casinotech is now offering repair service - slot...

CasinoTech is now offering repair serviceon select power supplies used in IGT and

Aristocrat games. Contact us today to learnhow we can support you.

December 2010Slot Tech Magazine

Randy Fromm's

Slot Tech Magazine

EditorRandy Fromm

Technical WritersDean Auger, James Borg,

Vic Fortenbach, ChuckLentine, Craig Nelson,Kevin Noble, Herschel

Peeler, Pat Porath

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 (North America)1 year - $60.002 years - $120.00International1 year - $120.002 years - $240.00

Subscribe online atslot-techs.com

Copyright 2010 under the UniversalCopyright Convention. All rights re-served.

Slot Tech Maga-zine

December 2010

Inside Slot Tech Magazine

Page 4-EditorialPage 6-Relaxing by the FireplacePage 16-Quick & Simple Repairs #69Page 20-IGT AVP Video CardsPage 23-Troubleshooting GamesPage 26-Subscription Form

Randy Fromm

Randy Fromm - Publisher

TechFest 22Mystic Lake Casino

May 2011

Fire in the hole! Actually, “holes made by fire”might be a better description as Chuck Lentine

presents a plethora of pyromaniacal problems hehas encountered at his casino. That’s right, heactually owns the casino and just works there forfun. What a guy. Anyway, please pay careful atten-tion to Chuck’s presentation because more thanjust cause and effect, Chuck presents us with animportant philosophical point of view when trouble-shooting and that is that it is critical to ascertainthe exact nature of the destruction and the exactcause of same before you slap in a couple of thou-sand bucks worth of new sub-assemblies and flipthe switch to “on.” A slot tech’s errors can easilycost the casino thousands of dollars, bottom line. Isee it often. Chuck points out, specifically, how heconducted a forensic analysis into this poorBluebird’s condition and made sure it wasn’t goingto develop a smoking habit before he plugged itback in and turned it on. This article is a super-good lesson to us all as technicians. Thanks for thecontribution, Chuck.

In addition to our old friends Kevin Noble and PatPorath, Craig Nelson is back again this month withan update for the IGT AVP Video PCB. Is thatenough abbreviations for you?

We have a sort of hidden theme running throughSlot Tech Magazine this month and it’s fans. Watchfor it in the magazine and watch for them on thefloor. There may be a half dozen in a machine. Ithas become a big (read $$$) service issue.

Slot Tech MagazineDecember 2010


Slot Tech Feature Article

Relaxing bythe Fireplace

By Chuck Lentine

Perhaps the one moreinteresting thingsthat can happen in

the life of a slot tech is thepleasure of being one of thefirst employees on thecasino floor to witness a slotmachine in self- destructmode. You get the radio callthat a machine is royallysmoking and on fire. Uponyour arrival, there are cus-tomers and slot hosts run-ning around like the worldis coming to an end. Itlooks like everything in themachine is on fire due tothe large amount of smokecoming out of every vent.

Now, you have to be thebrave one to cut off powerto the machine. If thepower lines are in the baseit is your lucky day. If not,it’s time to grab the keysand go head first into thegame. Reaching in you findthe power switch and shut

off the upright inferno. Thecasino facilities departmenthas now turned on theventilation system to clearthe smoke your machinecaused. You and your co-workers now speculate onwhat caused the machineto carry on like it did. Atthe end of this article I willdescribe what caused oneof these particularly stellarincidents.

This article will look at thecause and effects of someelectronic device failuresseen in our industry andmost importantly, how toavoid them. I’m sure all ofyou veterans of the slottech world have heard thisa million times before, thenumber one piece of adviceI give to myslot techni-cians isNEVEREVER, EVERconnect ordisconnectANY circuitboard withthe power onperiod! Someexceptions inour casinoare the JCMUBA, Trans-

act printers and most120VAC LCD monitors canbe hot-swapped withoutcausing a mess on thecasino floor.

Refer to figure 1. Here wehave what is left of an in-verter (530128A) found inthe Konami Advantageseries game belly door. Oneof the CCFL power wires gotfrayed and shorted out onthe belly glass frame andblew off the end of theCCFL and this little invertertook the brunt of it. It didnot damage anything elsein the machine. We nowput extra lengths of heatshrink tubing on the wiresevery time a CCFL lampgets replaced to avoid thisin the future.

Figure 1-Konami belly glass inverter


Refer to figure 2. This was a 16 bit I/Oboard (75435100W) that came from anIGT S2000 slot. This board sits on themain door just behind where the coinacceptor is mounted. It had worked itsway out and was intermittently makingconnection with the power. It finally hadenough and flamed out. It didn’t stophere, read on.

Refer to figure 3. On our multi-line and5 reel S2000s there is an LED multiplierdisplay board mounted on the left side ofthe reel glass. When the above I/O boardshorted out, it also took out this multi-plier (76927000 PCB 2dg, 9 line control)board.

