Supa Steppa nearly stepping up to the plate
Written by Magic

HELLO there evvvvvvvrybody. You may notice that my confessions page has kind of stalled- thats because ive beeen sooo busy with work and at home that there hasnt been time to do anything! I have tho gained another couple of machines, and now have one in every room of the ground floor of my little house. Considering the area of scotland I live in I would be well advised to fit an alarm- the neds are getting attracted by the sight of these beautys moving back and forth. Im surprised the authoritys havent been on to me either- 5 fruitys in me ex council house!
first, let me take you on a little tour-first of all, the piccys below show my house, my street
and then the fun begins, look whats in my lobby, under the stairs, in my kitchen and dominating my living room- and you wonder why I call myself a fruity nut?









see what I mean? And that doesnt even show the fruity glass and frames for lucky strike and get lucky which will be built as soon as. But one of those machines is the real subject of this thread guys, A wee while ago I was complaining on the mecca that I had a machine that was ruined by damp- well, if you look at supa steppa there in the lobby, it looks not bad doesnt it? Well, this morning, it looked like this-


NOT pretty is it- Closer inspection of the base reveals the cause of the problem- rising damp has set in and split the fibres in the chipboard. Chipboards a funny material- brilliant for cabinet building but also a brillaint sponge- the chips just expand when they absorb the water. Unfortunately the expansion splits the glue that bonds the compressed board together, leaving a weetabix like material- mmmm pass the sugar!

The close up inspection, after using my hands to pull away all the rotten stuff i could also showed that there was a silver lining in the cloud over this machine- As you can see, this cabinet has an outer and inner base, just like all the mps1 'new typel' cabinets do, probably to allow replacement of the base, installation of castors, customization of the design etc. And the gap between them is a godsend to me and has been whats saved this machine from the skip- the airspace between the two parts has let the condensation and damp breathe out instead of travelling into the t moulding grooves and travellling up the cabinet sides. Apart from a minor injury to the right hand side the cabinet itself survived.

It just so happened to that I had a old fruity base and some spare time- sooooooo

First step, cleaning out all the rotten board. With this type cabinet the way it goes is you have 2 MDF plinths that sit on the floor, then the outer base, then 2x4 plates in behind that and the inner skin. Usually too for some bizarre reason the plates are treated so they rarely rot- just wish they done the same with the rest of the cabinet. It makes sense then to use a large chisel and mallet to knock away all the rest of the board to expose those plates- Here Ive made a start and you can see the plate is generally watermarked but it is in good condition- and As i had left the cab outside for a few days in the summer weather it is dry.Just got to get to the other one now.


You might be thinking that the chipboard side you can see there is shot to hell, but it isnt- what is wrong is that some smart arse has gotten too cute with the polyfilla and tried to make a base out of wad!
Anyways after 2 hours and a full bottle of diet coke (hard work) the outer base is gone. And underneath looks reasonably good!


Cant say the same for the outer base tho- this is all that is left. Theres one good part left on here tho- the footplate. Easy to remove tho, its on by 4 screws along its length.


Now youll notice later on that I havent done much to the rear panel of the cab. there is a reason for that- It forms a major structural part and alougth there was some damp in it its strong enough after clearing the rot to leave it as is- removing it could cause the catastrophic event that would be the cabinet folding in on itself after the base was taken off. Youve got to be careful and think about what you are doing when you do something like this, even if it means leaving something that doesnt look very good in place for the minute.


Just my luck tho I had this spare base- its wider tho than the origional so I had to do a couple of things first- The first of those (no time for a piccy on that one) Was to install a new outer base floor- I did this by taking the 18mm chipboard floor off the spare base, cutting it to size and screwing it into the 2x4 plates on the underside. At the same time I reinstalled the footplate - simply by screwing it through the new base panel into its origional mounting holes in the inner base floor. I also added a piece of floorboard under the footplate- reason for this is to provide something flat to screw into for later construction- youll see later on.




In that last pic you can see the new base offered up to the floor- It simply goes on with lots of long screws- 4 stainless right through into the plates, and the rest for stability into the outer base. I have photographed a piece of the old base here and you can tell its been damp for years- you can also see evidence of the polyfilla repair- fillers good for small blemishes- but a full base???


After checking everythings lined up (remember the new base is wider -the cab, with some support additions kinda sits on top of it rather than around it like the origiional) I can drive the screws in- Here it is all put together!


