Star Tech Journal

Issue: 1996-May - Vol 18 Issue 3

May 1996
CD
STAR*TEcH
Journal
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... continued from previous page
challenging game while provid-
ing an optimal return.
CONTROL PAYOUTS FROM ALL
PLAYFIELD HOLES WITH COIN
STOPS
We also recommend that
you monitor the game
closely following any change
of settings.
Finally, you can control the
payouts from any playfield hole
by adding, removing, or rotating
the position of the Coin Stops.
We have had the best results us-
ing the Coin Stops on the follow-
ing holes:
r
~
SEEMINGLY MINOR CHANGE
COULD AFFECT THE PAYOUT OR
~
Left and Right 2
Left and Right 3
Left and Right 4
Left and Right 10
Left and Right 30
LeftandRight50 (angled AWAY
from the toilet)
Left and Right Mr. E. Cheese
-
A
PLAY APPEAL OF THE GAME, RE-
SULTING IN ERRATIC EARNINGS.
~
For example: setting allJ-A-C-K-
P-O-T letters to pay a flat 15
points at one of our test locations
(still approximately 36%) caused
play appeal (and earnings) to
DROP over 300/o from its previ-
ous level!
Note: The Coin Stops are shipped
pre-installed in this configuration
from the factory (Reference Sec-
tion 3, Chapter 1, Playfield - Gen-
eral Parts, Butyrate & Decals, for
locations).
This is precisely why we recom-
mend that you monitor each of
your Cut the Cheese games very
closely, so that you can tune the
game to the needs of each loca-
tion.
OTHER SUGGESTIONS
YOU MAY WISH TO EXPERIMENT
For the first two weeks that your
Cut the Cheese is on location, we
highly recommend that you
check the audits often to assess
the overall skill level of your play-
ers (See Section 3, Chapter 3, Go
To Audits Menu).
DAILY MONITORING, ESPECIALLY
WITH THE
Corn
STOPS TO suIT
The faster you can obtain an ac-
curate assessment of your play-
4trs' skills, the faster you will be
able to determine the best con-
figuration for your Cut the Cheese
that gives your players a fun yet
You should review your payouts
for allJ-A-C-K-P-O-T letters once
you decide to protect a letter in
the sequence to ensure that the
overall payout percentage is not
significantly higher than your tar-
get. For example, by merely pro-
tecting the letter "C" using the
payouts suggested above for a
360/o target, you are likely to in-
crease the overall payout per-
centage upwards of 500/o!
THE SK.ILL OF YOUR PLAYERS.
However, we strongly encourage
you to ALWAYS use stops on the
left and right Mr. E. Cheese holes
to collect as many coins as pos-
sible from missed ramp shots,
allowing the auto-percentaging to
work in your favor.
DURING PEAK PERIODS OF PLAY,
IS ENCOURAGED.
letter limit Adjustment 2. When
necessary, we found that protect-
ing the letter "C" was quite ef-
fective ( once the players light the
"C", this letter can never be taken
away due to missed shots).
Should you elect to do this, note
that your audits will now reflect
a much more frequent set of
payouts for the letters "K" and
"P" since they are the next un-
protected letters. Your jackpot
frequency will also increase, since
fewer shots will be required to hit
a jackpot once the protected let-
ter is reached.
SHOULD YOU FIND THAT YOU NEED
TO INCREASE THE PAYOUT PER-
CENTAGE IN RESPONSE TO THE
CONSIDER INCREASING THE
PAYOUT FOR EACH LETTER IN j-A-
C-K.-P-O-T. If you retained all of
the above settings for a 360/o
payout and merely added 5
points to the payout for each let-
ter (so that 'T' now pays 10
points, ".N' now pays 15 points,
etc.), you could expect to see
your overall payout percentage
increase to approximately 42%.
SK.ILL LEVEL OF YOUR PLAYERS, WE
RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING
Consider protecting a letter in J-
A-C-K-P-O-T using the backup
We hope that you find these sug-
gestions helpful in operating your
Cut the Cheese!
STAR*TEcH
Journal
Enzo
May 1996
CD
1
s
Tech
"Hey Enzo, I can't find the self-test button on this Captain Fantastic!,,
Douglas 'Enzo' McCallum • Shiawassee Technical Services • Lansing, Ml
COMPONENT VALUES
READING THE NEW LABELS
THE CODE
We all learned resistor color
codes early on in our electronic
careers. If you don't know the
codes, run, do not walk, to the
nearest color code chart and get
with it.
the PC board, your DMM, your
experience, the part's relation-
ship to other parts, and any other
evidence to identify the part.
47K.
like caps
What do you do when your compo-
nents don't have color stripes?
resistors
and
ID
look like
First, you must identify what the
part is. For full size components
this is usually not a problem.
resistors.
Use the clues in the schematic,
the identifiers silk screened on
-
This trend is starting to move on
to full size parts as well. When
you see it on capacitors there are
slightly different rules. The value
of a cap is printed in pf (picofar-
ads). Thus if you see 473 on a cap
it means 47000 pf. You would
more likely call it .047uf. Either
is correct since they are the same.
Caps look
The color codes are printed in a
zillion places. We should know
that yellow-purple-orange on a
resistor means 47000 ohms or
47K ohms. K means 1000 and M
or Meg means million.
Caps look like caps and resistors
look like resistors. Well, mostly.
In the ever growing world of sur-
face mount parts, the distinction
is not always so easily made.
SM (surface mount) resistor
might have 4 73 printed on it. This
means 4-7-000 just the same as the
opening example. 473 means
I
Well, mostly.
COLORLESS
Many parts sport numbers in-
stead of color bands. THE
NUMBERS READ JUST LIKE
THE COLORS. An itty-bitty
Small value caps, especially the
small disk ceramic types, may
only have two digits. 47 indicates
a 47pf cap, but 471 means 470pf
not 471pf.
NoTE
There is a caution when reading
cap values. Some ceramic disk
caps have a temperature/stabil-
ity rating designation lette ~
printed along with the value. It
might be a Z or a U or whatever,
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