Refer to figure 4. On the WMS Bluebirdmachines, some of them have an ovalshaped bonus button on the controlpanel. It is usually red and has LEDs onthe perimeter. The LEDs are actuallymounted on a circuit board sandwichedunderneath the metal panel and shinethrough small holes cut in the panel(WMS A-012564-01-02) Universal Ani-mator Display. When the nut holdingthis assembly together loosens up, theboard can float around and ground someof the LEDs to the metal panel. It thisinstance, the animator display did notreceive any damage but started a fire onthe SPN distribution board (6779-012604-02-00) mounted in the upperleft corner of the cabinet. The traces onthe board caught on fire first and thenmelted the power connector which hadto be cut off and re-pinned with a newMolex connector.

Refer to figure 5. This toasty board camefrom an IGT AVP Trimline. It is a fiberoptic daughter card (7540260) that ismounted on the distribution boardfound on the back wall behind theprinter. It connects all of the machinestogether via a fiber link. The fiber opticlines got hooked behind the printer andevery time it got pulled out, so did thisboard with live power going to it. Need-

Figure 2-16 bit I/O board (75435100W) from an IGTS2000 slot.

Figure 3-Multiplier board (76927000 PCB 2dg, 9line control)

Figure 4-WMS SPN distribution board(6779-012604-02-00)


less to say, it had enoughand started a small fire. Italso took out the small 5v/12v power supply thatcontrols these communica-tion boards.

Refer to figure 6. In theAristocrat Mark V cabinets,This Setec fluorescentballast (4700R2) can befound in the top box andbehind the belly door. Oneof the F8T5 lamp endscracked off and went into adead short in the lampsocket causing this ballastto fry half of the secondarysection.

In the beginning of thisarticle I described a spec-tacular incendiary incidentwe have never seen before.The machine is a WMSBluebird with a top moni-tor. When the machine wasopened and the fire burneditself out, every assemblywas removed and inspected.Surely it could it have beenthe power supply? Read onwarrior.

Figure 7 and figure 8 showsome of what was found:

After sorting everythingout, we discovered what wasdamaged. The CPU I/Oboard (A-008318-06) had aone inch burn scar on bothsides of the board justabove connector P2 andunder the small CPU board.About eight circuits andtraces were involved in thefire and it melted the plas-tic insulator behind it andthe CPU metal housing.The interesting thing is

that this board’s logic sec-tion still works and wasdisplaying a picture on thescreen!

Upon further inspection ofthe components, the fluo-rescent light ballast (6620-004995-00-00) had the

distinct odor also comingfrom it. The vent holes wereblack from the acrid smoke.Something must have hap-pened in here also. Aftercracking the melted plasticcase open, there wereabout seven transistors,resistors, and capacitors

Figure 6

Figure 5-Fiber optic daughter card (7540260) from IGT AVP Trimline

Figure 6-In the Aristocrat Mark V cabinets, This Setec fluorescent ballast(4700R2) can be found in the top box and behind the belly door.


“OK. You asked and I listened. My new tech class eliminates obsolete CRTmonitor repair and the associated monitor repair lab. In just four or five days,your slot techs can learn to repair Power Supplies, LCD Monitors, TicketPrinters, Bill Validators and more. It’s easy and it’s fun.“- Randy Fromm


blown into oblivion.

The rest of the componentsand assemblies were in-spected and verified work-ing one at a time in a differ-ent machine. That left uswith one fried CPU andballast that caused all thatcommotion. And yes, thepower supply was fine.

What blew up first?Why did this happen?How can we prevent it fromhappening again?

These components are ontwo totally different circuitswhich made the causemuch harder to backtrackand understand. The bal-last is on the main 120VACand just lights up the smalllamp behind the marqueenear the control panel. TheCPU section that cookedhandles low voltage lampsin the buttons on the con-trol panel.

I suppose after spendingtwenty years as a volunteerfirefighter in the localneighborhood fire com-pany, one can develop aninstinct of not taking whatyou see at face value. Wehave seen enough electricalfires to understand some ofthe causes are not easilyidentified and more investi-gation is usually warranted.Same goes here. How arethese two problems re-lated? Well, they are notdirectly and that is whatmakes this very interestingputting the pieces of thepuzzle back together.

I could simply just put inanother spare CPU andturn on the power andhope for the best. The prob-lem is these spare unitscost thousands of dollarsand the risk of blowing upanother is just too costly. Ireally don’t believe that atthis point, the culprit hasbeen truly identified whichwould warrant powering it

up just yet. I also have ahard time believing thisproblem just showed up onits own doing this amountof damage. Could it havebeen a random act of de-struction? Funny thingscan happen with electron-ics, right?

Heading back to the ma-chine armed with a cart of

Figure 7

Figure 8


tools and bright lights wewere determined to locatethe cause. We started withthe main power cord andoutlet it was plugged into,then into the power distri-bution areas for the highand low voltages. I wantedevery square inch of thiscabinet looked at and everywire inspected, still believ-ing the cause is buried inthis machine somewhereand will do the same dam-age if it’s not found. Everylamp was removed andreplaced and their socketcovers were taken apart.The monitor and powersupply were closely exam-ined inside and out down tothe component levels foranything obvious eventhough they tested fine inanother machine. All of theperipherals were takenback to the shop and puton our testers and thor-oughly inspected, cycledand stressed out for hours.Even the communicationsand player tracking sys-tems were turned upsidedown. The control panelwas taken out and everybutton and LED waschecked on our tester. Noproblems found. I’m stillnot happy or convinced yet.Looking into the machinethere is nothing left exceptthe wiring harness. Onewould believe with thatamount of heat a short inthe harness would bemelted and left with a bigmelted pile of goo and wire.Nothing was showing asdamaged. It’s time to startcutting all the wire ties onthe harness for the door

and inspecting one at atime, working my way back-wards into the main cabi-net. It was in the area ofthe hinge I felt a bump intwo wires that were hiddenin the middle of the har-ness. Upon further inspec-tion, they had a small slicein each wire going in thesame direction. Went backto the shop and grabbedthe BB1 wiring diagrams tosee where these wires wentto.

