Restore a arcade coin slot?

[trekking95]

Greetings! 
So I got an old Royal Casino arcade that I bought from some guy. It had some problem with it that would have cost $100 to fix so he bought some new controls and a computer and made it into a Mame arcade. Well know I have it and the one thing that doesn't work is the coin slot. Like the mech works (drop in a coin and it goes into the box) but the lights and coin switch aren't working. So is there a way to get the lights working? It still has the 5 and 12 volt power supply so would that be needed for the lights? And that shouldn't be the thing that needs the $100 parts, would it be? It sounds like it was the game circuits that needed work. I think for the coin switch you just wire it up to the keyboard encoder and it should work as another button, right? And there is some thing that is stuck to the bottom of the cabinet that looks like a big metal block with wire wrapped around it. What would that be?
Thanks!! 

[Green Giant]

Gonna need pictures for alot of this stuff.

As for wiring up the coin slots, just locate the microswitch on them and wire it to your keyboard encoder.

To add some lights to it, go the easy route and wire some LEDs to your computer.  Now when you power it on it auto lights.


For a really really easy way just get some of those cold cathode tubes for decorating the inside of computers.  I have those ziptied to the back of my coin mechs pushing enough light into the 25 cent plastic pieces.  A bonus is that this gives me a built in light when digging around the inside of my cab.

[trekking95]

I don't think that extra light will help as the only part on the front that opens is the coin door (no front cabinet door) so the light likely wont get to the rest of the inside. Or what about some USB lights?

Pictures coming soon! 

[Green Giant]

I don't think that extra light will help as the only part on the front that opens is the coin door (no front cabinet door) so the light likely wont get to the rest of the inside. Or what about some USB lights?

Pictures coming soon! 

Attached pic is what I mean for the cold cathode method.  I am talking about those cheap lights people usually use inside their computer.  I stretched the cord out to reach my coin door.

[Dervacumen]

You are right about the coin switch; you should just wire it to your encoder like any other switch.
For the lights, my coin door lamps are 14V, so I just wired them to a regular pc power supply molex connector.  The 4 pin molex connector on PC power supplies have two black wires (grounds) one red wire (5V) and one yellow wire (12V).  Hook one wire from one lead on the lamp to the yellow wire on your power supply connector, and pick either of the black wires on the power supply connector to attach to the other lead on the lamp.
The big thing at the bottom of the cabinet is most likely an isolation transformer to reduce noise between the original power supply and the original monitor.

[trekking95]

I took all the stuff out of the bottom and yeah its a transformer. I still has the real Royal Casino game "computer" and it needs a $100 part from what the seller said. Any ideas what it would be? And has anyone heard of that game and know if the parts are worth anything?

So why would it be 12v for just lights? And what type of bulb would be needed?

Also they parallel wired the coin switches so would that have to be split to separate wires?

[trekking95]

So I got Mame UI set up and it works!!!! Now I can play arcade games!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

One thing though in the opening screen of Mame UI it shows 1,000s of games I don't have and it takes too long to find what I have!  

Is there a way to clear that list except for the games I have?

[BobA]

If you choose working from the menu at the left it should only show those games you have proper roms for.   You may have to scan your roms again but I find the progam checks the roms when you change the setting of what you want to see.

[trekking95]

Well that didn't work. ROM Lister and Mame Content Manager don't work even though they say they worked.   And ideas?  

Also MAME UI crashes after audits and MAME in command prompts doesn't work since its not a valid Win32 operation!!!!
I even did the (whatever DOS starts with) Mame> Mame.exe (game rom name here.zip) (and a few other configurations of that text)

To quote one of my favorite movies: "The system's got more bugs than a bait store." - Alan Bradley, Tron-1982  

[Dervacumen]

I took all the stuff out of the bottom and yeah its a transformer. I still has the real Royal Casino game "computer" and it needs a $100 part from what the seller said. Any ideas what it would be? And has anyone heard of that game and know if the parts are worth anything?

So why would it be 12v for just lights? And what type of bulb would be needed?

Also they parallel wired the coin switches so would that have to be split to separate wires?

I dunno why the manufacturer would require 12V.  There are a lot of lamps (lights) out there, and they are manufactured to specific requirements.  As one who works in energy efficiency, this isn't the best choice today, but when the machine was created prevailing concerns were different.  I can't say what kind of bulb you need without seeing what you have, but check this.

[trekking95]

I dunno why the manufacturer would require 12V.  There are a lot of lamps (lights) out there, and they are manufactured to specific requirements.  As one who works in energy efficiency, this isn't the best choice today, but when the machine was created prevailing concerns were different.  I can't say what kind of bulb you need without seeing what you have, but check this.

I will take a picture. Anyway I could just use lower voltage bulbs.


As for MAME, I tried the DOS command version and it works great! And it even found some bad ROMs that could have made the other one not work! 

But then the computer kept crashing so I tried another and it crashed too!!  I think it had something to do with a portrait monitor program I have.

So Mame lets you flip the screen for just the game....what do you do when you go back to normal computer use? Have the monitor on a rotating a bracket?