Tabasco reel touch top box power

[Phan000]

Picked up a project machine yesterday,

Top screen dark, “waiting on video” tilt on the bottom.


There were some “spare parts” inside the bottom.  Looks like the former owner knew the top box PSU was bad, and had started the conversion to a new PSU.

I’m not sure what supply was the original, or how a new supply is supposed to be mounted in the top box.

Would appreciate some direction to hopefully get this machine going.

[qbert]

Power supplies are becoming tougher to find.
Your best option is to make one from an old computer ATX Power supply. They work equally as good and last longer. The original power supply mounted behind the top box using the mount you have pictured.
There is plenty of room behind the top box for the larger ATX converted ps.
Make sure you cut and use the smaller plug from the original ps.
This link should help you
https://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=1272.0
Rich

[Phan000]

Thanks Rich.

I replaced the power supply per directions in link.

Upper box PC is getting power,  fan on the processor working,  couple of led lights on.

No display still.  Bottom says waiting for video.

I tried connecting a monitor to the VGA out,  but no signal.

What is the next step?

[qbert]

The bottom "waiting for video display " indicates the bottom of the machine is working properly. The top box is what must work now.
Open the top box, does it make are any beeps or chirps when powered up? Carefully reseat all of the plugs on the mpu board. Remove and reseat the two memory cards 4 or 5 times each to remove any corrosion.
Post some pictures of the top box motherboard.
It will eventually need a battery replacement but do not worry about that until we can get some signs of life from the top box.
At this point in order not to place undo stress on the bottom cpu I would unplug all of the cables going to the back of the top box except the two from the power supply that you made and just supply power to the new power supply for testing purposes until we get some action from the top box.
Depending on the bios type it should either chirp once and you should see some video action or chirp 4 times then see something on the screen. If it continually chirps reseat the memory cards again.
If it makes no noise at all it is not going into the boot sequence. Inspect the board are the ends of the capacitors bulged out. Take and post pictures.
If it is easier for you, you can remove the top box and work on it on a table or bench. It should swing out of the machine and simply lift it off the hinge pins.

[Phan000]

I took. A few pictures last night. 

Looks like some of the caps are swollen.

No chirps or beeps, however when I manually turn off/on atx PSU, there is a slight chirp, but sounds like feedback rather than a firm chirp.

I will try to re-seat the ram sticks this evening.

Looking for possible replacement boards on eBay. 



Main board is strange-  guy left the varta battery on, but removed the coin battery.  So ram error must be cleared every time.

[qbert]

Bottom board- replace the coin battery and remove the varta.
Top box- Try reseating all plugs and memory cards.
Lots of swollen caps, not good.
There are no available replacement boards on ebay, that source dried up about 5 years ago. It is a special board made for IGT and nothing else will work. As for your board I have seen boards work with swollen caps but some will not. You can try recapping but it is a fairly tough job as the pc board is two sided and there are a lot of them. User Jim used to have some working top boxes for sale but you would have to check with him.
You would need to transfer your harddrive and possibly the boot chip. Also after you get the top box working it may still need a working harddrive. A word of caution here do not try and review the harddrive with a windows based pc. If you do the pc will add files to the harddrive which will render it useless in the machine requiring replacement. These machines can be a lot of fun and Tabasco is one of the best themes but they can be a money hole because as we get each part working others will show up.
Rich

[Phan000]

No luck with re-seating any connections, or ram.

I have someone who is able to re-cap the board.

Is the hard drive often bad as well?  The monitor itself?

I’d hate to have to trash this machine, but don’t want an endless expense either.

[qbert]

A harddrive would run about $150. The monitors are usually pretty reliable. You can at least check to see if the backlighting is working on the lcd, plug the top box in a low light room and see if you notice some backlight on the lcd monitor. If you got a good tech that could recap the board I would try that. (or replace the top box and then you have lots of spare parts).
It shouldn't be too bad from this point, its just hard to say I just wanted you to know what could happen, I would hate to see you trash the machine.