Sure enough one was the120VAC to the door ballastand the other was the com-mon to the control panellamp matrix. As the wireswere arranged in the har-ness, these two were pulledinto the middle out of sightbut stuck out when the

door was closed and gotpinched right in the hinge.The fire was from 120VACgoing into the lamp returnto the CPU. Repaired thewire damage and put every-thing back together and feltvery confident to turn it on.Everything came back onand the machine has beenhappy ever since. We havenow started to beef up theharnesses on the Bluebirdmachines by adding addi-tional wire ties in the hingearea.

I would like to extendhappy and healthy holidaywishes to all of the SlotTech Magazine readers andtheir families around theworld! See ya next year.

- Chuck [email protected]

ARISTOCRAT9440 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD monitor in Aristocrat games9470 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 17 inch LCD monitor in Aristocrat games9690 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in Aristocrat games1110 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 22 inch LCD monitor in Aristocrat gamesATRONIC8690 Dual cold cathode lamp assembly for Atronic slot machine with 17" LCD monitor9500 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD monitor in Atronic games9520 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 17 inch LCD monitor in Atronic games9260 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in Atronic gamesBALLY1240 Used 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CCA with attached 5 wire touch screen for Bally Iview8460 NEW 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CCA with attached 5 wire touch screen for Bally I-View8650 Single cold cathode lamp assembly for Bally I-View 6.2 inch “IDW” LCD8680 Single cold cathode lamp assembly for Bally I-View 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CCA8950 NEW 5 wire touch screen kit for Bally IView 6.2 inch “IDW” LCD, includes metal base & copper foam grommet9890 NEW 5 wire touch screen for Bally IView 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CCA, DOES NOT include metal base or copper foam grommet1060 NEW 5 wire touch screen for Bally IView 6.2" “IDW” brand LCD, DOES NOT include metal base or copper foam grommet8320 Metal housing for Bally Iview “IDW” touch screen1200 Copper foam grommet for the touch screen on Bally IView 6.2" “IDW” brand LCD9800 Single output cold cathode lamp inverter for Bally IView 6.2" “IDW” brand LCD1040 Single output cold cathode lamp inverter for Bally Iview 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CCA9190 Protective Mylar sheet for Bally Iview 6.2 inch “IDW” LCD9200 Protective Mylar sheet for Bally IView 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CCA1090 Power supply for Bally Iview player tracking system that use the 6.2" “IDW” brand LCD9250 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD monitor in Bally games9080 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in Bally games8770 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 20 inch LCD monitor in Bally games1130 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 22 inch LCD monitor in Bally games1140 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 26 inch LCD monitor in Bally gamesIGT8500 Single cold cathode lamp assembly for IGT NexGen 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CAA1430 Single raw cold cathode lamp for IGT NexGen 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CAA8610 Protective Mylar sheet for IGT NexGen 6.2 inch Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CAA1400 Single output 5 volt cold cathode lamp inverter for 6.2" IGT NexGen Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CAA8570 NEW 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CAA with 4 wire touch screen for IGT NexGen1310 Used 6.2" Hitachi LCD #TX16D11VM2CAA with attached 4 wire touch screen for IGT NexGen9090 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 6.2 inch Hitachi LCD #SX16H005-AZA in 1st generation IGT NexGen9030 Protective Mylar sheet for IGT 1st generation NexGen 6.2" Hitachi LCD #SX16H005-AZA8480 Single raw cold cathode lamp for IGT game with 10" LCD monitor8920 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD monitor in IGT games9670 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 17 inch LCD monitor in IGT games9290 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in IGT games1150 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 20 inch LCD monitor in IGT games1160 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 22 inch LCD monitor in IGT gamesKONAMI8700 Dual cold cathode lamp assembly & 12 volt inverter for Konami belly glass that is edge-lit with cold cathode lamps9870 12 volt dual output cold cathode lamp inverter for Konami belly glass that is edge-lit1260 Dual cold cathode lamp assembly for Konami edge-lit belly glass9240 LED edge- lit panel for belly glass in Konami K2V cabinet8670 Single RAW cold cathode lamp for Konami belly glass that is back-lit with cold cathode lamps9780 “L” shaped cold cathode lamp assembly for Konami 7 inch bonus screen LCD1050 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD monitor in Konami games8600 Dual cold cathode lamp assembly for Konami slot machine with 17" LCD monitor9680 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 17 inch LCD monitor in Konami games9070 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in Konami games1100 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 22 inch LCD monitor in Konami games1010 7 inch AU Optronics LCD #070VW01 for Konami bonus screen1080 Cold cathode lamp inverter for 7" AU Optronics LCD #A070VW01 in Konami bonus screen8550 Single “U” shaped cold cathode lamp assembly for Konami 7" LCD bonus screen8590 Single cold cathode lamp assembly for Konami 1.5 video upright denomination back-lit panel

