Basic Electronics for the Gaming Industry

Bench Technician Course

For

Eagle Mountain Casino

Introduction

This material was not intended to be a complete course, in itself, but rather a collection of reference material covering basic electricity and electronics for reel slot machines, video poker games, and basic electronics as needed for the gaming industry. This is an accumulation of papers, each intended to be an hour-long class. Much of the material in these papers is redundant. The redundancy is intentional to make each section as complete as possible. If it only takes a paragraph or two to cover a subject that is ten pages or so away, the material was duplicated.

The book is intended to clarify a few things found in other books on basic electronics. It includes many things left out of most books on digital electronics. Other sections include an introduction to basic logic gates, but assumes that the reader has had electronics and digital electronics to some degree. Definitions used in describing basic gates are given. It should give you definitions to be built on in later chapters. Following general basics, there is a section to cover specific logic devices in the 74xx family. The basic 74xx parts are described with details on operation. There are over one thousand devices in the TTL family. Most of the logic functions used are described in this chapter. Once you have an understanding of the earlier sections, you should have a good insight into what other TTL devices do just by reading their description. Much of this information will be hard to find anywhere else.

Later sections go into more specific operation of the electronics in TTL devices. To understand TTL logic, you need not know operation in the detail enclosed here. It is included as "nice to know" information that is otherwise hard to come by. The material lightly touches the aspect the engineer is concerned with, but falls short of complete engineering aspects. This book is intended for the technician who is working with a developed product, not design engineers. Repair depots, working on older equipment will find a wealth of information here.

Later there is a fairly complete listing of TTL part numbers and a basic description. CMOS parts are emphasized in a separate folder. Since these two families overlap in some part numbers, they are included in one list. Older digital products are mentioned also. Please note the absence of family-specific part number references. Since, in most cases, a 7400 has the same description as a 74L00, 74S00, 74LS00, 74C00, 74HCT00, etc., only the 7400 part number is listed. There are a few that do not follow suit, or have differences in function or pinout. An attempt was made to catch all these quirks. Let me know if you find anything I have missed.

Once you have been through Analog and Digital Electronics schematics should start making sense to you, and we will introduce you to Microprocessors and Systems. Following that we get into Slot Machines in general terms, followed later by specific games in detail.

The entire material contained here, and associated with this site, would make about a 1,000 hour course, and includes everything to take you from “someone who is familiar with tools” to “Bench Technician”, short of enlightening experience that can only be found on the job. It is intended for people already working in the industry who have access to hands-on time on a slot machine.

 Structure of Matter - Atoms, Molecules, and what Electricity is.

Resistors - Resistors (the short story)

Basic Electricity - Review of DC, covers AC, Frequency Spectrum, and Time Period

Review - Review of the Chapter and Basic Circuits before moving on to Semiconductors

Semiconductors - Semiconductors, Diodes, and Basic Transistors

Fuses– A short class on basic fuses.

Capacitors - Capacitors (the short story)

Much of the material was extracted from a book titled "Things Left Out of Other Books on Basic Electronics. Basic Electronics for the Gaming Industry", and is included with the author's permission." This is the ultimate (okay the only) electronics book written for the gaming industry.

Collected or created works by Herschel W. Peeler (hpeeler@eaglemtncasino.com)
Copyright 200, 2004 by Eagle Mountain Casino, Porterville, CA