February 2016
Transcription
February 2016
Slot Tech Magazine Editorial Page 3-Editorial Page 4-Kortek KT-LS221DSC-23 Monitor Repair Page 5-Invitation to Attend TechFest 32 Page 10-Slot Tech Training in St. Kitts Page 12-Tips and Tricks of the Trade Dear Friends of Slot Tech Magazine, Without a doubt, casino electronics can present repair issues that are interesting and, at times, challenging. The truth is that the bulk of our repairs are fairly routine. Heck, anything can be easy once someone shows you what to do! This month we welcome a contribution from Nathan Galloway with an easy fix for Kortek LCD monitors as well as some Tricks and Tips from Vic Fotrenbach. Thanks for your contributions, guys. See you at the casino. Randy Fromm Randy Fromm's Slot Tech Magazine Editor Randy Fromm Technical Writers Vic Fortenbach, Nathan Galloway, Chuck Lentine, Pat Porath Publisher-Slot Tech Magazine Slot Tech Magazine is published monthly by Slot Tech Magazine 401 W. Lexington #777 El Cajon, CA 92022 tel.619.838.7111 fax.619.315.0410 e-mail [email protected] Visit the website at slot-techs.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Domestic (North America) 1 year - $80.00 2 years - $140.00 International 1 year - $160.00 2 years - $300.00 Subscribe online at slot-techs.com Copyright 2016 under the Universal Copyright Convention. All rights reserved. Registration now open for TechFest 32 May 24-26, 2016 Mystic Lake Casino See website at slottechs.com for details and registration form. Slot Tech Feature Article Kortek KT-LS221DSC-23 Monitor Repair By Nathan Galloway Ceronix monitor, and wouldn’t you believe it, this replacement has no touch screen installed. With help from a fellow technician, we swap out the Kortek monitor with the top monitor from an adjacent Konami I t’s December 30th, one day before New Year’s Eve and my supervisor wants games up for play. This directive came straight from management; they want all the games up for New Year’s Eve. One of my tasks that day was to fix the main monitor on a Konami Podium. No problem, I have a spare Kortek monitor in the shop. Just one problem, well it wasn’t a problem until I replaced the main monitor in my down Konami game and tried to calibrate the touch screen. Now I have a bad touch screen on a working monitor, but I need a working touch screen. With the holiday approaching, there is not enough time to order another touch screen. Since Konami Podiums have dual monitors, both with touch screens, I will just swap the main monitor with the top monitor. Now I have a new problem. The top monitor has already been replaced with a Page 4 Kortek AD board with surface mount capacitors. Kortek AD board with surface mount capacitors C802, C810, C812, and C813 removed. Slot Tech Magazine February 2016 Invitation to Attend TechFest 32 Plan now to attend. Attention Slot Techs and Slot Managers! TechFest returns to Mystic Lake Casino Hotel May 24-26, 2016 Visit the website at slottechs.com for “Early Bird” discount of $100/person. Schedule of Events Events subject to change For complete details & enrollment form, visit the website at slot-techs.com Tuesday, May 24, 2016 Wednesday, May 25, 2016 Thursday, May 26, 2016 9:00 am - 12:00pm Electronic Components and Component Testing Presented by Randy Fromm 9:00 am - 12:00pm LCD Monitor Repair Presented by Randy Fromm 9:00 am - 12:00pm Ceronix LCD Monitor Repair Presented by Ceronix Electronics repair is actually pretty easy, once you know how to test the components. It often doesn't matter if you know anything at all about how something actually works in order to fix it. You just look for bad parts and replace them. This seminar covers all of the discrete components commonly found in electronic gaming machines. We'll look at how they work, how they fail, and how to test them as accurately, inexpensively and safely as possible. Each attendee receives a digital multimeter and sample components, theirs to keep following TechFest. 1:15pm - 3:15pm JCM Bill Validators JCM is a huge player in the gaming industry. This session covers UBA troubleshooting and configuration as well as iVIZION. This presentation will be given by JCM's Dan Petersen. 3:30pm - 5:30pm FutureLogic Troubleshooting FutureLogic printers have been a mainstay of the industry since TITO was born. They are easy to configure and to troubleshoot. This seminar will be presented by Dan Petersen. February 2016 LCD monitor repair is easy. This is the first of two presentations on LCD monitor repair at TechFest. During this seminar, we will cover the theory of operation of LCD monitors and you'll see just how simple they really are. We will also cover circuit analysis of the electronics with an emphasis on what fails and how it can be repaired in any casino's tech shop. 1:15pm - 3:15pm Touchscreens Presented by 3M Touch Systems Touchscreens rule the casino world. This presentation will introduce you to touch technologies and how they work. Troubleshooting and repair techniques will be presented. Everyone will receive diagnostic programs as well. 3:30pm - 8:00pm Component Removal and Replacement Presented by HAKKO Soldering skills are the most important skills a technician can posess. It doesn't do any good to be able to diagnose a failed component if you can't remove it and replace it properly and it's no good trying to work on modern, surface-mount components without the proper equipment. This exciting new seminar will present the latest in soldering techniques and rework equipment. A special "Hands-On After Hours" session will allow extended time for everyone to try out the gear themselves. Slot Tech Magazine Although it can be argued that all LCD monitors are more-or-less the same, it's nice to get the inside track on specific monitors from the manufacturers themselves. This is a "hands-on" session where everyone will have the opportunity to teardown and rebuild an LCD panel as well as troubleshooting actual failures on LCD monitors in a "power-on" lab where you will actually make repairs. This is the most fun thing we do at TechFest. 