PACIFIC ILLUMINATION 949-429-3896 [email protected]

Cold Cathode Lamps and Related SuppliesFrom Pacific Illumination

mmet

A

Gen

MULTIMEDIA9700 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD monitor in Multimedia games9710 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 17 inch LCD monitor in Multimedia games9720 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in Multimedia games9850 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 23 inch LCD monitor in Multi Media gamesSPIELO9740 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD monitor in Spielo games9750 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 17 inch LCD monitor in Spielo games9760 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in Spielo gamesWMS8490 NEW 6.4" LG LCD #LB064V02 (TD)(01) for WMS Bluebird bonus screen ( does NOT come with touch screen)8470 Single cold cathode lamp assembly for 6.4" LG LCD #LB064V02 (TD)(01) in WMS Bluebird bonus screen8510 Triple cold cathode lamp assembly for WMS Bluebird 17" LCD monitor8520 Triple cold cathode lamp assembly for WMS Bluebird 18" LCD monitor9300 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19 inch LCD monitor in WMS games9830 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 22 inch LCD monitor in WMS gamesLamp Testers9220 Bench top cold cathode lamp tester (includes A/C adapter & power strip with ON/OFF switch)9840 Bench top dual ccfl inverter & lamp testerMiscellaneous1280 Raw cold cathode lamp 2.0mm X 250mm1320 Single raw cold cathode lamp 2.4mm X 245mm1420 Raw cold cathode lamp 2.6mm X 294mm1290 Raw cold cathode lamp 2.0mm X 300mm9910 Raw cold cathode lamp 2.0mm X 310mm9970 Raw cold cathode lamp 2.6mm X 316mm1190 Single raw cold cathode lamp 2.6mm X 342mm8420 Raw cold cathode lamp, color white, size 2.4mm x 381mm1330 Single raw cold cathode lamp 2.6mm X 385mm1340 Raw cold cathode lamp, color white, size 2.6mm x 390mm8400 Raw cold cathode lamp, color white, size 2.4mm x 394mm1350 Single raw cold cathode lamp 2.6mm X 420mm1020 Single raw cold cathode lamp, purple color, 4.0mm X 580mmRaw1070 Single raw cold cathode lamp for Wells Gardner 6.4" LCD8450 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15" LCD in Touchtunes Maestro Monitor9920 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 15 inch LCD in Touchtunes Genesis General Touch monitor9960 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 17 inch ELO LCD8440 Single raw cold cathode lamp for 19" LCD in MackVision LCD Monitor1210 Silicone end cap for 2.6mm cold cathode lamp1220 Single “O” ring for 2.6mm cold cathode lamp1230 Figure 8 “O” ring for 2.6mm cold cathode lamp9980 24v single output ccfl inverter for Aristocrat Viridian belly light1250 Sharp 7" LCD #LQ070T3AG021380 One set of touch screen tape for 6.2 inch LCD Includes 2 long pieces and 2 short pieces of tape8620 24 volt single output cold cathode lamp Piezo inverter

For more informationor to place an ordercontact one of our

distributors orcontact us at

[email protected]

PACIFIC ILLUMINATION 949-429-3896 [email protected]



WMS Bluebird 2 UpgradeNV RAM Battery LowError

Recently while upgrading some Bluebird games to Blue-

bird 2s, one of the gameshad a “NV RAM battery lowerror.” How could the bat-tery be low? It is a brandnew CPU board fresh out ofa sealed package. We hadspares so it was no big deal.A co-worker was curious asto why the new boardwould have such an error.The individual removed itfrom the frame and startedto look it over for any obvi-ous reasons to why it didn’twork. It wasn’t long and theproblem was found. Some-how a solder joint wasmissed at the factory thatmade the board. Was ithuman error or a roboterror? LOL As pictured, thesolder joint didn’t evenhave any solder in it. On

Quick & Simple Repairs #69By Pat Porath

the front side of the boardit was one of the batteryterminals. Now it madesome sense. One of thebattery terminals didn’t getsoldered on the board,when the board was in-stalled in a game and had a“battery error.” One touchwith a hot iron and somesolder and the board wasfine.

IGT Trimline RebootingItselfPlus a Reminder AboutFans in General

One of the first things Ilook at if a Trimline isrebooting itself, is if the“brain box” is seated cor-rectly. If it is, the next item

I suspect is a bad coolingfan which is located on thevideo card. In this case, thefan was good, so now what?A co-worker gave me theidea to check out the “airfilter” a.k.a. “dust filter” onthe game. After I usedcompressed air to blow thedust out of the “brain box”(we are fortunate enough togo outdoors to let the dustfly out there) I removed thefilter. Wow, it was cakedwith dust bunnies. Afterthe filter was cleaned andafter the “brain box” wasput back in, the game wasturned back on. It bootedup awesome and did notreboot itself for the remain-der of the shift and thefollowing day, no com-


SPECIALIST

OEM

SOLUTION

PROVIDER

[email protected]

SALES +44 (0) 1865 600030 www.internationalbrandgaming.com

plaints at all. I would saythe problem was a cloggedair filter. Since it had athick amount of dust on it,the game didn’t haveproper air flow. When agame doesn’t have good airflow with the cooling fans,filter, and vents, guess whathappens? The game mayoverheat. What are twomajor things that causesproblems with games?

