New Sammy Bakumogi Fruit King Owner - Looking for Information

[cpf240]

Hello,

First of all, thank you for the great site! It looks like there are a lot of very helpful people with lots of good information here!

I recently bought a Sammy Fruit King / FireWing machine, and am trying to learn more about it. Most importantly, I have no idea how to play one of these. I know you turn the knob, and balls bounce around, but that is about it. We do have an old Nishijin machine, but this is not quite the same animal!

The machine does power on and the reels spin for a bit and then the machine seems to go into a waiting state. From what I've been able to find in the forums here, it appears I'll need a dongle for it, as the port is empty at this time. How would I determine if the board was modified? I'm wondering about that, as someone added a potentiometer for volume control, and I see a green wire snipped at the back of a connector near where the power switch is. If I drop a ball in the center funnel, the reels spin and lots of sounds are played. There are no lights on the ball loan/return display and the buttons don't seem to do anything. I imagine this is due to no dongle.

There is a transformer mounted at the bottom of the cabinet that is spliced into the power cord. The output cable for this transformer is not plugged into anything. Perhaps it is for a card reader? I did see another user's post with a picture showing a similar setup, but couldn't see where the transformer was connected.

If I put balls in the tray and turn the knob, they will launch, and then drop into the tray on the front, or out of the bottom of the machine at the back. I don't think it is starting a game or anything though. Dongle again, I think.

I did find some posts on this machine that referenced something called the "PachiTalk Research Center", but the links didn't work.

So, in summary:

1) How does one play one of these machines?
2) Where can I get manuals for it?
3) Where can I get a key for it?
4) Are the dongles generic, or will someone like DaveRob need specific information for this machine?
5) What size pachinko balls? This one didn't come with any, so I've been trying some from our older machine.

Thank you for your time!