Jamma Extender Harness Issue w/ 6-in-1 switcher

[KCW]

Hello,

I'm pretty new to owning an arcade cabinet. I bought and had refurbished an original Double Dragon in an original Taito cabinet and have really enjoyed learning more about how it works. In the past year or so, I've gotten 6 PCBs (Double Dragon, Double Dragon II, Crime City, Superman, Willow, The Avengers) and now I was hoping to put in a 6-in-1 jamma switcher. They finally came back in stock on jammaboards so I got one with the -5V's on all of the slots just to be sure that all of my PCBs would work. I just got it in the mail and due to the shape of some of the PCBs (particularly the Double Dragon boards) they simply won't fit into the slots, all next to each other.

I've seen other people online use jamma extender harnesses to solve this problem. Jammaboards sells them as well. People online seem to have good luck with mounting their PCBs right to the inside walls of the cabinet, and then using the extender harnesses to link into the 6-in-1 switcher. I actually tried this a few months ago with a 2-in-1 switcher, but it didn't work out (the switcher was broken since the mailman tried to jam it in the mailbox). Anyhow, it seems that at least a few people online have complained that the extender harnesses on jammaboards don't have all of the necessary connections. I have a few of these harnesses and it certainly does look like there are slots that aren't wired. However, being a total novice, I don't really know what I'm doing. My concern is that I'll buy 6 extender harnesses from jammaboards and they won't work with my PCBs. I also worry that the extender harnesses won't also be wired for the -5Vs issue, which at least a few of my PCBs have. Lastly, when I used one of the extender harnesses from jammaboards on my 2-in-1 switcher it actually started to smoke. I don't know if it was because the switcher was broken or if extender was bad, but it looked liked some of the connections on the extender were loose. I'd really liked to get 6 quality jamma extender harnesses so the 6-in-1 switcher will work with all of my PCBs and won't burn my house down.

Can anyone advise me on this issue? Does someone sell an extender harness that I could get and not have to modify to get it to work with my 6-in-1 switcher and all of my PCBs? I'd like to stay away from doing any mods myself at this point. Will the ones for sale on jammaboards work with the PCBs and 6-in-1 switcher I already have?

Many thanks to everyone who read my post! Any and all advise is sincerely appreciated!

Thank you!

[KCW]

Anyone out there have any advice for my situation? Has anyone out there used the 6-in-1 jamma switcher from jammaboards with their jamma extender harnesses with boards requiring the -5V's? Thanks!   

[Savannan]

take a look at what I found...  Im Jallen on that message...

http://classicmk.com/index.php?topic=2243.0

see if that helps you out

[KCW]

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it.

I spent some time working with my 6-in-1 switcher this morning and I'm a little nervous. It turns out that I can directly mount four of my boards into the switcher. I put Crime City in slot 1 (really small board) and then The Avengers in slot 2 (a larger, taller board, but it is only one layer and can fit in the slot unsupported). I hooked the board in and both games worked well, with sound and everything.

I then put my Superman board in slot 6 (it will only fit in that slot, due to its size and due to the fact that slot 6 is offset from the other 5 slots, leaving more room for the PCB). Again, slots 1 and 2 worked fine, but there was no sound on the Superman board. That made me a little concerned, especially since the last time I fired it up directly connected to the cabinet the sound worked fine.

I have a Willow board as well. It will fit directly into the switcher, but I decided not to test it because it won't sit unsupported in the slot (it will need some type of mechanical reenforcement).

I have three jamma extender harnesses from a previous project, so I decided to test them out, figuring I could mount Double Dragon 1 and 2 to the inside walls of the cabinet and then use the extenders to plug into. I decided to test them I just connect each one to my Double Dragon 1 board, and then connect directly to the cabinet. One of the extension cables has a broken sodder, so I didn't even try that one. The second extension cable didn't work at all and the third didn't work without sound.

So it seems that the jamma extension cables from jammaboards have a lot of issues. I didn't even want to try them with the 6-in-1 switcher.

Worst of all, I decided to try the 6-in-1 switcher again, with Crime City in slot 1, The Avengers in slot 2 and Superman in slot 6. Upon testing again, now I have NO SOUND on any of the slots. Did the 6-in-1 switcher break that quickly? I was very careful in handling it. I decided to disassemble everything. I plugged in my Double Dragon 1 board directly into the cabinet just to make sure nothing was wrong with the cabinet itself. It fired up fine with no issues in the video, sound or playability.

Now I'm not sure what to do. It seems as if the jamma extension cables from jammaboards won't enable me to connect my Double Dragon 1 and two boards to the 6-in-1 switcher. Furthermore, now I have no sound on slots 1, 2 and 6 after my second testing of the 6-in-1 board.

