JG wrote:OK, it wasn't connected up. We now have a stake key error 4.9
I assume the stake key is below the % key.
If it is then it's just an open D/9 pin plug. It looks like someone has hooked up a bit of a wire coathanger from pin one to pin five. I'm probably talking mollocks.
I guess (heart sinks) this probably means the stake key is missing and this is an essential item. D'oh.
Any clues?
Yep when people wanted to change stake instead of changing for the correct key a good trick was just to smash the case of the old one and solder a wire wherever you wanted.
OK, thanks once again Alex. The beast is now working, just had a few spins.
ON a side note, I've been playing machines for over ten years frequently and quite often before then as well. I have never played one in my own home and it feels quite strange to play when it 'doesn't really matter'. Totally different feeling. Even playing a machine that is virtually a guaranteed payer it is that happy, it's still a gamble. It feels really peculiar. Just like you're messing with a DVD player that has reels on it for example.
Anyway it is 5p a play (snooze). I haven't won the jackpot yet, but I did collect boxed bells for £4.
My girlfriend is asleep upstairs, so I'm loathe to play it too much. Noisy Elegance cabinet! Maybe I should get a £105 top (or £15 top) just to piss her off. No money in the hopper either (I had to put my own in).
ANyway
i) Is that a pretty permenant stake/jackpot setting now, because of the soldering, or can it be unplugged and anew key fitted? My ideal price of play wouldn't be 5p, I'd prefer 10/20p for £5/£15 jackpot.
ii) If so, yes, sorry not typing on a computer, English may be bad. If so, I guess I'll be buying a stake/prize key as well.
iii) So many bulbs out. Can't be bothered to go into that now. May swap a few around. Need the big buggers behind reels 2+3 and a few on the top/bottom glass of the smaller type.
Anyway looks like we won't need a Christmas Tree this year, just played it with the room lights off and it's looking good(ish).
I forgot it could offer stop 'n step on different reels as well. Just had a stop 'n step on reel 3.
Quite noisy as well. guess that's normal. ALmost like it's alive. Must get back to it now. EVen stuffing a sock up the chute don't mute that clattering racket. Might just have to make do with test mode tonight.
OK, I'll be in touch regarding supplies of bulbs and stake keys.
ONe last thing (!!!!!!) No sund at all. Keyed it (inserted refill key) and whooped it up to 50pc but nowt. The speaker seems connected, maybe I'm missing some wires/connection?
Anyway, JG signing off to go to bed (for the first time in six months) now.
JG wrote: I've been playing machines for over ten years frequently and quite often before then as well. I have never played one in my own home and it feels quite strange to play when it 'doesn't really matter'. Totally different feeling. Even playing a machine that is virtually a guaranteed payer it is that happy, it's still a gamble. It feels really peculiar. Just like you're messing with a DVD player
JG
Heh, i can relate to you on that, a few months back i bought a 25rat pack off Advance Leisure, there is indeed no practical way to play them, once you have denied for £5000! strange as fuck at first but like you say, saves clambering up the loft to get the annual christmas tree/lights down
Aha yes I remember you saying during that drive around Coventry on that wet 'orrible day. ATM it's in the front room. I'm going to keep it for Christmas. The girlfriend has 0% interest in it which is wierd. She was always showing me ads in local papers for machines. Usually some over priced, already emulated rubbish.
Well one night I was playing poker (£10 stts Mark, £10 pushing the boat out) and I had Ebay on the go and there it was. A Flashback (notalgia) for sale. Spares repair only.
When I was a child, I was gifted a midi hi-fi system from my aunt and uncle. IN two days I had taken it apart and broken it unitentionally. I guess I thought it would be easy to take it to bits and put it back together. No such luck. I never heard the last of it from my parents.
In a way, this bastard machine was the antidote to all that. I was determined to fix it. It arrived on a quiet Sunday, with Mrs George decidedly frosty about a fruit machine arriving in the house. The guy wheeled it into the hallway with the sackbarrow and there it stayed for a bit, getting in everyone's way and looking decidedly strange and slightly rusty in my hallway.
I plugged it in. The guy was obviously mistaken. Spares and repair! Pah! He was obviously a doughnut and my skill at finding the on switch would prove my fruit machine engineer expertise. I did find the on switch and hoping for some action, at least a couple of stop 'n steps, flicked the bloomin' thing.
VROOOM! It sounded like I had just powered up the National Grid. There was some electronic whining and naff all else.
