Star Wars can't shoot balls during fever

[jclausing]

This is weird. Machine works perfectly until I hit a fever. The machine will not let me shoot any balls during the fever. If I power it off and then back on, the 3 symbols in the video screen (that are usually the three that matched to get in the fever) display as question marks.
I added one of the dongles that allows you to use the existing buttons to dispense balls and I noticed that the lights that show how many "dispenses" are remaining blink off and on when this happens. It also goes to 0 (which it doesn't during normal play as it just counts down how many times you have dispensed balls starting at 10 down to 0). The machine also reports a weird code in the display on the right middle side of the playfield but I did not write it down (dumb of me in hindsight) but I think it was "OE" or something like that.
When I hold the reset button, everything returns to normal. I have hit the fever twice with this exact result so I do not think it is random. I have not put in the "old" dongle as I really like the functionality of the one that is in there (I can't remember the name of who I bought it from but I saw it in the forums here originally, I think he is in England maybe???). Anyone seen this happen??

[casinocrazy]

The dongle was most likely bought from Daverob a member here.

[jclausing]

Yes, thanks for the name, that is correct. Maybe I will shoot him a message about this as I had never had this happen until putting that dongle in. Thanks

[hanabi]

Maybe Daverob, a Member here and the Inventor of the amazing Dongle
can help you,

I'm sure he'll see this Thread, or you could pop him a Private Message??

Hopefully it will be an easy fix for you

I have the Dongle on my own Star Wars and never had a problem with it...








late edit, I see you already got the info!!

[daverob]

First the display on the right hand side of the playfield can be ignored, as they often show weird codes during fever modes. This is so the parlour attendants know which type of fever it is (as some parlours have rules about a player continuing play after a fever round). It's unlikely that the code here relates to any problems that you are having with the machine.

The questions marks, I'm really not sure about. I've never seen any thing like this after a power cycle on any of my machines and this part of the machine is completely unrelated to the dongle/credit display or the shooter handle.

There's nothing in the dongle that can determine the difference between the machine in regular play and in a fever round, so the theory states that if the dongle and shooter handle (which is enabled by the dongle) are working in regular play, they should also work fine during a fever round.

I would suspect that there is a problem somewhere that is causing the dongles power supply to drop out during a fever round. If the dongle is not receiving enough power, the first thing that will happen is that the shooter handle will be disabled and ball dispensing may become intermittent or stop working all together (as the pachinko machine needs higher voltages for these signals). If the power supply drops out further, then the credit display will go out, and is likely to get reset to zero if/when it comes back on.

You should also check the transformer that the machine is running off, an undersized transformer can cause many strange issues with the machine, and these are most likely to show up during a fever when the machine is drawing the most power.

If you have a voltmeter it would be a good idea to set it to the AC volts range and connect it directly to the outputs of the transformer and see if the voltage changes much during gameplay. It should read between 22.5v and 25.5v, and shouldn't change by more than 1v during gameplay (including during fever rounds!).

Though having said this, if the credit display is being reset to zero, this would indicate a serious shortage of power to the dongle, and if the rest of the machine (LCD, flashing lamps etc) are still working fine then this is far more likely to be caused by a loose connection somewhere than a transformer that is struggling to cope with the load.

The best course of action is to check the connections on the back of the machine, obviously the first thing to check is that the dongle is plugged in fully and is making good connection.

You should try to unplug and reconnect the three connectors on the power supply board (a white two pin connector near the power and reset switches, and a pink and a white connector on the top of the board above the row of yellow LEDs. You need to hold the connector and put pressure on the latch lever on the side of the connector to release it when removing the connector, and make sure that the connector is fully home and the latch has re-engaged when replacing the connector.

On the Payout Control Board (the one with the grey phone line connector next to the 7-segment display), you need to remove and reconnect the white connector on the left, the pink one next to it and the red connector near the middle as a minimum (ideally it's worth trying all of the connectors along the top edge of this board).

