Join Lawton Barnes in the Metal Shop as he explores the inner workings of an SMK American Classics draw poker machine pulled from storage. From rust damage to potential salvageable parts, discover what makes this machine unique—and whether it’s worth restoring or better left as a parts donor.
TRANSCRIPT: Hey, we’ve got a special guest in the Metal Shop today. This is an American Classics draw poker machine. I pulled it out of a storage shed. I don’t know a lot about it, because it’s different from the rest of my machines. So why don’t we find out what’s inside of it? In case you’re considering buying an American Classics draw poker. I’m Lawton Barnes. You are in the Metal Shop. Okay, so I pulled this machine out of a storage shed, and it is not an IGT machine. All the machines you see behind me are built by International Game Technology. From the late ‘80s to the early ’90s or mid ‘90s. And, one of the reasons I collect the IGT machines is because they were by far the most common, the most popular machines, and they’re easy to find. The parts are readily available on eBay. You may find one that’s in a rough condition, and then use it as a parts machine to repair another one. But that’s what makes this one different. This one comes from a different manufacturer. This one was built by the SMK Corporation in Billings, Montana, in 1993. And, why don’t we start by taking a look inside, and I’m going to have to warn you, it’s a bit of a horror show. So, looking inside this machine, this thing is completely rusted out. I don’t know the history of this machine, but for something to have rust damage this bad, I think this very easily could have been on the Mississippi Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina and was completely flooded with saltwater because I don’t know what else could possibly do that kind of damage, to the inside of a machine like this. Yikes! Right off the bat, I can see that this machine doesn’t have a coin hopper. It has a TITO printer. That means ticket in, ticket out. Which prints out a paper check rather than giving you coins when you win. And, rust damage aside, let’s plug this in and see what happens. Okay, this came on and made noise. And since I’m pointing at it, let’s look at this bill validator. This is a Mars Electronics bill validator. It feeds bills in through the top and stacks them into this, stacks them into that cartridge right there. It lights up. I seriously doubt that it works. Yeah, I knew that was going to happen. And, the monitor is out. I hear it making a lot of noise and let’s just kind of step through the parts of this, this door back here has got the processor board behind it that actually looks new and in pretty good condition. It does have some lights on it. That could be a salvageable part for use in another machine. It may be functional. It’s hard to tell since the monitor isn’t working and, with all of this rust, I wouldn’t expect the monitor to work, so I’m going to power down. This is the cord to the monitor. We’re going to pull that in a minute. This power supply looks newer. This is a rust bucket. That is a rust bucket. As far as parts to scavenge, this coin comparator looks to be exactly the same kind that’s on the IGT machines. But it may not be. This number here, CC 40, I believe the ones on IGT are CC 16. And so, that could be running at a different voltage than the IGT uses. And, and these buttons are all jacked up. Most of them are bad. Glass isn’t broken. I give it that. And the candle looks to be almost identical to the kind used on IGT machines. I pulled the monitor cord. We are powered down. This might be completely rusted into position. Let’s see what happens. It does move. Oh, look at that. I don’t see any manufacturer’s markings on it. Okay. Still don’t know what kind of a monitor we’re dealing with here. I’m just going to pull this. This looks like it’ll come off. Let’s see what’s inside. That one’s rusted out. Totally rusted out and stripped. Totally rusted out. And three in a row, rusted. They’re all goners. Okay, so everything on that side, That’s rust damage. I can’t even get the screws out. Okay, so here’s some news we can use. Bend this up. Look at that. It’s a Ceronix monitor. The same type of monitor that’s used in an IGT poker machine. Also, the 1492 model, But, but… Ceronix, when they built these monitors, they would customize them to a particular manufacturer. There’s a set of jumpers on the chassis here, which, had to be set up a certain way so that a 1492 monitor for the SMK corporation would not work in an IGT machine. this could be repairable. But right now, I’m a little perplexed by this circuit board, which has a lot of chips on it. I don’t think that’s part of the monitor at all. This looks like a a logic board for the game itself, which is surprising to me because we saw another circuit board inside the top of the cabinet. unless this will pull back now. Okay. Hey, look at that. Cool. Oh, the letters are coming off. SMK Corp. Well, with the letters falling off the circuit board, I can’t really tell what it is, but that is not a part of the monitor. I at least know that much. After taking another look at this monitor, this looks like a logic board to me. This would appear to be the circuit board that contains the game software itself. That is really unusual to be mounted to the monitor like that, but I’m going to see if I can pull these side brackets off and attempt to get this monitor separated from this unit. Here. Let’s start pulling screws out. Okay. Try it with a socket wrench. I got it. Okay. Hey, look at that. Needle nose pliers on the yoke connector. Oh, come on, man, I don’t want to break it. Okay. Things are happening. I’m just going to cut that. It’s the degaussing coil. Okay. So that right there might be the most useful component that could be salvaged from the American Classics video poker machine. I’m going to be sure that I mark this as a Non-IGT part. And I’m going to send it to a friend of mine who is better at repairing these than me and see if he wants it. If you’re considering buying an SMK American Classics draw poker machine, well, that’s what’s inside of it. This one is destined for the junk heap. There may be some salvageable parts here. If I found this machine and it were in good working condition, it would be a whole different story. But as it is, there are very few parts that I think would be useful for repairing an SMK machine. And almost none that are going to translate over to an IGT. Maybe this candle, maybe this box for a bill validator, and maybe this chassis for a Ceronix 1492 monitor could be useful to me. Maybe the coin comparator and all of those, I’m not really 100% certain about that either. So, if you find one of these, make sure you get one that works. Or make sure you get two of them. because finding parts for these, finding manuals for these online, it’s going to be a lot more difficult with the SMK machine than it is with an IGT machine, which was far more common. So thanks for taking a look at that machine with me. You’ve been in the Metal Shop. Keep on rocking like Dokken.
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