1:15pm - 3:15pm Transact Technologies Ticket Printers Transact Technologies presents servicing and troubleshooting Transact brand, thermal ticket printers. These units are simple to understand and troubleshoot, once you know how they're put together. We have covered these printers extensively in Slot Tech Magazine. This is your chance to ask questions of the expert. tel.619.838.7111 . [email protected] Page 5 Podium. I wish I could say problem solved but the main monitor on the adjacent Konami failed to work after that machine was rebooted. With this new disappointment, I returned to the tech shop with a Kortek monitor to repair. The situation may appear bleak but I know how to repair the Kortek KTLS221DSC-23 monitor. Who do you think repaired the original spare Kortek monitor from the shop? At that time, I was not aware of a bad touch screen. The original issue was a bad AD board, which was rectified by replacing four surface mount capacitors. I did not have any surface mount organic polymer capacitors in stock, so I used regular aluminum electrolytic capacitors. To remove the surface mount capacitors, I used Chip Quik and no clean paste flux. After removing the four capacitors, I cleaned up the surface mount pads before installing the new capacitors in a horizontal position. I repaired three bad Kortek monitors from Konami Podiums that week. All three had bad AD boards with those four bad capacitors. It’s now more than month later and all of the repaired Kortek monitors are still up and working on the casino floor. Page 6 Kortek AD board with new aluminum electrolytic capacitors installed. The capacitors I replaced were: C802 C810 C812 C813 470uF 220uF 220uF 220uF 16v 16v 16v 16v Editor’s Note: This is where we have lots of failures, regardless of manufacturer or model. This is the DC-to-DC conversion section and it is the hard- Slot Tech Magazine est-working section on the PCB. DC-to-DC conversion is another way to look at power supply regulation. We take a DC input and run it through some sort of “buck regulator.” Each little DC-to-DC converter is running at 150 kHz or so. It takes the DC input, chops it up PWM style and spits it out. The longer the duty cycle, the higher the output voltage. Then we hang an February 2016 February 2016 Slot Tech Magazine Page 7 electrolytic filter capacitor on the output and presto! We have a new DC output voltage that is proportional to the duty cycle. 42% 58% If, for example, we want a 5 vdc output, we simply take the+12 vdc input from the power supply and, with a duty cycle of approximately 42% we get a 5 vdc output. Sweet. As you can imagine, the 150kHz switching speed gobbles up these output electrolytic filter capacitors. When these capacitors fail, the 150kHz ripple wrecks havoc on the system with unpredictable symptoms ranging from disappearing or distorted columns or rows to total blackout or even whiteout!STM Nathan.Galloway @slottechs.com Visit the Technical Department at slot-tech.com Schematic Diagrams Service Manuals Educational stuff And much more Page 8 Slot Tech Magazine February 2016 February 2016 Slot Tech Magazine Page 9 Slot Tech Event Slot Tech Training in St. Kitts I had another “dream gig” in January. I held a small class for the slot techs at the Royal Beach Casino in St. Kitts. It’s a beautiful casino and it was a real pleasure to have the opportunity to train with their extraordinary crew.STM Left to right:Delvin Richardson, Charles Buchanan , Emaric Maynard, Kevis Richards and Mark Kelly Page 10 Above: Master Carpenter and Slot Tech Charles Buchanan poses with the portable whiteboard he whipped up just for the class. He also built all of the slot bases in the casino. Beautiful work with embedded LED lighting! I can see where it is very valuable to have an in-house carpenter. Slot Tech Magazine February 2016 Slot Tech Mini-Profile Meet Vaughn Browne-Slot Manager Royal Beach Casino-St. Kitts technical supervisor. He continued working in this capacity over the next three years when he was tapped to become the slot manager. Kevis Richards during one of our “hands-on” sessions. This is the semiconductor lab. Below: Delvin Richardson and Randy Fromm in the casino. February 2016 S lot Manager Vaughn Browne started working at the Royal Beach Casino in 2002 as a casino technician. By year six, he had become the senior technician. In 2009 he was promoted to Slot Tech Magazine “I believe in empowering staff and help making dreams come true,” commented Mr. Browne. “Working in this industry has opened my eyes to so many new and fascinating things.” Visit the website at slot-techs.com Page 11 Slot Tech Feature Article Tips and Tricks of the Trade By Vic Fortenbach H aving been a slot technician for the past 15 years, you learn a lot of tips and tricks, some from older, seasoned technicians and others from just watching vendor technicians. Using these tips and tricks can make your job easier and sometimes a bit more fun. One tip I love and I use frequently is being able to RAM clear a MK6 