Any advice on how to proceed? Again, I'm a novice when it comes to arcade cabinets. I've got this one, and a Ms. Pac Man which has never given me any trouble. Thanks in advance for any help! I hope I didn't waste 150$ at jammaboards on the modded 6-in-1 switcher (modded for -5V's on all slots).

Thanks!

[KCW]

Mike's arcade seems to sell jamma extension cables as well. From looking at the website, they look different than the ones on jammaboards. Anyone have experience with this? They're more expensive to, so I'm thinking that the quality is better, but who knows. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[BobA]

Cannot comment on jamma extentions but your -5V supply may have been knocked out by plugging in your 3 boards.   Test the -5V on your PS with a volt meter to make sure it is OK.  The -5V is used by the sound circuit on alot of boards.  Your remote switches power to the board you select but the -5V is jumpered to all the boards and is not switched going by the mod posted on utube.

[Savannan]

Ok, Let me tell you what I did, I can't take credit for this design but its the best out there for PCB removal and stability...but mind you..you will have to purchase those cheap ass Jamma Extenders and will have to solder better wires to ground/power and a few other missing wires.




- Gut the cabinet.

- Determine how large you want your shelf's to be.  Mine are roughly 21x15.5  , Take your largest PCB and add about 3 or so inches per side to determine size of shelf.

- Cut 4 rails the depth of the shelf.  I custom cut a piece of 2x2 to  .75 x .75 inch wood for shelf supports.

- Attach 1 rail on each side under the monitor. Make sure they are even and level.  DONT SCREW DOWN RAILS THRU YOUR CAB AND RUIN THE SIDE ART

- Measure and cut out your desired upper self.

- Make .5 x .5 inch SLIDE rails and center accordingly on your upper shelf with leaving gap for your slide in board and secure (I used a Trim nail gun)



- Secure the top shelf to the side rails.  

- Do the same for the bottom shelf and rails...but don't secure the bottom to the side rails..you might have to get to the bottom of the cabinet to work on your power supply.
-
 Make sure the distance between UPPER and LOWER shelf is enuff for your PCB + 3 or so inches per side of PCB

- Once you have the upper and lower together..measure and cut the SLIDE board.

- Paint if you wish and youre done.




The reason why I like this style VS just popping in PCB into the Jamma 6 in 1 are:

- Looks great
- If you need to pull a PCB your not messing with the 6 in 1 or banging the other PCBS, just slide out the shelf.
- PCB's are very secure
- If you have a daughter board/hard drive/sound board that is separated from the MAIN PCB, you the exterior walls of the cabinet to secure them for more room.

Since I have a Multi-MK machine, MK1 And MK2 came with a sound board that isnt part of the MAIN PCB.  I attach the main PCB to a Slider and the sound board to the inside portion of the cabinet. Once I get all my MK PCB, the order of my Sliders will be:

|SOUND BOARD      MK1|MKK3           UMK3|MK4      |MK2   SOUNDBOARD|     --->   |=WALL OR SLIDER


I really hope you take about 2 hours and do your self a favor and make something like this for your cabinet.  You wont regret it.  Its so much easier to work on.

Good luck, if there is anything else let me know...

Sav..

Ps.  Here is a sneak peek of my Multi-MK.  I havent officially announced the completion of this project..but It will be soon (just need MK3 board now)

[Savannan]

Also...

About your sound issue.   If your PCB that is in question is plugged into directly into your JAMMA harness and the SOUND works, and it doesn't work when its connected to the 6 in 1...

Two things...

1 - The 6 in 1 is robbing the power to your pcb...in other words, Do what BobA said..check your Power supply.

2- you might have to do the -5v mod to it.  goto you tube and look at this video



I have to give TONS OF PROPS to YourMKArcadeSource on you tube.  If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be where we are today with all  the MULTI-MK cabs out there. 

[KCW]

Nice! Many thanks for the detailed message. Your cabinet looks AWESOME. The shelves are amazing. I may end up doing exactly what you said.

The sound issue is definitely concerning. The thing is, jammaboards offers to do the -5V mod for you, and I opted for this and paid for all of the slots to be modded. Slots one and two had perfectly fine sound, but when I added another board to slot 6 then all of a sudden none of the sound would work. I can't experiment with it any more until this weekend of later unfortunately. I just hope I didn't somehow damage the board.

As far as extension cables. I contacted Mike's Arcade and it looks like the extension cables that they sell are much better quality. They cost a little more, but Mike's Arcade tells me that they make them all on site. I decided to order a few and we'll see how they work out. Hopefully I'll be able to get my 6 PCB's running in my 6-in-1 sometime in the next week or so. We'll see, I'll definitely post when I do (hopefully I won't have any more problems).

Thanks again for the advice and awesome pics of your cabinet. Very inspirational!