Answer: heat and dust. Inthis game, dust had cloggedthe air filter which re-stricted the air flow aroundthe cooling fan in the brainbox and caused excessiveheat. As I seen in Atronic e-motion games, there is acooling fan located underthe button panel (on anupright game) that helpscool the two LCD monitors.If the fan is clogged with


dust or if the fan speed isslow, it can’t cool the LCDs.This caused them to over-heat and go black. I couldgo on and on. WMS Blue-bird power supplies inupright games can getclogged with dust andcause premature failure. Ifthe unit and cooling fanarea have a ton of dust in it,the fan can’t properly dothe job, then the powersupply will heat up and fail.If cooling fans aren’t work-ing properly in a BallyCinevision game, the LCDmay fail. If I remembercorrectly, the originalCinevisions didn’t have acooling fan in the top areaand the LCD got quite hot.The games were upgradedwith a fan, now they runmuch cooler. I’ve also seen5/12v and 24v power sup-ply fans not working or slowfan speeds on both Cinevi-sion and Reel Vision powersupplies. Now days, coolingfans are VERY important inslot machines.

Bally EVO Rebooting Itself

I received a call from a slotattendant that a Bally EVOwas rebooting itself andwouldn’t stay running. Itwould get to the “idle mode”where the game screen isand start booting up again.When I opened the door, Icould smell something hot.The smell was similar to thesmell of an Atronic e-mo-tion game when both of thecooling fans aren’t workingon the backplane boardand it starts “cooking.” Oneof my first thoughts was to

simply replace the “brainbox” (the box located underthe monitor area that in-cludes the CD drive). Whynot check into the problemfurther? I removed the“brain box” and took a lookat the cooling fan. It ap-peared to be OK, therewasn’t a lot of resistancewhile spinning it by hand.After putting it back intothe game and turning thepower back on, the CDdrive access door wasopened to take a look at thefan while power was ap-plied. Sure enough it wasspinning too slowly and thearea around the fan wasquite hot. The “brain box”was removed and taken tothe shop to replace the fan.Hopefully the processorthat was under it hadn’tfried. The CD drive andbracket had to be removedto have access to the 12 voltfan. A spare was installedand it was time to power upthe game. What the heck?The fan wasn’t spinning! Itwas a new replacement,what was the problem? The“brain box” was removedonce again to turn theconnector around on thefan to see what happens.(Switched polarity.) Thegame was turned on onceagain and this time the fanwas spinning like it wassupposed to. Yes the fanconnector was “keyed” so itwould only go on one way,but it didn’t work, so I hadto flip it around. So far sogood, the game is still on-line without rebootingitself. Luckily nothing got

fried from getting hot.

Oasis Sentinel Error

I received a call that a fewbanks of games were down.When I arrived, I noticedthe Oasis displays wererandomly alternating fromupper case letters to lowercase. This told me we defi-nitely had a communicationproblem somewhere. Oneway to start troubleshootingis to locate the number one(first) game in the bank.Next, remove the COM OUTcable on the Sentinel andput on a “terminator” (100ohm resistor connected onthe two pin connector). Ifthe green COM lightdoesn’t flash very fast ornot flash at all, it could be acable problem to the bankor maybe a DPU problemsuch as bad COM chips. Inthis specific case, once the“term resistor” was put on,the COM light flashedquickly. This told me thatthere was a very goodchance of a problem furtherdown the line. I moved the“term resistor” to the endgame in the row with thesame results. Next, I wentto the last bank of gameson the problem DPU andfound an odd looking Senti-nel display. It read some-thing like “POINT SYSTEMNOT VALID.” What wasthis? The Sentinel wasrebooted which did nothelp the problem. Howabout a partial RAM clear ofthe Sentinel? Power wasremoved and the RAM chipremoved. Power was appliedagain and the chip was put


Check any Electrolytic Capacitor In-Circuit with100% Accuracy in 3 Seconds---GUARANTEED*

Automatically discharges capacitor

Checks DCR with alerts for shorts

Measures DCR to 500 ohms

Measures ESR from 0.1 to 20 ohms

Checks caps from .47uF to 2200uF

Beeps one to five beeps for quality

Three-color chart for good-fair-bad

*range 0.47uF - 2.2KuF 90-day money-back guarantee

Portable, Easy to Use, Inexpensive, Highly Recommended by

leaders in the industry. CapAnalyzer 88A by EDS, Inc.

