Cashflow 340 Coin Mech help please!

[2huwman]

I'm trying to hook up a coin mech (Cashflow 340), and need a little guidance on the various connectors! I don't have much experience with coin mechs, but had expected them to be fairly self contained, just needing power coming in for the little pcb and light, and then sending a pulse out when the required number of coins had been put in for a credit.

All I need it to do is send a signal to an IPAC for a MAME'd driving cab, but not really sure what I need to wire up as a minimum to get it to do this.

Here are some photos:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/q82CPmg8PQZa9yEBA

The main connector has 6 pins, and I'm guessing that has either 5 or 12v inputs, grounds, and then the 'coin' wire that would have gone to each PCB (it was a twin driver). Does this sound right?

There's also a 3 pin connector (brown yellow black) and a 1 pin connector (purple & white striped). Not really sure what these are for?

there's a 2 pin connector that goes to the coin counter.

Any guidance on this would be much appreciated. Thanks very much.

2huwman2022-09-11 13:59:41

 

[ArcadePCB]

Maybe this helps:

https://manualzz.com/doc/o/mzqyj/mei-cashflow-340-product-maintenance-electrical-specifications

I don't know about this coin acceptor, but it seems you'll need an additional interface card for it to make it work in your setup.

Or you use a different coin acceptor which supports the parallel protocol directely (see option below).

You need a coin acceptor which provides pulses on different pins of the connector for different coins. If yours dosen't provide this, you need an interface which is converting another protocol (e.g. serial) to this format.

If you know how to program a microcontroller, you can build an interface yourself very easy, of course. Then you can make it also exactely the way you want it to work.

Option: The NRI G13 in the parallel version, for example, supports the protocol you need directely. There are 6 outputs for 6 channels. Normally, every channel is programmed to provide one pulse for one sort of coins. But be careful: there are many versions of the G13 with different interfaces and configurations and the behaviour depends also on the configuration of the coin acceptor (you can't change the configuration youself without having a very expensive programming box), so you have to choose the right one.

 

[2huwman]

Thank you for the detailed reply. So you think there is a part missing? I think the wiring went from the coin mech directly to the JAMMA harness, so I thought it was complete.

I'll have a look at the manual and see if I can make any progress. Looks like I could just swap it out for another coin mech.

 

[2huwman]

I've made some progress - after connecting the 12v and other wires in the 6 pin harness, the coin mech seems to work perfectly!

Unfortunately I think it might be in the wrong mode to be useful for my configuration. From what I can figure out from the manual, it seems to be in a 'credit dispense mode' which flashes a credit button until the credit button is pressed, which then adds the credit to the game.

So it basically sends an intermittent pulse to my IPAC, adding infinite credits, rather than just one!

You can apparently only change this mode by using a MARS ROUTE ALPHA 250 TERMINAL, which I'm assuming is very expensive and/or not available to the general public.

Does anyone have one of these?

 

[ArcadePCB]

I haven't read the manual completely yet, but if it is the way you describe, maybe you can emulate the credit button using a relay. Is it like this: if you insert a coin, an output flashes a LED. Then you can press the credit button for adding a credit to the game. After pressing the button, the flashing of the LED stops? If it is this way, there must be an input so the coin acceptor can recognize the credit button is pressed.

So what I would try to do if it is this way: I would add a transistor and a base resistor to the flashing LED output. The transistor is driving the coil of a small relay and the switch of the relay is the coin button. Don't forget a diode in parallel to the coil of the relay. So if the LED flashes the first time, the relay will trigger the coin button and stop flashing the LED. This should lead to trigger the coin switch just once.

If this works, you don't have to reconfigure the coin acceptor.

 

[2huwman]

Thanks, that's a great idea. I'll figure out which is the input from the credit button back to the coin acceptor. Once that is pressed, I guess it just sends one pulse to the coin input on the JAMMA harness? So I might even just be able to use that as the 'coin' input on the IPAC?

 

[ArcadePCB]

On 'real' arcade boards, coin input(s) are handled like joystick and button inputs. In the 80s, there weren't electronic coin acceptors used in arcade machines, they used mechanical coin acceptors instead which dropped the coin on a wire when accepted. The wire was moved by the weight of the coin and because the wire was mechanically connected to the trigger of a switch, the coin input of the arcade board was pulled to ground for a moment while the coin was falling down into the coin bucket. One coin - one pulse. You have to emulate this short pulse - connect the coin switch (relay switch) like every other button / joystick to your IPAC interface board. You just have to watch the logic levels. If the IPAC and the coin acceptor inpul levels are not comatible, just use a DP relay. So you can use one switch for triggering the coin mech input and the other one for triggering the IPAC input.

 

[Georgian2]

I've made some progress - after connecting the 12v and other wires in the 6 pin harness, the coin mech seems to work perfectly!

Unfortunately I think it might be in the wrong mode to be useful for my configuration. From what I can figure out from the manual, it seems to be in a 'credit dispense mode' which flashes a credit button until the credit button is pressed, which then adds the credit to the game.

So it basically sends an intermittent pulse to my IPAC, adding infinite credits, rather than just one!

You can apparently only change this mode by using a MARS ROUTE ALPHA 250 TERMINAL, which I'm assuming is very expensive and/or not available to the general public.

Does anyone have one of these?

I do have an Mars Route Alpha 250.