Finally on the board where the dongle plugs in it's worth checking the red connector below the dongle as well, as this is the final connection in the chain between the power transformer and the dongle.

If you have the original dongle to hand, then keep it near the machine and (after checking all of the connectors!) play through to a fever round and if the problem still occurs, swap the card reader emulator dongle for the original one (keep the machine switched on), and see if the shooter handle starts working again. This test won't be conclusive, as the card reader emulator dongle is a bit more sophisticated than the rather crude circuits on a regular dongle, so is a little less tolerant of power supply issues, but it would still be useful to know the fault is still present with the regular dongle.

If none of this helps solve the problem, then let me know and I'll get another dongle sent out for you to try.

[jclausing]

Thanks for the very thorough response. That gives me a lot of ideas to troubleshoot. I will get back to you as soon as I have had a chance to run through these.

[luckydog]

how big is your transformer???

Star Wars seems to need a pretty big one to work properly.

[Lddrizzt]

I know just last week I turned mine off in the middle of a fever to show someone the battle counter in action. when I powered it back on I got the question marks.
So I would have to go along with the underpowered or power interruption theory.

[owennewton]

same thing, I powered off in a fever and when turned back on my star wars had question marks.

[BigBearSteve]

I know just last week I turned mine off in the middle of a fever to show someone the battle counter in action. when I powered it back on I got the question marks.
So I would have to go along with the underpowered or power interruption theory.

Did you have to do a reset to clear the question marks?

[arbycoffee]

how big is your transformer???

Star Wars seems to need a pretty big one to work properly.

POWER PROBLEM (UNDER powered)

[daverob]

Seeing as the question marks issue looks to be normal, so is not related to the fault or a possible power issue, then it looks like it is most likely to be a problem with the dongle not getting enough power during a fever round.

This could be an undersized transformer that is dropping it's output voltage during times of heavy load (ie during a fever), but it also could be a fault on the dongle that makes it over-sensitive to changes in the power supply voltage (the output voltage of even a correctly specified transformer will drop slightly as the load increases).

I wouldn't rule out a connection problem either, as a bad connection will drop voltage as the load on it increases, giving exactly the same symptoms as an overloaded transformer.

It's also worth testing to see if it might be a vibration related issue, as this is also more likely to occur during a fever round. You could try tapping around the back of the machine and the dongle with the handle of a screwdriver and see if you can provoke any fault symptoms.

[Youngjedi]

On all the machines I have, If I am unable to give the time needed to play a fever, I will shut off the machine and play it out later. I have noticed the Question marks on pretty much all my machines (Gamera, Star Wars, Indiana Jones). It seems normal. Basically, the machine is in fever mode when restarted, but it can't remember why it's in fever mode...so it shows question marks.

My bet is the transformer is failing and can't supply enough power.

Hope all turns out OK.

[jclausing]

Where can I get a transformer that would be recommended for this machine with the additional requirement of the dongle?

[Chrisdice]

24v to 110v 6 amp transformer for Pachislo Slot Machines

[luckydog]

you can get a 9 amp from Gaku, the price was the same

send him an email

eBay Store - GAK Trading: Buy It Now, Auction, Slot Machine

[daverob]

Where can I get a transformer that would be recommended for this machine with the additional requirement of the dongle?

The additional requirement of the dongle is negligible. The dongle is designed to draw a peak current of 0.125A, but in normal operation the actual current drawn will be around half of this figure or less.

I believe that the official Sankyo figures for Star Wars is 8A, but that includes 1A for the card reader unit (of which a regular dongle only uses 0.02A, and the card reader dongles use about 0.1A) so a 7A transformer will cover this requirement easily. A good quality 6A transformer will also be perfectly adequate, as most of the time the machine doesn't need this much current, and a decent transformer should still be able to cope with the short duration peaks of current consumption that could be up to 7A.

[jclausing]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies and advice.

[Youngjedi]

Let us know how it goes.

[Youngjedi]

JClausing...Any Luck yet?