Aristocrat slot machine in less than five minutes. Not only can the RAM clear be completed very quickly but most of the options never change. All of these tips and tricks are part of the slot machine and have been designed into the logic board and assemblies. Sort of a secret way to do something that no one wanted to tell you. All of these tips and tricks are just procedures and short cuts that work. To start the five minute ram clear, power off the machine and open the logic box. Connect the piggy back board with the RAM clear chips installed to the logic board connector. Power up the machine and wait for the program to load. The on screen instructions will indicate, to clear the SRAM (SRAM is static RAM, it’s the battery backed up memory that holds the options) you will need to push and hold the take win/cash out button and the fifth, top row line button at the same time (there are six buttons on the top row). Both of these buttons are usually flashing to assist you. Pushing these buttons simultaneously will clear the SRAM memory and advance you to a screen asking you to specify which version of clear chips are being used. At this point, do not change any of the version numbers. Power off the machine and remove the piggy back board. Re- power the machine and wait for it to load. With the logic door open, advance to the SPC configuration option (it’s under the miscellaneous menu). Reset the SPC configuration options and save them. Close the logic board box and you’re good to go. All of the other machine options remain unchanged. It’s a good practice to review the options “just in case” but I have never had any options change with this procedure. All done! RAM clear in less than five minutes! Aristocrat MK7 Quick RAM Clear The above trick also works for the Aristocrat Viridian MK7 slot machines but there are three differences: There is no piggy back board. You replace the game theme flash card with the RAM clear flash card instead. The RAM clear flash card MUST be the most current version for that machine theme. The screen Aristocrat MK6 Location of EEPROM Chip Five Minute Aristocrat MK6 RAM Clear This trick is not for re-optioning the game. It is intended to clear an anomaly within the slot machine and leave most of the options untouched. If you need to re-option the game to reset the PAR or denom, the standard RAM clear is required. RAM clearing an Aristocrat MK6 machine requires the use of a piggy-back board that is plugged in to the connector on the logic board. This piggy back board contains the two RAM clear chips that are needed to RAM clear the game. Page 12 Slot Tech Magazine February 2016 now has a control panel version option. This option is usually defaulted to the correct control panel version for that theme; you do not need to change it. Everything else remains the same as the MK6 RAM clear. Aristocrat MK7 EEPROM Chip While we are on the subject of Aristocrat, there is one more for trick that can save you tons of time when you have to replace a bad logic board. The standard steps for changing out the bad logic board include replacing it with a good one and having to RAM clear and re-option the replacement board. This takes a lot of time. This procedure can be shortened significantly with this trick. However, it only will work if the bad board does not display an error message like “EEPROM Error.” In that case, you will have to replace the logic board and perform a standard RAM clear. On the Viridian logic board, behind the white “logic door” cherry switch and its bracket are two, eight-pin chips in sockets. These chips are EEPROMs. While these chips are both the same physically, they contain different information such as the game’s options and meters. Even when the power is off and the chip has been removed from the socket, the information remains in the chip. To make logic board replacement easier, just swap these chips from one board to the other. On the old (bad) logic board, just remove these two chips, making sure you do not mix them up. Then remove the two chips from the new logic board, install the chips from the old logic board into the new logic board. Be careful not to bend any of the pins due to the cherry switch bracket being in the way. Popping out the cherry switch from its bracket makes it a bit easier. Power up the machine and reset the SPC configuration options. Don’t forget to save the SPC options. All done. Aristocrat February 2016 MK7 logic board replacement complete. This trick also will work for the older MK6 Aristocrat machines; but there is only one EEPROMS are located on the main logic board at location U77 just swap this chip with the replacement logic board chip. There are two EEPROM sockets on the MK6 logic board; the second socket is at location U82, I have only seen one chip used. Remember to reset the SPC configurations options and save them. IGT Advantage (Acres) VFD RAM Clear About three or four times a month, an IGT Advantage player tracking VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display) comes in to the shop for repair with a tag that states ‘Stuck in Comm” or “garbage on display, not resetting.” Most of the time, these two symptoms can be corrected by using the same trick. With this trick, the VFD does not need to be able to display any messages. Just like super cap- Location of RAM chips on IGT I game Logic Board Slot Tech Magazine Page 13 ping the BEII board, you can also super cap the VFD display to clear its memory. The VFD ram does not hold vital information like the asset or location numbers