At your favorite distributor, or call 561-487-6103 or www.eds-inc.com

back in (while power on,install chip). (Really?Power-on?-ed.) Now thedisplay read “PLEASE IN-SERT PLAYER CARD” incapital letters which meantthat there was a very goodchance communication hasbeen established. On theSentinel side, the greenCOM light was flashingrapidly and looked verygood. I looked at the otherOasis displays in the bankof games and they allseemed to stay in capitalletters too. So far so good,all I needed now was the“problem Sentinel display”to read “WELCOME TO THEISLAND RESORT ANDCASINO.” Within a fewminutes, it was workingproperly. To me it lookedlike a corrupt Sentinel wastaking down the wholebank of games.

- Pat [email protected]

12345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012123456789012345678901212345678901234567890121234567890123456789012

TechFest 22is coming to Mystic

Lake CasinoMay 24-26 2011

Mark yourcalendar now!

For schematic dia-grams, drivers, diagnos-tic software, podcasts,service manuals andmore, visit the SlotTechnical Department atslot-tech.com.

For batch downloads,use ftp. Point your ftpclient to slot-tech.comuser=Slot TechPassword=kxkvi8

Repair Monitors, Power Supplies, Gameboards?Repair Monitors, Power Supplies, Gameboards?



Disclaimer: Due to thedifferent versions of theAVP platform there may beslight variations from plat-form to platform. The mainones covered here are:Trimline, G20, and G22Slant.

If you have IGT machines on your floorthat utilize the AVP 2.0

or 2.5 Brain Box, you mostlikely have encounteredsome form of video issues.The most common symp-toms are a blanksscreen(s), grainy video,horizontal or vertical lines,or even continuouslyrebooting (there are othersbut these are the mostcommon). It must benoted that a continuouslyrebooting machine couldalso have a bad power sup-ply or another defectivepart so do not approach arebooting machine with theintent to replace the videocard; use proper trouble-shooting skills to reach thatspecific conclusion.

Video Card Replacement:Time/Difficulty: Quick/Simple

The first thing you willneed to have is a replace-ment video card; Suzo-Happ sells them for thecheapest that we can findcurrently. The unit picturedin figure 2 is a direct re-placement from Suzo-Happ.

The revisions are: better/more heat sink area, as wellas a ball bearing fan forincreased longevity of thecard.

Another more costly optionis an exchange directlythrough IGT for around$200 each. Contact theparts department for yourjurisdiction as pricing and

IGT AVP Video CardsBy Craig Nelson

This is the video card the machines usually come with from thefactory that has a very weak fan and no heat sinks on the ICs.

This is the actual replacement from Suzo-Happ PN 75606590

Cont. on page 22


availability might differfrom place to place.

The third and most costlyoption would be to just buya new replacement videocard from IGT, which at themoment is over $600.Again, each property mighthave different pricing andavailability.

To replace it, you will justneed to remove the BrainBox from the game, removethe old video card andreplace it with the new one.Some harness adjustmentmight be necessary de-pending on the style ofyour Brain Box.

The video card that youremoved might be a candi-date for repair. If it is theold style with an old stylefan that has no heat sinks,you could try the upgradeprocedure on page 22. If italready has the upgrade,then you could try a re-placement fan. If it has thenew style board as pic-tured, there is not an up-grade at this time.

We have not found any-thing (component level-wise) on these boards thathas failed consistently andso more, in-depth benchrepair has not been consis-tently successful. Therehave been a few boards thathave had bad capacitors butthe defective componentshaven’t been directly re-lated to their failures.

Tech Note:The new style of fans on

both the replacement videocard and the upgrade kitare a heavier duty, ballbearing type fan that hasproven to last longer thanthe previous version andthe heat sinks will obvi-ously dissipate heat fromthe ICs more effectively . Itis suggested (but not re-quired) to upgrade thevideo card(s) with this kitany time a conversion orsimilar work is done to eachBrain Box. Even if thevideo card has been up-graded already, it is sug-gested that the fan be re-placed. The upgrade kit isapproximately $20 versusan $80-$600 video card oreven a new Brain Box as-sembly if the video cardgets too hot and takes outthe mother board.

Another option (althoughnot realistic for most prop-erties) is to upgrade to anAVP 3.0 Brain Box. Thisplatform has an onboardvideo generator which alle-viates the problems that gowith the traditional ‘card’

type video generator. Upuntil now, no adverse af-fects have been noticedwith this type of Brain Boxbut these are fairly new soit may be too early to tell.

Preventative maintenancewill be your best ally whenit comes maintaining theAVP Brain Boxes. Due tothe amount of air flow thatthe cabinets produce, theyget full of debris veryquickly. If they are left inthat state too long, thefan(s) will become cloggedwith debris or just stopworking all together. Blow-ing out the machine andthe Brain Box at a 1-3month interval will lowerthe risk of heat derivedissues with these cabinetsdramatically. There is alsoan IGT customer notifica-tion that is supposed torelieve some of the heatderived issues from theBrain Boxes. It is CN#4771B.

- Craig [email protected]

JOB WANTED

I can help you. I can make your life easier.

It has been my pleasure to provide technicaltraining and shop setup for slot departments

across the USA. I have a lot of experience.

Please tell me what you need.

