Project RD
After conducting a feasibility study into building a Razzle Dazzle fruit machine
from scratch, I hit one mighty obstacle and that was the glass or in my case the
lack of it. I looked at scanning an existing glass but this was impossible, the results
were terrible. I looked at reproducing the artwork from photographs, but this was
too expensive. I had quotes in the hundreds (£££’s) from graphic designers. Steve
Lancett was most helpful in providing photographs of his machine, but photographs
are just not good enough in the world of printing fruit machine glass. There was
also the problem of transparency and 'secret images' which have to be built up in
layers so the wording only appears when light hits it. (example the TT light on some
machines) and the black out opaque mask.
Then last year, by chance, I came across
someone who actual had the full top and bottom glass artwork as vector image files
in illustrator which were as near as perfect to the original artwork as it was possible
to get. Unfortunately, for reasons I won't go into, I wasn't able to get hold of
the artwork which was a shame.
I got prices for printing on plexi glass (plastic),
around £150 per glass for one off’s and that wasn't on real glass and that wasn't
going to have mirror finish or any of the opaque masking required.
As far as parts
were concerned, I had the donor MPU4 cab and a donor MPU3 machine for looms, mpu,
alpha, psu, reels and switches.
I also needed a set of RD reel bands and a set of de-protected ROMS. (Later MPU3
machines used a characteriser chip to protect to the ROMS)
Over a period of weeks,
it slowly it dawned on me that unless I could get a set of glasses the project was
really doomed to failure.
And that's where I left it. I scrapped the MPU4 donor cab
due to lack of space and the whole project was put on the shelf for another day.
Fast
forward several months and the unthinkable happened! A set of decent glass complete
with masks came up on ebay. I just had to bid!
I collected the glasses from Sunderland (700 mile round trip). To get the project
moving, I decided to convert my Golden Award to Razzle Dazzle. (GA will live again)
All
the parts for GA have been removed and stored and that machine will be rebuilt when
I get hold of another cab, but for now it's the donor for my RD project.
GA looms
removed, GA glass removed and replaced. RD glasses in - Phase 1 complete. The pictures
below show how well MPU3 glasses was made. Even after 25 years the glass is in remarkable
condition with no peeling. (9/10 - very lucky to find in this condition)
Broadly speaking,
there will be 4 distinct phases
Phase 1 is complete - donor cab and glasses.
Phase 2 is reel bands and ROMS.
Phase
3 is lamp looms and switches.
Phase 4 is testing
Phase 1 - Donor cab and glasses.
Using a cabinet from Golden Award, the black frames and dark veneer are correct, the coins slots and button positions are also correct.