like the BEII but it does hold the downloaded messages, the last few player card names and other operating information used to display on the VFD. It’s this operating information that gets corrupted and will cause the VFD to display the (Stuck in) COMM message and cause other display problems. There is a telltale sign that the VFD ram is corrupted and needs to be cleared: The bezel around the card reader will illuminate a very bright red. This red is brighter than the normal bezel red color that is seen when the slot machine is idle. This trick works on all three types of VFD displays for the IGT Advantage System: The small 5” bar top, the standard 7” and the larger 7” large mount VFD displays. To super cap the VFD, locate the super cap. It’s at the same location C39 on all of the VFD displays, near the ribbon cable connector. The super cap is a large round capacitor usually black, or green in color. With the power off to the VFD, just use a 7 inch long jumper wire. Touch the negative end of the super capacitor and the other end of the jumper wire to ground. The negative end of the super cap will be the top metal of the super capacitor itself. If the super capacitor is mounted on its side, touch the side of the super capacitor farthest from the ribbon cable connector. The best place I have found for ground is pin 14 on the program EPROM. It’s the end corner pin on the EPROM, opposite the end of the EPROM with the notch. You will not damage the EPROM if you accidentally touch the jumper wire to another pin. There are other points you can touch the jumper wire to ground but this is the easiest. Hold the jumper on the super cap and ground for at least five seconds. This will give ample time for the super capacitor to drain and the VFD ram to clear. Once you have super capped the VFD to clear the memory, connect the VFD to a slot machine. The VFD will take longer to load, since all of the displayed messages as well as the other information has been cleared. Once all the messages have been loaded and the BEII has initialized, the card reader bezel will be the normal red and the VFD should be displaying its text messages. If not, the VFD has other problems that cannot be repaired by super capping the VFD. IGT Igame Video Soft RAM Clear IGT manufactured the Igame series of slot machines over 10 years ago, using the older 80960 processor. The logic board used in these machines is sometimes called a “960” board. Some of the more frequent error messages that are displayed on the screen include printer, coin-in and meter tilts. Most of the time, replacing or cleaning the assembly noted in the displayed error message will clear the error but sometimes it does not. That is where this trick comes in handy. A regular RAM clear will clear most any tilt displayed as well as all of the game’s options. Besides being time consuming, this is a pain. Never fear! The soft RAM clear to the rescue. The soft RAM clear will clear most displayed errors without changing any of the options. This trick is easy and can be completed quickly. On the “960” logic board are a series of chips, some EPROMS and two others are RAM chips. The RAM chips are located at locations U15, it’s labeled RAM 1 and U38, it’s labeled RAM 2. It’s the RAM chips that hold the error messages. To clear the error, just remove both of these chips from the logic board. Both of these chips are the same and unlike the Aristocrat EEPROMS mention elsewhere, they will lose their memory when removed from the logic board. It’s the fact that these chips lose their memory that clears the error message. Once you have removed both chips, just put them back into the sockets the same way they were removed. One of the rumors regarding the memory of these RAM chips is you have to leave them out of the sockets for at least five seconds. This is not true. Once the RAM chips have been removed, the memory is erased. A second rumor is that you should put back the RAM chips in their opposite locations but since the RAM chips are identical, it really doesn’t matter in which locations you replace the RAM chips. Be careful that you do not bend any of the chips pins when you replace the chips. Re-install the logic board and power up the machine. The error message will still be displayed on the screen until you push the cherry switches or close the main door. If the error message is still displayed then there are other problems that need to be repaired. The Igames are very similar to the Game King series of machines that used the same “960” processor and logic board. These themes included multi games within the same cabinet which are mostly poker and keno type games. This soft RAM clear trick does not work reliably on these machines. The memory configuration is different. Performing a soft ram clear on a Game King machine will work to clear an error but you will have to key chip the game to reset some of the options. I hope you can use these tricks and tips to get a slot machine that is down, back online faster and with less effort than ever before. - Vic Fortenbach [email protected] “I can help you bring down the cost of casino electronics repairs” Randy Fromm “OK. You asked and I listened. My new tech class eliminates obsolete CRT monitor repair and the associated monitor repair lab. In just four or five days, your slot techs can learn to repair Power Supplies, LCD Monitors, Ticket Printers, Bill Validators and more. It’s easy and it’s fun.“- Randy Fromm tel.619.838.7111 fax.619.315.0410
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