THANKS! 

[Savannan]

I can comment on JammaBoards.com and Ebay jamma extenders...They are identical. CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP

They are cheap in price, and quality...but they work(barely)   They have 1 - 20 or 18 guage wire for power(12v,5v,-5v)/ground each..which severely sucks.  It may show the voltage correctly, but those wires CANNOT CARRY THE CURRENT...I thought my Jamma 6 in 1 was fried , did some reseaching and found out it was those cheap ass extenders that were screwing up with my boards.  On the extenders, you have to de-solder the power/gnd wires and install your own with heavier gauge wire(I used 14g)...not too mention that you have to solder in about 5-6 additional wires for the other functions to work on your PCB.

Personally, I dont know why Jammaboards.com is selling something so cheap what hardly even works..It makes them look bad.  At least they should have a ECONOMY/HEAVY DUTY Jamma extenteders to choose from.... but they dont.

Here is a pic of my modified extender with liquid electrical tape over the contacts.



(Yep, my pooch helped too)

I guess the old saying goes "YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR"

If I were you, I would buy Mikes version...but for the DIY'ers JammaBoards/EBay versions are OK, but be prepare to mod it thou.

Sav

[opt2not]

Awesome info Savannan. 

[KCW]

Hey, thanks for the info everyone. I've had some good luck. I now have all six of my boards in my cabinet, hooked up to the 6-in-1 switcher from jammaboards.com and everything is working perfectly. As I mentioned earlier, jammaboards offers to do the -5V mod on any one or all of the 6 channels on the 6-in-1 boards. I opted to have them mod all of the slots and it didn't cost too much (well worth it for me, particularly since I didn't know which of my boards I have needed it and which would need it in the future I get more boards, and also I'm a novice when it comes to owning a cabinet). In any event, I have a board directly plugged into slots 1 and 2. I have to get creative to stabilize them, but I did and they're not going anywhere. I then bought 4 three foot long extension cables from Mikes Arcade for the remainder of my boards. I e-mailed them before hand and they make all of there extension cables in house. I described my situation to them and they assured me the cables would work for my situation, and they did.

I ended up mounted my four remaining PCB's to the inside walls of the cabinet. I would have liked to make the elegant shelving system as listed above, but I don't have the time currently. The above shelving method does look fantastic though. I then used my extension cables from Mike's Arcade to connected my boards to the 6-in-1. Everything works perfectly! My four boards mounted to the inside of the cabinet walls are securely in place and I have easy access to all of them (dip switches, volume knobs etc). Overall I'm really happy with this project. Again, the extension cables from Mike's Arcade are great. They cost a bit more, but the quality is spot on. Also, the 6-in-1 from jammaboards with the mods to all channels is also working well. I highly recommend it! Thanks again for all of the advice!

[MK3FAN]

Also...

About your sound issue.   If your PCB that is in question is plugged into directly into your JAMMA harness and the SOUND works, and it doesn't work when its connected to the 6 in 1...

Two things...

1 - The 6 in 1 is robbing the power to your pcb...in other words, Do what BobA said..check your Power supply.

2- you might have to do the -5v mod to it.  goto you tube and look at this video



I have to give TONS OF PROPS to YourMKArcadeSource on you tube.  If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be where we are today with all  the MULTI-MK cabs out there. 

You're welcome. Glad you got your problem resolved KCW. Happy to hear it. Those extension harnesses from Jammaboards are J-U-N-K. I have to mod one of them right now for a project I am doing for someone. If I had stumbled across this thread earlier, I would have told you the same advice you got from these other great members.

Savannan.... AWESOME cab! Really digging the board slots and the artwork. Badass!!

[KCW]

Thanks again to everyone for all of the advice. The 6-in-1 from jammaboards is great. I've had the same bad luck with their extension cables though. The one's from Mike's Arcade are really great though, even though the cost a little more. In the end, I was really happy with the 6-in-1 from jammaboards and also the 3 foot extension cables from Mike's Arcade. I highly recommend both.

[Savannan]

Thanks again to everyone for all of the advice. The 6-in-1 from jammaboards is great. I've had the same bad luck with their extension cables though. The one's from Mike's Arcade are really great though, even though the cost a little more. In the end, I was really happy with the 6-in-1 from jammaboards and also the 3 foot extension cables from Mike's Arcade. I highly recommend both. 

Glad you got your system up and running. You gotta post a video or pics man.  Would love to see it.   

Savannan.... AWESOME cab! Really digging the board slots and the artwork. Badass!!

WOW! Thanks!  Receiving a comment from THE OFFICIAL Mortal Kombat Arcade GURU made my project worth while.  Seriously..  THANK YOU!!! .....Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to make your HOW-TO videos.  My project wouldn't be what it is today if it wasnt for you.