Randy Fromm619.593.6131

[email protected]



AristocratMachine Rebooting

There was an AristocratMKV game that keptrebooting. The CPU was

changed out to see if theproblem was there or not.The original problem stoppedonce the CPU was replacedbut another problem rearedits ugly head once the buttondeck buttons were de-pressed. The game started

Troubleshooting GamesBy Kevin Noble

rebooting itself or sometimesit would blank out. Thepower supply was replacedbut that did not solve theproblem. Upon further in-spection, all the wiring waschecked for any bare wiresor pinched wiring that couldhave been causing the prob-lem which they could notfind. The next option was tostart eliminating parts andpieces to see what was caus-ing the game to mysteriousreboot after a button wasdepressed. The I/O boardwas changed and then theCPU since we already hadthe seals broken but this didnot solve the problem. Thatlast thing that they werefacing was the motherboard

when they noticed that theharness for the button deckwas barely seated on themotherboard. When it wasreseated correctly all theproblems went away.

IGT S20002nd Amber Light on CPUFlashing

During a GME 1 & GME 2upgrade project, I noticedthat when I upgraded theGME EPROMS the 4th (orsecond Amber LED on theCPU) LED would blink. Ithought this was odd, I hadnever seen this sign before. Idecided to remove the CPUboard and start the RAMclear procedure again. This


time, the game allowed meto clear the RAM and keychip the game. Anotherunexpected sign popped upagain when the distinctwarning sound IGT makeswhen you are trying to do aRAM clear was very faint.You could barely hear thenoise. The message on thedisplay asked me to turn thereset key on the side of thegame. I inserted my key andturned the key. Nothinghappened. I removed thethird reel, disconnected thekey switch connectors andjumped them together andstill nothing happened. Hav-ing the choice of trying anew set of GME EPROMS andreseating the EPROMS al-ready inserted on the CPU I,decided to reseat the chipson the board. I started theRAM clear procedure onceagain when message to turnthe reset key popped up onthe display. The game let outthis loud familiar annoyingsound like it is supposed todo. I next inserted the keychip, watched the LED indi-cator lights (which werenormal), reinserted theBASE EPROM and completedresetting the game andconfiguring the options.

IGT S2000Amber Lights Missing dur-ing Re-key

In the same chip changeproject, another problemhappened involving the indi-cator lights on the CPU. Theamber lights that are sup-posed to come on for a fewseconds would not when Icompleted a RAM clear andinserted the Key chip. Ithought that I was NOTseeing things I decided to re-clear the game because Icould not recall seeing theamber lights during the key

chip operation. After re-clearing the game and in-serting the key chip I con-firmed that I was not seeingthings and the amber lightswere missing during thisprocess. I replaced the GMEEPROMS to start eliminatingwhat could be causing thisproblem. I decided to start atstep one again and re-clearthe game but paid closeattention to the RAM clearamber lights on the CPU toverify that the lights areworking. Once verifying theamber lights were indeedworking, I inserted the Keychip and the lights weremissing once again, but thistime I did notice that thegame displayed NETPLEXdisplay was still waiting to beconfigured. I also sensedthat this process was pastthe normal amount of timeassociated in this process.Usually when you powerdown an IGT S2000 andpower back up you get theexact same message whenthe power supply behind thereels is bad. I decided to giveit a shot and change out thepower supply to see if theproblem went away. Ichanged out the power sup-ply, started the RAM clearprocess again (this timepaying more attention to allthe sights and sounds) andwhen I arrived at the keychip procedure, the smallamber light decided to makean appearance, which nowallowed me to continue onwith the process and com-plete the optioning and test-ing of the machine.

IGT S2000Broken Pin in the LegacyBoard

Well this one all startedwhen a pin broke off the baseEPROM and wedge itself in

the socket so we could notget it out. A new BaseEPROM was ordered and theLegacy board replaced. Whenthe new Base EPROM arrivedyou would of thought that itwould be a slam dunk chipreplacement verify optionsand away you go procedure,but not in my world. I decideto bring the set of clear chips(just in case) the newlyarrived BASE EPROM andheaded out to the game. Idecide to replace the BASEEPROM to take the easiestoption and much to my sur-prise, the CPU LED indicatorlights were pretending it wasChristmas the way theywere blinking on and off. Noproblem as I will just re-clear the board and startfrom scratch. I swapped outthe BASE EPROM with theclear, powered up the gameand surprise! The problemstill existed. I decide to beginthe process again but re-inserting the BASE to get abetter seat in the socket butthat did not work either.Well, now it was time to pullout the big guns and get theCPU and, just in case, an-other new Legacy board.Arriving at the game for thesecond time, it was time toflip the coin again: heads Ireplace the board, tails Ireplace the legacy board.Opting to pick the easiestroute again, I decide toremove the legacy board withall the EPROMs and plop itright on the new CPU boardwith the Clear chip alreadymounted. I fired up that badboy and to my surprise again,it worked this time. I wasable to key chip the game,set the options and bill andvoucher test it for the nextday when the gaming com-mission was scheduled.


