The story of a broken a Deckmate (1 Viewer)

minedelta

3 of a Kind
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Browsing on eBay I found this broken Deckmate 1 selling as parts. The damage from the picture on the original listing showed the pins bent on the VFD (Vaccum Fluorescent Display) which at the time I thought was an LCD. Overall never seeing the inside of a deckmate much let alone ever touched one. I took a gamble. As it's something I always dreamed of having. The worse thing that can happen if I couldn't fix it, I can just part things out and sell it.

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I tried realigning the pins etc and nothing worked. Thanks to fellow PCF member Buge, he helped out a tremendous amount by answering all of my questions and providing pictures of his own shuffler on how things were suppose to look.

I stripped the Deckmate down to its bare bones and cleaned it from all the dust and debris.
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Then putting it all back together. I still couldn't get it to work
let alone read what the error was with out the screen.

It's very difficult to find a VFD from a Japanese manufacturer who doesn't produce them anymore. I was able to make a couple connection through people and over the next 2 months really got this thing running. Someone told me that the damages that I had on the machine didn't make sense. Initially I thought it was broken because someone dropped the machine or thrown the machine but the damages were deliberate like a missing capacitor here or a missing diode there. They believed a casino was told to retire this machine so they disabled the machine by removing a part or two. Then some how this ended up on eBay from someone who bulk sales items.

If you want to join in the game for a second find the missing capacitor on the back of this screen. When comparing it to Buge's VFD I noticed it was missing after a few days and I finally abandoned the idea of fixing it and started seeking to replace it.
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I really enjoyed the challenge but here is a breakdown of what it cost.

$1769 Deckmate, taxes, shipped
$250 used VFD screen
$27 new buttons
$30 sensor 1
$100 sensor 2

All in $2177

Tonight was the first night I got a complete shuffle and ran it for a whole hour shuffle after shuffle with no errors. I'm super excited to start up a home game one day. Thank goodness for Justin's sale on his broken arrow cards. I got a lot of mis print decks. My next big purchase will probably be a table then chips. A little backwards but I save a bit money on the shuffler so glad I took the gamble.
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Late night sorry for any grammar errors.

If you found this story and looking for a full guide on what I know so far about the DM1. Deckmate 1 Guide
 
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Wow, looks like a monumental undertaking. Something that I never would have considered taking on nor would have been able to complete!

Congrats! I hope that it serves you well.
 
Congrats Mike! Amazing that you were able to fix it. You will enjoy that so much more considering the tremendous amount of work you put into it! It was an awesome journey to be a part of. Shuffle up and deal!!
 
What do these go for new?
Used "refurbish" on eBay 6k

New from manufacturer I think 15-18k but most casinos leased them as a package with contracted technicians to service them. Don't quote me on this as I read all this online during my research. Also they don't make the Deckmate 1 anymore it's only Deckmate 2. I still see the Deckmate 1s all over Vegas so it's nice to see even after all these years they still work.
 
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Great story, thank you for sharing, but I have a question...

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The machine was set up for 53 cards when I got it working and I just took a picture to capture the moment. Once I got the rollers cleaned and aligned correctly I changed the poker card count back to 52. I think the 52 + or - 4 cards 104 + or - 4 cards is if you were playing with the jokers or wilds of some sort. Not sure all of the games that were listed not just poker but black jack and maybe pai gao?

Honestly another theory I had was that one of the rollers were misplaced with an incorrect one and it always mis fed a card giving the incorrect count 53 which is why the machine was set to 53. The casinos probably had to many miscount errors because of this and just thought it was time to just retire the machine even though it was an easy fix to move the rollers into the correct spots.
 
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The machine was set up for 53 cards when I got it working and I just took a picture to capture the moment. Once I got the rollers cleaned and aligned correctly I changed the poker card count back to 52. I think the 52 + or - 4 cards 104 + or - 4 cards is if you were playing with the jokers or wilds of some sort. Not sure all of the games that were listed not just poker but black jack and maybe pai gao?

Honestly another theory I had was that one of the rollers were misplaced with an incorrect one and it always mis fed a card giving the incorrect count 53 which is why the machine was set to 53. The casinos probably had to many miscount errors because of this and just thought it was time to just retire the machine even though it was an easy fix to move the rollers into the correct spots.
If it came out of Cali it may have come from a 5cd w/ a bug game. Not sure if any places still run that.
 
The eBay listing shipped from Utah, really not sure how it ended up there since there is not any Casinos around.
There is actually a decent amount of games here in Utah that have DM1’s and I know a few of those games have bought some cheap/broken machines with the hope of fixing a machine just like you did. Don’t know if that’s the situation for yours but if it is it sounds like you maybe have troubleshot it better than they did. Congrats on the machine! You’ll love it in game. Going on 4 years with mine and never had a major issue. Maybe every few games it will freeze up but turn it off and back on and it’s good to go.
 
There is actually a decent amount of games here in Utah that have DM1’s and I know a few of those games have bought some cheap/broken machines with the hope of fixing a machine just like you did. Don’t know if that’s the situation for yours but if it is it sounds like you maybe have troubleshot it better than they did. Congrats on the machine! You’ll love it in game. Going on 4 years with mine and never had a major issue. Maybe every few games it will freeze up but turn it off and back on and it’s good to go.
Working on a new story now of a "broken" no software and missing RNG chip MD3.

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