chainof regulation so getto know the TL431because the littlething is in darnednear everythingthese days. In our

industry, we find them usedin monitors and we find themused in low voltage powersupplies as well. For the sakeof discussion, this example isfrom an Aristocrat 14 VDCpower supply but this samediscussion applies to anyoutput voltage.

You can think of the TL431as a sort of programmableZener diode. It is a “shuntregulator” that can be pro-grammed to be any voltagefrom a minimum of 2.5 voltsto a maximum of 37 volts.Inside the device, an internal2.5 volt reference is com-pared to the voltage that isapplied at the reference pininput. This reference voltageis derived by a resistor volt-age divider (R96, R97, andR100). The TL431 providesthe gain that is needed at low

TL431 and Frequency Compensation

Con’t pge 36

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frequencies so that the LEDin the opto-isolator will pro-duce enough of a change inbrightness in order to signalthe primary side and com-pensate for the low frequencychanges in the load.

But this gain is not neededat high frequencies. The gainof the opto-isolator itself (theCTR or current transfer ra-tio) works just fine, withoutany assistance from theTL431’s gain, thank you verymuch. This leads to a sort ofengineering dilemma wherehigh frequency changes inload can produce larger volt-age swings than low fre-quency loads, making tightregulation impossible.

Compensation

I’m not talking about whatyou’ll receive from the gov-ernment if you smash yourfoot by dropping a slot ma-chine on it. In this case “com-pensation” is “frequencycompensation” which is theway we can control the fre-quency response of variouscircuitry. By using a combi-nation of resistors and ca-pacitors primarily, we canintegrate the various load fre-quencies and “tell” the TL431how to behave at certain fre-quencies. In the exampleshown, the compensationnetwork is made from C119,R103 and C89, a 1 uf, bipo-lar capacitor. The compen-sation network allows theTL431 to maximize its con-tribution at very low frequen-cies and to remove its influ-ence at higher frequencies.The connection of C89 andR103 between the cathodeand the reference terminal of

the TL431 allows maximumloop gain at DC for the bestvoltage regulation.

When you have weird regu-lation problems (such as lowvoltage) and yet all of the sec-ondary filter capacitors testout perfectly good (or youhave replaced them to noavail) this is one place to look.It the capacitor in the com-pensation network goeswonky, regulation will suffer.

I see this time and time againin my tech classes. A groupwill be struggling with apower supply, trying to getthe voltage to come up to aproper level. They will have

tested/replaced all of the BIGcapacitors but with no suc-cess. They will ask for myhelp and I’ll point to somedinky little 1 uf cap and askthem if they checked it. Theanswer is invariably “no” fol-lowed by the comment thatgoes something like “Butthat’s so small! That can’t beit, can it?”

Shucks, every part doessomething! Just ‘cause it’sdinky, doesn’t mean that itsfailure won’t cause the exactsymptom you’re looking at.

- Slot Tech Magazine

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