Aristocrat MKVBlanking Out

On the backside of this onepeculiar machine that I wasworking on, I heard a smallsqueaky voice shriek out“what are you doing? Mygame just went blank.” I toldher that I was just checkingout my game when her gamewent blank after I closed themain door. I had to go backinto my original game whenand when I powered downmy game her game at theexact same moment lostpower and rebooted itselfagain. Now I was thinkingthat is was kind of odd thatwhen I powered down shealso lost power and thoughtto myself some how I have apower problem. I checked allthe power connections to mygame at the same timeasking the attendant aboutthe status of her game. Onceverifying there was nothingwrong on my end, I closedthe main door again and sheyelled at me again. I mademy way over to the otherside of bank and watchedher game come back online. Istarted smacking the game,simulating me slamming thedoor on the other side andnoticed that the game didblank out. I just eliminatedthe game behind that I wasworking on as the problem. Iwaited until the gamerebooted itself and observedany messages that came onscreen. I did notice watchdogreset being displayed but Ifigured that it was becausethe game losing power. Ibanged on the machineagain and it went downagain but I did notice thatthe Mikohn display did not goout so I knew it wasn’t thepower coming in from thefloor.

I opened the game andstarted checking for anyloose power cables going tothe power supply andreseating any connectionthat might be involved. I nextbanged on the cabinet againand the game lost poweragain. I next wanted toreseat the CPU and I/O. Itested to see if the boardswere seated properly to themotherboard. They felt se-cure, so I just reseated bothboards on the game and triedbanging on the game againbut I could not get the prob-lem to come back. Maybe itjust needed a good connec-tion on the motherboard.

WMS VideoNo Power to the CPU/Motherboard

After the glass was swappedout for this theme conver-sion, I powered on the gameand noticed no lights on themotherboard or CPU wereon. However, the machinehad interior lights and alsothe SMIB display was scroll-ing so I knew that there waspower coming in from thefloor. I next tried to swap thepower supply underneath thecashbox but no change.Deciding to go back to squareone, Reg and I decide tocheck into the topper portionof the conversion and noticedthat when you tapped on thetopper assembly, the powerwould flicker on the boards.We decided to check a littlefurther into the topper andfound that the braidedground strap when wiggledwould take out the power onthe CPU and motherboard.Upon further inspection wenoticed that the ground strapwas indeed touching theprinted circuit board thatdrives the lights in the top-per. Once the ground strapwas re-routed away from the

PCB, the game allowed me tocontinue on with the RAMclear procedure and get thegame up to the public afterseals and final inspectionswere done.

IGT-I GAMEMeter Disconnected Error

When we were called to thismachine for the meter dis-connected error we thoughtit would be a slam dunkrepair by swapping door I/Ocards in the game. We usedthe cards from the gamebeside it and found that weblew those cards as well. Wefigured now that we had awiring harness problem sowe decide to check the MEALbook to see who was in thegame last and what they didso we can have an ideawhere to look. My buddysuggested looking on theCPU for any damage becausehe had dealt with this issuemany times before. Weremoved the legacy boardthat was mounted on top ofthe CPU and noticed on U74there was a fairly decentsized burned mark on thechip with a hole clean rightthrough the chip. He statedthat this was very commonon these types of gamesusing that type of CPUboards. Once the CPU wasswapped out and the I/Ocards replaced, the gamewent back in service.

- Kevin [email protected]

SCHEMATICS, etc.slot-tech.comThis is the TechnicalDepartment’s onlineresource of schemat-ics, drivers, software,etc.

Subscriptions & Back IssuesWhy back issues of Slot Tech Magazine areimportant to own . . .

Slot Tech Magazine is strictly technical. As such, the magazine's contents are not timecritical. The repair information and technical data contained in past issues is just as valid

today as it was the day it was published.

Additionally, current and future articles more-or-less assume that readers are already familiarwith what has been covered in past issues. This editorial policy assures that Slot TechMagazine's contributing writers are not limited to "writing down" to the level of a novicetechnician but are free to continue to produce the most comprehensive technical articles inthe gaming industry.

Randy Fromm'sSlot Tech Magazine ispublished monthly by:Slot Tech Magazine1944 Falmouth Dr.El Cajon, CA 92020-2827tel.619.593.6131fax.619.593.6132e-mail [email protected]

Subscription rates:

Domestic (USA & Canada) 1 year - $60.00 2 years - $120.00

International 1 year - $120.00 2 years - $240.00

Company Name______________________________________________________Contact_____________________________________________________________Address ____________________________________________________________Address ____________________________________________________________City _________________________ State/Prov. ___________________________Country ______________________ Zip/Postal Code _______________________Telephone ____________________E-mail ________________________

[ ] 1 year subscription, domestic[ ] 1 year subscription, international[ ] 2 year subscription, domestic[ ] 2 year subscription, international

Type of card: [ ] American Express [ ] Discover [ ] MasterCard [ ] VisaAccount Number:________________________Expiration Date: ________________________

Printed back issues are available for onlysix monthsfrom the date of publication. All single issues of SlotTech Magazine are $10.00/ea.

For further details on the contents of each issue,please refer to the website at slot-techs.com. Toorder, fax a PO or e-mail a note listing the issues youneed.

Back Issues

Invoice me!PO Number________________________

Complete archive (2001 to present) avail-able online. Visit slot-techs.com for details.

casinotech is now offering repair service - slot...

Documents