Now something Ive been waiting all day for- standing this thing up at last! When i did, i nearly got a nasty shock, the cabinet still had a lean to it. I quickly realised that I needed to tie that back panel to the new floor. First thing I did was drive some drywall screws through the cabinet sides into the inner base to provide a sort of wall tie effect- the sides are now forcefully tied to the floor as well as sitting in dowels.It was an awkward task tho- the screws and driven straight but go in at a down angle to make sure they go into the baseplates too. After that, I can cover up the unslightly gap at the rear of the cab with a nice new piece of board. This is screwed to the new base at the rear- and through the CENTER line of the origional back panel. drywall screws are used again here- they bite through everything they do. At some later stage the back panel will be properly replaced but I need to get custom brackets made for that- and some heavy duty clamps to hold supports on to it. for the minute tho this is strong enough- especially after driving in some more screws trhough the plate and the back of the cab. The result of it all is this- which looks not bad at all.


looks cool eh ? Next step of this is to strip out all the lamps and switches, clean them all up and refit them- oh And alot of rewiring!


I put the reels back on the shelf there to take the next pics- theres soooome watermark on the glass, but not much and I can live with it for the minute till new glasses turn up,or I can get someone to print new glass someday.Also the picture shows that there is some blistered chipboard up near the glass, possibly water had been laying in there but ive done a tap and screwdriver test on it and its still solid- provided its in the warm thatll be ok. But as you can see, this machines going to come together nicely- and it was sooo nearly on the skip!
then it found ME




Now youll wonder why I rebuilt the base without removing glasses etc- one big reason- Stability. by stripping down as little as possible I had a fairly stable and stiff cabinet to work on- Taking out all the glasses and button panels would have drastically reduced the integrity of the framework and made the job much more difficult. At the very worst the vibration caused by my tools has shot out some lamps- It has done nothing to the glasses or anything else.

SO WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK SO FAR- AM I A FRUITY NUT OR WHAT?

The coinage can be changed by installing new mechs- you can get new 10p mechs from various sources still (s10 type mechanical mechs) Anyroad, the next step in this rebuild is a weight test. Its all very well rebuilding this base, but nature has this freaky thing called 'ACME DISSAPEARING/REAPPAERING DAMP' The machine needs to be left inside untocuhed for a day or so now to let any remnants of condensation dissappear and any hidden problems to appear and be treated out. While thats going on tho I need to test the strength of the shelving inside by sitting the components that should be installed on them- not fitted, just sitting there. That way I can make  absolutely sure the cabinets shelving can still hold their weight and that the chip can still retain screws- If any issues arise I can then fit some cross bracing (Ill be doing that anyway, at least to the rear top. Or I can think about further section replacements/rebuilds.Again, you may think that VERY daft, putting those parts in danger- but think about it- there is little or no chance of another one of these machines turning up- and the parts were damp like the cab- So if the internal shelf fails its not a fantastic loss of parts. Better to find out now than a few weeks down the line when Ive spent the money on the new soleniods, lamp ballast, acetate film for the bottom glass etc.

Watch this space for the rest of the build- meanwhile, its time to have some brekky, and clean up all the mess from last night (build was finished at 11pm!)


Well,  So far so good! now Ive got a reasonably strong cabinet and overnight it was perfectly fine- no more blisters or anything like that- just one more thing to take care of cabinet wise- this is where my odds and sods box comes in handy.
On the left hand side of the cabinet, there is a hole- nothing structural is the new base and backplate takes care of all that. It does need covering up tho to stop any other nastys getting to it- I havent got the right stuff to d a proper job, so for the minute Im doing a temporary repair. heres the problem im faced with- its not that big, but it is a problem


Just my luck then I have this wonderful alloy shim in my toolbox- Shim is used in industry to increase the gap between two particular parts by tiny amounts. Its simply a very flexable, strong alloy foil that can be cut to any shape or size you want with sharp sissors. Its also verrrry SHARP- handle with gloves if you are not EXACTLY sure what your doing!


process then with this is to simply measure it up and cut it to the right shape and size- then hold it over the gap to ensure it all fits- as youll see later Its very springy so it doesnt give a perfect result- but it doesthe job. Here you can see its juist about right


Once the fits right- installing it is a complete doddle- using a hammer and a screw on a flat (outdoors!) surface such as a paving slab you can tap a hole in this for the screw simply by pressing the screw to the alloy giving it a few taps with the hammer. Then you simply screw it up nice and tight- here is the repair- like I said not perfect, but there is a nice cheat I can do with this later on.


So thats the cabinet done!!
Neeeexxxxxtttttt

but its not over yet- Now ive got an electrical set up to install in it- Reminds me of my first view of the inside of bigshot this done- nice, clean inside with sod all in it- The lamp masks, interior parts etc are all nice and sound looking and the loom is all there. A big jigsaw puzzle really. Looks complex but it can only fit together one way.....




