S-plus/Barcrest Top dollar help needed.

[David G]

Excuse me, A couple month's ago  there was a post (on old site?)
For sale.
"top dollar project.
The machine is playable but no lights or displays come one in the barcrest section. You just don't know if you should take the win or try again. You don't know what you win in the barcrest part of the machine until the play is over and is added to the credit meter."


My question is, I seem to have this very problem, plus sometimes when I hit max bet it also appears to lock for a few seconds and then finish the spin.. unsure is this is related or not.  I would be greatful to any thoughts as I am totally lost.   I am not seeing the typical error codes unless I unplug the machine and then I see  An "E 03" what ever that is?  IN THE TOP BOX during start up and then it goes away.

Thanks in advance as I  bow to the masters of their craft.

[Neonkiss]

I have only ever worked on one Barcrest machine. When I did I noticed it had two power supplies. One in the bottom and one for the top box. A dark screen might be a bad power supply in the top box. I hope this is a starting place to get your machine running.

[cowboygames]

Post a couple picks of the machine. You may have a failing MPU in the top box. If you could post a pic of the top box with the glass off and the backplane swung open, that would be best

[David G]

Cowboy

It is an mpu4 Board and the standard sps036L power supply.
other Fyi. the switch on power supply it lit red and there is also a red light lit on the mpu4 board
Thanks.

[cowboygames]

I wish I had a manual because I know there's a test function for the light circuits. Each amount display has it's own circuit and they can go bad. On the off chance that ALL the bulbs are bad I assume you've tried changing a few to confirm? None have been replaced with LED bulbs that could be shorting it out and dragging the whole board down? Just a couple things to check. I don't have a huge amount of experience with the S+ bar crest platform, but these would be some things I'd look at

[David G]

Cowboy. I'll check bulbs.  at this point, no bulbs were changed  I was using the game and all was fine. I came back 2 hrs later, top candle flashing, I opened the door and closed it again, candle went out and I continued to play until it got the first offer and no lights were lit so I let it run through all the offers, none lit. have hit the offers a number of times since and still lights out.

[cowboygames]

Are there any fuses in the top box? Other than the main for the power supply?

[David G]

Good morning . Bought  a tester. Bulbs are good.  at the top box power supply pins8&9..I have 34 volts.. pull bulbs from offer sockets and there is 2 volts at the sockets. no further testing as I do not know where to look now.

[shortrackskater]

NLG member tollguy316 also has a Double Top Dollar. I do too, but he's a little more knowledgable on it. I mentioned this to him in a PM I just sent. 
Have you checked things like all the chips... just to make sure everything is seated properly? I'd go through and do all that (pc boards, chips, cables) just to make sure. Press firmly on all the E proms and make sure the MPU and any other boards are pressed into their respective sockets. POWER OFF of course!
 

[David G]

Ok Guys, took the mpu4 board out. Wondering if you can see what I see?

Is it fair to assume that this is why my lights do not work?

Anyone have this board?

Thanks.
Dave

[David G]

OOPS DUMMY.. ADD THE PICS.....

[cowboygames]

Good possibility, but put a meter across them to find out for sure. If they are bad, then what caused it? Gotta be a short somewhere as resistors generally last forever under normal operation. If you end up looking for a replacement MPU4 you'll probably want to start your search in the UK

[David G]

Ugh.  Resistors still show life under resistance. I'm just about ready to strip it from everything barcrest

[cowboygames]

There was a good chance of that. It does look like something is dragging that circuit down though. The 32v sounds wrong. I think those bulbs are 12v

[David G]

Cowboy. 

AZ Slot  posted this a couple Months ago this is what I went by when testing...


The S+ Barcrest MPU4 Power supply actually only produces -12VDC, +12VDC and +34VDC coming out of the power supply unit itself. Other needed voltages to run the Top Box are + 5VDC and + 48VDC but those are produced by the MPU4 circuit using the power suppliy voltages. The power supply has 2 connector plugs located on the side of the unit. The plugs are:
CN3, (a 9 pin connector plug with 6 wires coming from the MPU4)
and:
CN4, (a 12 pin connector that also has 6 wires coming from MPU4).

The voltages coming out of the supply are as follows:
CN3 Pins 1&2 not used
Pin 3 = -12VDC
pin 4 = -12VDC (return line)
Pin 5 = Not used
Pins 6/7 = 0 volts (Same as Ground) going back to the Voltage regulator on mpu4.
Pins 8/9 = +34VDC

[cowboygames]

So based on your testing you don't have the 12v?

[David G]

cn3 is plugged into power supply.. my readings are

pin3 = -12.1 vdc

pin 4 = 0

pin 5= not used

pin 6/7 = 0

pins8/9 = 16.1 fluctuation 16.6

I'm so lost . shit changes!

[David G]

when I unplug cn3  and check power supply is when i get the 34vdc reading.
just to be clear. lol

[David G]

and now testing pins 8&9 AGAIN  now I get 3.0 volts? WTF!

[cowboygames]

Yeah, your 12v line is dragging it down. If you know how to use a soldering gun you could lift one leg on each of those burned resistors and see if your voltages come back. That might narrow it down. May end up that you need a schematic to fix it though. If you have it out and open, try posting one or more good pics of the MPU circuit board those resistors are on. Maybe we can spot something. If you can unplug the harness that feeds the lighting backplane you might be able to take everything out and test it on a bench also