Sakura - volume?

[ChrisC5]

Before I go cutting wires and such... does anyone know if the Sakura pachinko has a volume control anywhere???

[biigdaddy]

Chris,

Here are the directions to the volume control on my Saint Maria. The Sakura is similar to the Saint Maria - built by Nishijin in the same year so I am taking the leap of faith that the electronics are laid out similar.

Facing the back of the machine, there is a large clear plastic cover over a large circuit board in the upper center of the machine. It is secured by 2 black plastic pins on the left side. Pull on the pins and the cover will swing out of the way to the right. On the lower left side of this circuit board you will find a small black slide switch. This is the volume control. My Saint Maria volume control was in the ear-splitting position and sliding it to the other position reduced the sound to now-barely-tolerable. The pachinkos are loud!

If you can successfully trace the wires from the 2 speakers on both sides of the playfield, back to a circuit board in the back of the machine, so that volume potentiometers can be installed in those lines, (and if those wires are the same for my Saint Maria), I will give you free, 2 American Syscom volume pots to install, which will help reduce the volume to a more reasonable level. I have not been successful yet because the wires are impossible to get to at the speakers without major disassembly of the entire front door, and all wires going to/from the front door for lights, speakers, etc. are white in color so no color coding can be used to identify the speaker wires. Good luck!

[ChrisC5]

Wow - thanks, biigdaddy! I found the switch, but I can't tell if it did anything - still loud. Probably a bit quieter, but not nearly as quiet as I'm looking for. I'll see if I can figure out the wire thing. And thanks for the offer of the volume pots - if I locate the wires, I'll take you up on it... ;-)
Thanks again!

[biigdaddy]

Glad to help. I hope you do take me up on my offer.

In fact I will extend my offer above of 2 free American Syscom pots to ANYONE who can locate for me on the back side of the machine, the wires to the speakers on the sides of the playfield on my Saint Maria (no guessing allowed).

[ChrisC5]

OK, I poked around inside the machine, and have made a determination: too many wires!! ;-) On the back of the front panel are two holes where you can actually see the back of the speakers. I'm not ready to try disassembly yet, but looks like taking off the metal border aroung the front glass will allow access to the speakers. If/when I do this mod, I think I'm gonna just splice in at the speakers themselves - access to the controls would be through the holes behind the speakers...
Sorry, biigdaddy - I know that's not quite the solution you were looking for...

[biigdaddy]

Yes there are a lot of wires! Let me know if you are successful at getting to the speakers and what disassembly it took to get there. It looks like quite a lot to me and I didn't want to risk damaging the machine.

[mvco]

Yes, please let us all know. I have added volume pots on all my newer Pachinkos except Saint Maria. Same thing, huge bundle of white wires make the proper wire hard to identify. At least using electrical tape over the top speaker grills has removed a bit of the ear splitting sensation.

[biigdaddy]

But electrical tape looks so ugly!

[minnesotabrad]

They make clear duct tape now, maybe that would not be so noticable.