Darksoft Taito Multi F3 Cart - 2023 Edition Installation Guide

 https://highscoresave.com/

Steps for a successful install of your online or offline high score save kit -

•  Ensure your gameboard is working 100% before installing kit
•  Ensure power to game is off before removing your gameboard from  cabinet
•  Label any connectors that you will be disconnecting. This will make  reinstalling easier once kit is on gameboard
•  Note which way your connectors/cables are on. (We suggest taking pictures to help you remember!)
•  Work in a well-lit area on your workbench

Overview –

Finally, this long awaited project has come to an end and all the Taito F3 fans will be able to play all the games using just a single Taito F3 Setup. It's been months of work and testing so I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did building it.

In order to make this work, you only need to have a Taito F3 motherboard and a working cabinet or a supergun.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN INSTALLING YOUR KIT

The first that you need to do is to make sure that your motherboard is Region-Free. To do that, you need to remove the plastic region lock that is on the 4 connectors. Be very careful when doing so, as you can ruin your motherboard. See below the plastic removed.

* Picture courtesy of Jassin000

 You can also find some videos on YouTube about how to remove that.

For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh-pKwwYhik

Once the plastic stoppers are removed you can just insert the multi on the main PCB paying special attention that all 4 connectors are aligned, push gently until all four are completely inserted and you are good to go.

This is the kit that you will receive:

IMPORTANT! When installing the Multi you should do it gently, making sure first that everything is properly aligned and then start pushing gently until all the Connectors fit properly

See this video to see how your kit should look like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=RIOsDT_Wdc0

EVEN MORE IMPORTANT! The Taito F3 motherboard has a small potentiometer called VR1 that resembles what in many Jamma PCBs is used as a volume. In this case it's regulating the voltage and adjusting it can fry your motherboard and your multi, so DON'T TOUCH IT. We are talking about this:

PREPARING YOUR MICROSD

Now you should prepare your Micro-SD to work with your kit. You need to get the latest romset from your usual source.

Make sure you use a branded Micro-SD, preferably Class 4 from Samsung, which work very well. See below:

LOADING GAMES

You will be able to change games using the LCD display provided. Make sure that each folder has a file called NAME. That's the name that will be displayed on the LCD.

Using left, right an OK buttons you can choose which game to load. You'll see a progress bar and once the uploading process is complete, the LCD will show NOW PLAYING. Once you've loaded a game, it will remain in the flashes until you change it, so you can unplug it with confidence, come a few days later and the game will still be there.

MAC USERS

Most of the issues with the games not loading come from using a cheap card or not properly formatted. We don't recommend to use a Mac to copy the files. If you do there's a good chance that it's having issues with the ._ directories mac OS creates on removable devices.

There's a built in function called dot_clean that removes these, but you need to be careful to run it on the correct device.

You need to go into a Terminal and run dot_clean /Volumes/SDCardnamehere

To find the correct volume name use: ls /Volumes

There is also an option to eject eject the card “to be used with windows”.

AUTORESET WIRE

In order to have the PCB reset automatically after each game load and avoid the flickering on the screen, we strongly advice to install the reset wire.

You can see in this video how to install it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch? time_continue=6&v=zy6XO1QTiWE

It connects on one side to the SWD7 of the multi PCB and on the other end it goes to IC35 of the main PCB.

I trust this kit will give you hours and hours of fun, so enjoy!

Darksoft and Mitsurugi-w

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