Game Maker Printer installation questions.

[Justin]

Topic split - OP is asking member kcirrick who previously posted on his Game Makers. 


Hey,
I saw your post about the printers in your GameMaker. I have a V7000 and am trying to put in some printers. I was wondering what baud they use and how they are wired, where the connections were.

Thank you!

[kcirrick]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, it seems your inbox is full.

Hey,
I saw your post about the printers in your GameMaker. I have a V7000 and am trying to put in some printers. I was wondering what baud they use and how they are wired, where the connections were.

Thank you!

I’m happy to try and help.  I’ll assume you have a Seiko printer since that’s what I have and might be able to help you with.

A single short cable with Molex type connectors is used to connect the printer to the Game Maker.  The 14 pin male end on the short cable connects to the back of the printer next to the dip switches.  The 12 pin female plug on the other end connects to a male Molex style connector from the Game Maker.  The connector from the Game Maker is part of a cable harness that has multiple connections for the various parts of the machine.  One end of this harness connects to the print/hopper connection on a circuit board in the machine.  (Not the MPU.)  You have this harness already else your machine doesn’t work at all.  Your printer should have it’s own 50 pin ribbon cable already installed.  (I think it was 50.)

I have the following settings:

Communication
Interface      serial
Baud Rate      9600
Data Bits      8
Parity         NONE
Handshaking      XON/XOFF+HARDWARE

The settings are changed via the printers dip switches.  (Sorry, I should have grabbed a pic of them.  If you need it let me know.)

After connecting your printer to the Game Maker you can view the printer’s current settings by holding down the feed button on the printer and then powering the Game Maker on.  As soon as the printer starts printing, release the feed button.

I’ve included some pics of the short cable and it’s connections.  Ignore the small 3 pin connector on the short cable as it is not used. 

Good luck!  If you have any questions I’ll try to answer them.

[Justin]

Wow! Thank you, that's actually a huge help! I will take a look at my machine after I get out of work today! I have a few Ithaca and Gen2 printers I will try because they seem to be the same connection. Do you by chance have any pictures of where the printer sits within the cabinet? I am wondering where it prints the tickets too.

Thank you Mark for splitting this, sorry to drag a multi year old post to the top of the board. Ill try to keep that to a minimum lol.

[kcirrick]

Glad to help Justin.

So far I've assumed you have an upright and not a slant top so those are the pics I've shared.  If not, let me know and I can send some pics from the slant top.  In the upright the printer is located just below the upper backglass to the right.  It actually sits in a metal frame that hangs from the inside wall of the machine on three screws.  Since your machine didn't come with a printer there may be a bezel blocking the spot where the printer spits out tickets that you will have to remove.  Hopefully, the connector from your cable harness is in there and should already be pulled through just patiently waiting for a printer.

The Ithaca printer should work fine.  I don't have one, but am pretty sure the baud rate would be the same.  Just be sure to select Ithaca for your printer when you do your ram clear.
 
Rick

[Justin]

Mine is a V7000 upright, but it looks a bit different. The top glass opens with the door when I open it. I will attach a picture. I am not sure what causes mine to be different like this. My BV is also a DBV200 with the Bally style side access door.

[kcirrick]

Okay, we might have a bit of an issue.  My upright is a 7217 and yours a 7000.  Looks like a 14 inch screen that is sometimes called a “mini”.  I’m not sure I’ve seen one of these with a printer, but doesn’t mean they don’t exist. 

Take a look at your back plane (the circuit board I mentioned in an earlier reply) and verify that the connection where your coin hopper would be connected is labeled “print/hopper” (pics below) and verify that the connector for the printer (picture in an earlier reply) is hanging off that cable harness somewhere unused.  If we’re good here then I see no reason why we couldn’t add a printer – although it might require a bit of Oklahoma engineering. 

If this were my machine and I was determined to add a printer then I would pick up (or fabricate) a printer mounting bracket (should cost less than $15, but for all I know there’s already one in there somewhere), figure a way to mount that in the space where the coin hopper goes and have the printer just spit the tickets out into the coin tray.  (My slant top does that.)  If you need that short cable that connects to the printer, that should go for about $20.  While at it, since I wouldn’t be using coins anymore anyway, I would remove the coin mechs and replace the coin slot with a blanking plate just for aesthetic reasons.  (Another $5 to $10.)

Honestly, I kind of envy you a bit having a machine with the coin mechanics.  I miss the days of winning a jackpot and listening to the sound of all those coins jingling into the tray.  (Yes, I used to go to casinos and play dollar slots back when you actually used silver dollars to play.)  I’ve seriously considered running down the parts I need and adding them to one or even both of my machines.

I wish I had better news, but of course if you have other ideas or questions I’ll do my best to help out.

[Chris-socal]

I will look at mine when I get home, I thought there was a mount and connector above the BV, mine is a V7000 upright with a 14” monitor. I don’t have any experience with Tito though.
Personally I would never remove a hopper. Quarters are the common denominator of all machines in my game room.
In fact, I converted my GameMaker to 25c from nickels just to be consistent.

[Justin]

I like to keep the quarter hardware, I don't have the money to purchase enough quarters for all my machines, or tokens.

I use the arduino TITO code on an ESP32 so I can print slips from my computer for dollar value.

[Chris-socal]

Funny you say that. I helped a co-worker buy a slot machine several years ago. Every 2-weeks for a year she got a roll of quarters for her machine when she deposited her check at the bank (I know, old school). She was amazed that it wasn't even half full after a full year. It does take a lot of quarters but if you buy a roll now and then they add up. A Gamemaker uses a lot of coins, supposedly you can tokenize it and make it issue 5 credits for every quarter but I am not smart enough to figure it out.

