Taito Ice Cold Beer: NOT SO Dead Anymore!

TCinTEXAS

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Hi, all:

I'm starting a repair thread on my Ice Cold Beer which I picked up today. It's in pretty good cosmetic condition, but doesn't work.

When you power it on, the marquee light comes on, as well as the playfield lights steady on. No sounds or movements, other than a continuous hum and a faint ticking in the speaker.

Checked fuses, all good.

Reseated edge connectors, pin connectors and molex connectors.

Checked voltages at power supply test points, and all were about +1 volt over spec, except for TP7-TP8, which was 38 volts, and the book says 32. I suspect that's ok since it's unregulated.

In the morning, I plan to reseat all the fuses, clean the holders and all of the pin and edge connectors. I will also pull the logic/regulator board and reseat any socketed chips, check for bad solder joints, etc. There are a few caps on there I may replace, if I have suitable replacements.


Wife has had enough, and I'm going to bed. If anyone has any helpful hints on the next troubleshooting steps, I'm all ears. Thanks in advance!
 
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By the way, I ordered new belts and balls from Marco Specialties. The seller said there were two balls, but I've only found one. It was in the coin box; I'm concerned the other may be stuck somewhere in the playfield.

If any of you Taito ICB owners can suggest any other wear items I should replace, please let me know. I might as well buy the parts, rather than find out the hard way and have to wait a few additional days for shipping.

Thanks!
 
Check your voltages from the power supply.

Order the rebuild kits from twistywristarcade for the caps and resistors on the pcb. There's a thread on here about the resistors being undervalued originally and prone to failure.
 
Check your voltages from the power supply.

Order the rebuild kits from twistywristarcade for the caps and resistors on the pcb. There's a thread on here about the resistors being undervalued originally and prone to failure.

I saw the cap kit, but somehow I missed the resistor kit. I'll get that ordered!
 
Ive got a fully functional ICB if you wanted to pay the shipping to me and back to trouble shoot the board and rule out anything else being the problem.

Thanks. I've ordered resistors and caps. I'm going to try the cleaning and reseating. If that doesn't do it, I may take you up on that. I'd really like to fix it myself, just for my own personal satisfaction.

Edit: Also bought a handful of lever microswitches to replace the Start Button switch which literally fell apart in my hands when I tried to connect the wire. Ah, the joys of working with old shit.
 
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That sounds exactly what an untested pcb that I bought did on my zekes peak. Seeing that I had a working pcb I swapped my socketed chips to the bad pcb. For mine it turned out to be the chip#8279 (40pin chip) as well as the chip labeled AY-3-8910 (also 40pin chip). I was going to probe them but I had a difficult time with the schematics so I cannot tell you which pins were doing what. I would start by checking those if you have the know how. Mine also had the steady lights on with no music. I got my parts from twisty wrist as well and got them real fast.
 
That sounds exactly what an untested pcb that I bought did on my zekes peak. Seeing that I had a working pcb I swapped my socketed chips to the bad pcb. For mine it turned out to be the chip#8279 (40pin chip) as well as the chip labeled AY-3-8910 (also 40pin chip). I was going to probe them but I had a difficult time with the schematics so I cannot tell you which pins were doing what. I would start by checking those if you have the know how. Mine also had the steady lights on with no music. I got my parts from twisty wrist as well and got them real fast.

They are out of stock on the 8279. I'll look elsewhere. Thanks!
 
Found the 8279 at Great Plains Electronics. It's on its way!

Hopefully this works out for you. Did you test that chip before ordering a new one or did you just order one? Please update with your results when you get the chip.
 
Hopefully this works out for you. Did you test that chip before ordering a new one or did you just order one? Please update with your results when you get the chip.

I did not test the chip. To be honest, I'm shotgunning. I was working hard to finish restoring a UMK3 for a get together I'm having tonight, so I haven't had an opportunity to address the ICB. The parts are cheap, so I figured I'd just have everything staged so I don't have to wait for parts when I'm ready.

I'll let you know how I progress. I'm sure I'll be picking brains.
 
With the hum & the game not booting up, the first thing I would think to do after reseating the connectors would be to reflow the solder on all of the pins on the power supply.
 
With the hum & the game not booting up, the first thing I would think to do after reseating the connectors would be to reflow the solder on all of the pins on the power supply.

Thanks. I tested voltages at the test points, but not at the pins. That's next. Reflowing the header certainly couldn't hurt.
 
I picked up a project ICB on here and that's all that was wrong with it. As soon as I did the reflow, I was in action.
 
I picked up a project ICB on here and that's all that was wrong with it. As soon as I did the reflow, I was in action.

Well, hell! I pulled the power supply and reflowed all of the header pins on a connectors with no change.

EDIT: "No Change" isn't accurate. I now have digits displaying on the LEDs. Ball on Bar = 8, Bonus = 88, and Score = 8.

I installed the cap kit, resistor pack and 8279 with no change. I'm reading through the manual now, looking for troubleshooting steps and test points on the board.

Suggestions are welcomed.
 
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I have a little more information. I don't know if it's helpful.

Using a logic probe (and I BARELY know what I'm doing), I read the following at the following test points:

TP Signal Reading
3 E low
4 IRQ high
5 FIRQ high
12 SINT high
13 Strobe pulse
16 SWIRQ low
17 TIMER pulse
11 RESET pulse
6 MOTENBL high

8 5v 5.02v
7 12v 13.7v
9 12v 11.96v

U2, U3 and U4 show ULN2003As. The board has socketed ULN2004As in their place. The ULN2003As at U15 and U18 are original. Are the 2003 and 2004s interchangeable?

I used a little infrared thermometer, and noted that the 7 resistors (R20 - R26) are heating up. Within about 30 seconds, they are around 200 degrees F. The MC68A09E at U12 gets up to about 130 degrees.


I do not currently have the belts installed, but there's no movement, beeping, solenoids firing, etc.; just a steady hum with a tick-tick-tick.
 
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I have a little more information. I don't know if it's helpful.

Using a logic probe (and I BARELY know what I'm doing), I read the following at the following test points:

TP Signal Reading
3 E low
4 IRQ high
5 FIRQ high
12 SINT high
13 Strobe pulse
16 SWIRQ low
17 TIMER pulse
11 RESET pulse
6 MOTENBL high

8 5v 5.02v
7 12v 13.7v
9 12v 11.96v

U2, U3 and U4 show ULN2003As. The board has socketed ULN2004As in their place. The ULN2003As at U15 and U18 are original. Are the 2003 and 2004s interchangeable?

I used a little infrared thermometer, and noted that the 7 resistors (R20 - R26) are heating up. Within about 30 seconds, they are around 200 degrees F. The MC68A09E at U12 gets up to about 130 degrees.


I do not currently have the belts installed, but there's no movement, beeping, solenoids firing, etc.; just a steady hum with a tick-tick-tick.
Have you verified your rom is good? From your test results and ticking noise is sounds like you're stuck in a reset loop. I'm not familiar with this circuit but typically there is a watch dog timer that produces that reset pulse if the game code doesn't reset it periodically.
 
Have you verified your rom is good? From your test results and ticking noise is sounds like you're stuck in a reset loop. I'm not familiar with this circuit but typically there is a watch dog timer that produces that reset pulse if the game code doesn't reset it periodically.

I have not. I don't have the means to do that. I'll have to see if I can find someone to test them for me. Thanks for the input.

UPDATE: Since I'm unable to test the ROMs, and I'm impatient, AND I want freeplay, I ordered a set of ROMs from Stephan at Hobby ROMs. I'll let you know if that's the fix.
 
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