And whats the reason for sod all being in it? Its because I took everything out to save it from the rot!
No wonder though for a 25 or so year old machine these reels are in pretty good condition- Just like the lamp masks. I gave these a good clean with the ultimate reel cleaning tool- a BABY WIPE. I cannot stress enough how ideal these are for the job- They clean and dust at the same time and leave you a nice shiny surface without damaging any of the artwork on the reel. Ok, so theres a little UV burn on them, but thats nothing. These are just about ready to back into the machine- while they are out it makes sense to check all the connections from the motors are secure, all the molex plugs and sockets are ok and all the opto tabs are on the reels inthe right place- You ideally only want to take the reels out once! they are fragile after all that time laying.


Now theres a a job that needs done before the reels go back in- Im guessiing that none of these buttons have been looked at in a long time. Ive got lots of spare wedge bulbs- so Ive relamped every button in the thing- easy to do, just gently pull the switch/bulb assembly out the button, change the bulb and refit any connections, then put it back in. Now, you might be wondering why theres a couple of button connections left not plugged into anything there- These are for the second centre panel button, which isnt present in this machine. Once all the buttons are in place, normally you would fit the flu tube. Im not going to though- I dont want to yellow out those georgous reels.



Thats the buttons done, now the rest can get put together. The next thing to be addressed is the mains connection. back in the day the mains input to the psu was a lead and an iec 3 pin moulded socket with one connected to the other with crimped spade terminals. problem is after years of abuse, and the cable being plugged in and yanked out and the back door being banged on and off all the time these connectors usually are destroyed or in very poor, rusty condition- just as mines were. theres no point in battling with it then- solution is simply to cut off the damaged connections and redo them. You should redo the crimp connections and push them onto a new molded socket screwed onto the bottom where the old one was- but theres not even a connector left on my machine, so Im having to make do with terminal block and mains flex. Perfecty safe if done properly. You need to make sure the wires are properly stripped back and pushed into the block so no bare copper is showing, its also important to snsure that the leads are secure in the block, and that the lead is clamped in the machine somehow. If your not sure what your doing, get someone who does know to redo the connection for you!
I clamped the cable into the machine with cable clips inside on the psu lead and on the backplate to secure the new flex. once its all safely connected and clamped the terminal block should be tightly wrapped in electricians insulating tape, like here-





Now its got power, it needs safeties- All fruit machines of this time have an earth loop- an exposed metal braid runs all around the inside of the machine connecting to all the metal parts in the machine. THIS IS A VITAL COMPONENT. This is what stops you getting a biiig and painful shock if a lamp connections touching the frame of the machine! In this machine though some of it was missing, but it has to be connected to the psu somehow. And guess what? the earth bolt on the psu is missing too. No matter tho- the psus case is also earth, and theres lots of screws holding the covers on. So theres a choice of places to provide an earth for the machine.  Ive chosen a point on the top of the power supply which is fairly well hidden away once the psus installed. Ive twisted two reasonably long leads together, wrapped them tight round the thread of this screw and tightened everything back up nice and secure. At the other end ive secured the link to the braid with a piece of terminal block. This provides a good safe earth between the psu frame and the machine. Its now protected against grounding. Looks a little messy, but its nessecary- the board is in too in this pic.



speaking of which, the board is next! Its simply a matter of connecting up all the molex plugs first, then the idc plugs (the black in line connectors)- you cant go wrong with them, they are all keyed and can only fit the one way- each molex socket is orientated a diffrent way, which means only the right plug can go in the right socket. here all the plugs are nearly in. One thing to note though is that the board also has some molex PLUGS on it- these connect to the power supply via the power supply harness. Theres two plugs on the board, and two only two sockets on the harness, so again you cant go wrong!


And now at long last the power up! before doing so I made doubly sure no tools were left in the machine, that all the connections were secure and that all the fuses were the right rating- buttt-
ITS ALIVE AT LAST


Even had some credits in the memory- so for 'testing' I played em out- just look at what dropped in on the winline!


only thing to left to do was to let it sit running for a while- and a good thing that i did. about 45 minutes after power up my house RCD died- told you I had a good earth!
That meant though that something somewhere was grounding inside the machine. Considering that I had one of those awful blue label powerpacks I thought at first that it had blown out the switching board or something. Except that when I reset the RCD the machine fired back up for a few minutes before killing the breakers again. Asking around, I was informed that it was the filter capacitors in the psu were in need of replacement. however, on inspection the caps looked fine. what wasnt fine however was the lamp ballast in behind the psu. Even though there was no tube fitted this was still warm? There was the short! At somepoint one of the chokes connecting wires had stripped and was touching against a metal plate in behind the psu- BANG!
or it would have done had the RCD not been there.

However, its easy to disconnect the said lamp ballast- CON1 supplies the power for this. Its a simple matter of unplugging con 1 from the psu.

all that done, power back up this morning and it runs and runs and runs- good fun!
quick check of the seven segs on the board against the machine manual shows all is well.



AFTER years of laying derilict- and so neeeearly condemed to the skip- another beauty is saved and preserved by MPU IKEA!

see ya soon with the next one!


MAGIK.