[kcirrick]

I wouldn't want to get rid of the hopper either.  I just threw the idea out there as an option. 

I've been poking around and, although a printer is not mentioned in the manuals I have, I do have the impression looking at drawings and diagrams that you are correct and you might be able to mount your printer just above the BV.  I then found a picture of the inside of a Bally S6000 slot machine showing exactly that.  (The pic was actually from AZSLOT.COM - an NLG sponsor.)  It noted that Game Makers are similar.  I won't share that picture.  You already know what the inside of your machine looks like.  My confidence is back up! 
Rick

[Chris-socal]

There is an ultra compact version of the V7000 so if you have that version it probably doesn’t have this setup. Pics attached of my upright.

Chris

[Justin]

Chris, I think we have very similar machines. Unfortunately for me, mine was the DBV-200 instead of what looks like yours with a WBA.

I took a few pictures of my machine and backplane. My hopper wiring connects to the backplane at a connector labeled JPRN. I do not see a connector for a printer though.

I must assume if we had enough info, an adapter could be made to connect to a printer. The wiring diagrams I have list the pinout as DATA1, DATA2, DATA3,..., DATA8. Almost as if it was a parallel connection, it could be the wrong wiring diagram though

All my photos that my phone takes are WAY to large to upload here and I really don't feel like compressing them right now. So here is a link to a Drive folder of them: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u4vHzNtvdsmE_AeHRgfs8Ocjy4rSNWuX?usp=sharing

I may upload them to this post later on.

[kcirrick]

Justin

Chris kind of echoed my concern about you having a “mini” Justin, but it still looks to me like it might be possible to squeeze a printer in there.  If you don’t already have them, you’d have to come up with a mount for the printer and a faceplate for the door, but I take it that you didn't find that lonely unused connector just waiting around for a printer to be installed. 

I think I may have the same wiring diagram as you.  (Page 9-18 in Overall Wiring Diagrams.)  Although it doesn’t specify between the compact and larger casino version, it shows the V7000 upright backplane board and a JPRN connection and it shows JPRN going to either an optional printer or an optional hopper.  Can you use an adapter so you can have both?  I don’t know.  If you were to manage to get both connected I would be curious to know how the game knows whether to print a ticket or churn out quarters should you cash out.  Will it give you a choice?  My machines only having printers and no hoppers, again I don't know.  Also, I was thinking though that if your reason for installing a printer is for ticket in ticket out then it might not be worth it.  Granted, I haven't looked into it for a couple of years and maybe I missed it or maybe something new has come along since then, but in past research I was unable to find anything that offered TITO compatibility with the Game Maker.  Chris seems pretty knowledgeable so maybe he can be more helpful than I when it comes to answering some of these questions.  Of course, I want to see you get this figured out and working so I’m here to answer questions the best I can as well and to offer suggestions and advice.

Rick

[Chris-socal]

You give me far too much credit. I am completely illiterate in TITO functionality, all this talk about ports and parallel connectors takes me back to adding a device in Windows 3.1. Thank goodness Windows 95 came along.

There is a challenge for you Justin. Find an old Windows 3.1 PC and try to get a modem connected without losing your sound!

I did ask Badbaud to chime in, he truly is a Gamemaker expert.

Chris

[kcirrick]

So much for me being able to pass the buck.  As for me, I enjoy working on this stuff probably more than playing.  That includes not only my Game Makers, but also my multi arcade, pachislo, real pinball and virtual pinball machines.  I'm pretty good at figuring things out, but don't consider myself an expert in any of it.  I never have a problem asking questions and for help when I'm stumped and am a firm believer that where there's a will there's a way, but occasionally a solution just can't be found.  We're all here to both seek and give help to each other.  Without this and other forums I never would have been able to accomplish some of the things I've done.  Let's hope that collectively we can help Justin achieve his goal.

[Justin]

Do you think you could trace the wires that go to your printer connector and tell me where they go? I'm thinking I can just slap them on the serial bus anywhere, but I could be wrong. What printer do you say you had in it again? It looks like a Gen1 but I'm not sure

[kcirrick]

My printer is a Seiko PSA-66-ST that uses an RS232 interface.  (Future Logic PSA-66-ST is the same printer.)  I remember trying to install it and had one heck of a time because when I bought it I got sent a printer with a Netplex interface rather than the RS232 I had ordered.  They look exactly the same, but Netplex wouldn’t work on my machine.

When you mean trace the wires do you mean to where they attach on the backplane?  That is in one of the pics in one of my earlier posts.  The connection on my backplane is labeled PRINT/HOPPER.  I didn’t do a micro trace, but a I can see that from the PRINT/HOPPER connection the wires split off into two bundles.  One ending with the printer connector and the other the hopper connector.  Of course, my hopper connector just hangs their unused. 

[Justin]

I was hoping you may be able to tell me which number wire on the printer side of the wire goes to which number of the backplane connector. I will try to wire my printer to the hopper connection.

[Chris-socal]

Im afraid Im not gonna be a lot of help. Please forgive my advanced technical terms.
The 12 pin connector coming out of the printer frame connects to its mate which only has wires for 5 of the wires. Two go to a 2-pin connector that is hanging on the left side of the cabinet.
The red and orange wire go to that black rubber wrapped contraption zip tied to the wire loom. I don’t know what is inside that black contraption and the wires coming out the other side go into that bundle of wires and I have no idea where they go.

My 50 pin connector doesn’t have a ribbon cable in it so I have no idea whete it would go if I had a printer.

I will need more time to dissect this if its necessary. I included a picture of my back board in case that helps you compare.

Chris