Disappointed I opened it up and sniffed the mouldy smell which reminded me of a Rover 200 with a broken head gasket that I had once had the misfortune to drive. Maybe everything broken had that smell. There was mould on the reel bands, lots of rust and lots of wires that meant nothing to me. The smell was quite pungent and it was dark, full of cobwebs and horrible. I blew vigorously at the cobwebs. I plugged it back in, now the cobwebs had been blown out and VROOOM! The same level of deadness.
Mrs. JG moaned at me and I went and sat on the bottom stair and cried. I had inherited a big heavy lump of shit for next to nothing that was going to get in the way and be a crap talking point for visitors.
With a few hours my gusto had returned and the first port of call would be Showboat after posting a few questions of various boards. The reply was resounding unious and clear in all forums. Infact it was probably just Alex saying the same thing over and over again. "Change the PSU or/and change the MPU board".
PSU? what was that? My knowledge was hardly good. Peter's salty underwear? Post suboptimal unbalance? Power Systemal user? Power supply unit. No, I'm being stupid, of course I knew what a PSU was, having replaced one on a PC a while back.
Well various trips to Showboat and a fresh board supplied by Alex and a bit of a clean and it was looking better. Those EPROMS were ok to remove, but pressing them onto the new board was tricky. I used the edge of a screwdriver to gently line up the legs and push down firmly but gently. Tricky, tricky. Phew. I put in the new board and plugged in and VROOOM! THe very same. I was devestated and just wept buckets there and then.
Then the light bulb!
JG you twat! You forgot to change over the boot chip! So that I did and VROOOM!
LIGHTS!!!! It was lighting up and the reels were moving. I had lovingly spruced up the reel bands, so the IMPULSE symbols were visible through the layers of penicillin cultures. If this thing had been left at the bottom of a swimming pool for two years it'd have been less damp. Ok, some of the bulbs were out, but compared to playing a machine down THe Buzz (average working bulb count = 6 per machine(*)) it was fookin' amazing. All the hidden feature bulbs were out which was annoying as you don't know if you have Simon says or hi/lo cash until it happens.
After working out how to plug in the hopper and how to jig the soldered fixed stake key, it worked.
I put in my first pound and some cluey must have been playing it before it was submerged in The Atlantic for two years as it got me on the board twice and one of those was a flasher. I collected and it IOUd. Disappointed. I had expected some deep sea divers to have fed it up. I had to refill myself. Gutted.
Anyway, I have to solder back a wire to a speaker, replace a capacitor (I think) in the autonudge, bung in ten million bulbs and we have a consignia condition Impulse Flashback.
It's on now, flashing away. It seems to have calmed down a bit. The PSU is a little less noisy and the reels sound less like farm machinery and more like a swarm of spoon swallowing wasps.
Playing it for the first time was totally unreal and I found the experience rather comical truth be told. For someone to go years and years playing machines and not actually own one is quite rare.
It seems quite flat. You can force out the silent im/flasher easy (it's on flippin 98% payout!!!). No repeat as of yet, but it's taking coins in the box on 98%, so I assume there's a £20 streak in there. Am I wrong? Don't think this is the mad IJ3 streak type, should run for a few jps though eh?
Anyway we'll have it here for Christmas. A couple of non fruit mates have said they want to see it, one even said it'd be worth travelling up from Bristol to see it when it was working, not told him yet, but I want Mrs. JG to play it first. I can't believe she hasn't tried a credit in it.
Once I've taken it all to bits and put it back together (oh dear), I'll lump it back on Ebay sometime after Christmas. Then I'll look for another EPOCH and bore you all to tears with how mouldy the PSU is on that one. Spin on it or Duff Beer Guide will do nicely. Or a Snakez. Or a quiz. Or a mega spin.
Is there an echo? Wrong thread mate, no Chandlerspam over here.
Bit disappointed to be honest was expecting more of a "basically it is a complex admissions test/exam in which you prepare for transgression to an etherical form. The physical existence is a weighty one and we train through as prions, amoebas, mites, flys, eagles, newts, bats, cats, rats, dogs, frogs, apes and finally humans. The physical burden is a fantastic way to establish your psychological profile and those who suceed the task will transgress into the etherical form upon completion of their life as a physical form. The etherical form is a place that exists with a whole different set of meanings, but to get there, you must first successfully complete life and if that means posting lots of stupid messages on fruitchat, then so be it."
strange as fuck at first but like you say, saves clambering up the loft to get the annual christmas tree/lights down 
)