Help identifying cabinet builder and button layot

[babun]

Hi everybody,
This is my first post on the forum so apologies in advance if I am braking any FAQ rules (I did read them though )

So I've bought a cabinet shell from a guy today and he could not tell me much about it except that it's an older version of 27 'X-ARCADE MACHINE'. The cabinet itself is in great condition but it does not have any markings on it which would identify the builder. I tried to google search it a bit, but was not able to find exact match . I dug this SlikStik controller review http://arcadecontrols.com/reviews/slikstik.shtml which look close to my layout, but again not exact match (plus mine is not detached).

I'd really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction and help understand button layout schema.
I was also planning to buy some artwork for sides and control overlay, once I restore it, but now not sure about the dimensions.

Cabinet pics: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kiqoxa7s3zm168r/AACe3yEXk8P9-WK2uCIEf1Tma?dl=0

[lilshawn]

nothing special, likely just some random cabinet that someone has modified with that car door of a control panel. It LOOKS like a factory quality but I can't see any of the inside wiring or anything...but someone probably bought an ipac and went nuts with some buttons and aluminum sticks or something.

and typically xarcade with their cabinets they are selling just plotz their tabletop arcade stick (like the xtank or whatever) panels right on top like an afterthought. (kinda lazy IMO) this one you got has an actual flat control panel, so someone took the time to make it. (google xarcade cabinet and you'll see what i mean about the control panel) so I don't THINK it's xarcade....the components are similar to what are available on the slicksticks, so it's possible someone robbed all the parts out of the slickstick and installed them into this cabinet.  but all those parts are typical parts sold as "mame arcade" type things (spinner, small trackball, etc) the panel is somewhat disproportionately sized with a bunch of empty space at the front curve of the panel, so someone made the panel work with the cabinet...not changing the cabinet to fit a more appropriately sized and designed panel. so i'm kinda thinking this cabinet is someones kit.

it looks like nothing standard... besides you can't just walk into a place and say "yeah gimme a control panel overlay for a dynamo arcade cabinet" in this world, everything is custom. those buttons can be placed anywhere... the cabinet, any shape height, width, depth.

but i guess, if you want more info about what you got there.... the button layout it's a 2 row by 3 button layout, a fairly typical "stick fighter layout". with low medium high punch on one row and a low medium high kick on the next. (street fighter etc) it's kind of modified in the sense that the odd button to the lower left is what makes it a modified layout... it's to emulate a "neo-geo layout" wich has 4 buttons in a row (the odd button and the lower row of the 2x6) typically used on neo-geo games and used with your index, middle,ring and pinky fingers each controlling a button. it's not a 100% neo-geo, since they've moved the button to cram them up next to the stick due to the trackball being there... but not totally horrible. it's probably the most popular kind of layout giving you pretty comfortable and convenient controls for about 90% of the games out there you might play on a mame machine.

all the rest are going to be administration buttons and could be anything... whoever made this would know... and could be programmed for....well...anything.

monitor is a wells gardner D9200 a decent enough monitor. it's limited to 640x480@60hz resolution. as long as you take care of it and keep an eye on it's capacitors and switch them out at the first signs of swelling, it will last quite a while. if the capacitors go and the monitor is allowed to continue to run, it will grenade itself with 100 blown components and be nearly impossible to fix without special equipment and piles of time and money.

over all if you like it and you didn't soak a pile of money into it... hey, it's yours! so do with it what you want make new panels and artwork and stuff for it. There is all kinds of ideas here. take a peek through the projects. if it WAS a pile of cash and you were looking to restore it to original as an investment or show piece.... theres nothing really to restore it to... just a generic arcade box with some wires and buttons. It's not rare or super popular or anything. if it was somewhere in the middle. 

in any case, y'all can do whatever you want to with it.

[PL1]

Hi everybody,
This is my first post on the forum so apologies in advance if I am braking any FAQ rules (I did read them though )

So I've bought a cabinet shell from a guy today and he could not tell me much about it except that it's an older version of 27 'X-ARCADE MACHINE'. The cabinet itself is in great condition but it does not have any markings on it which would identify the builder. I tried to google search it a bit, but was not able to find exact match . I dug this SlikStik controller review http://arcadecontrols.com/reviews/slikstik.shtml which look close to my layout, but again not exact match (plus mine is not detached).

I'd really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction and help understand button layout schema.
I was also planning to buy some artwork for sides and control overlay, once I restore it, but now not sure about the dimensions.

Cabinet pics: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kiqoxa7s3zm168r/AACe3yEXk8P9-WK2uCIEf1Tma?dl=0

Based on the . . . unique    . . . button layout at the top of the panel, it looks like someone made (or commissioned) their own control panel to replace the X-Arcade Dual Joystick controller that was originally on this old X-Arcade cab.



White player logo buttons are probably Start1 (1) and Start2. (2)

Green buttons appear to be Coin1 (5) and Coin2. (6)

To figure out the 3 black and 5 blue buttons, you'll need to reverse engineer them.
- Use Notepad or a keyboard test app to see which keystroke is sent by each button or it might be a gamepad button or it might be a mouse button -- not sure what type of encoder each button is connected to.
-- Check the Input menus in MAME to see what function is associated with that keystroke.

If you want to change the panel layout, check out Slagcoin.   


Scott

[Mr. Peabody]

If that is a D9200, it will do 800x600 as well. Look up all about it, especially in the Monitor/Video section, Ken Layton's thread in the sticky section in particular. It looks really clean, but it may need some caps.

I would re-do the panel top, new wood or wood filler/bondo and tap the old. Everything is too far forward. As those above said, the controls are too close to each other. I would ditch the Asteroids layout, and at least two of those black admin buttons. Is there a controller inside the panel? Did a computer come with it?

[lilshawn]

If that is a D9200, it will do 800x600 as well. Look up all about it, especially in the Monitor/Video section, Ken Layton's thread in the sticky section in particular.

the D9200 is spec'd up to 31.5khz which is 640x480 vga

800x600 is 35.0khz

https://www.wellsgardner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/D9200_27_33.pdf

the D9400 will do 800x600 cause it's spec'd up to 40khz

https://www.wellsgardner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/D9400_SPEC.pdf

there is a late revision D9200 that was an early version of the 9400 that does 800x600 but this looks obviously 9200. the late rev 9200 looks like a 9400.

[babun]

Thank y’all for the details and suggestions. I really appreciate it!

I’ve explore it a bit more today and here are few more details I spotted:

Monitor:
I took a closer look inside and you were right! It is indeed D9200. Seems to be in working condition - turns on just find and displays ‘No Signal’ in diff colors. All capacitors looks intact on the circuit board as well.

Controls:
I’ve added a few pictures of the controls wiring in case anyone interested. They comes from HappControls and are connected to’ IPAC  four ULTIMARC’ controller.

Other stuff:
It seems that I have all the parts but the MAME PC itself  - there are some cheap looking  pair of LabTec Speakers bolted inside along with Subwoofer, two more round speakers in the marquee section, coins slot, pre-cut marquee acrylic cover with light, some old school keyboard and mouse.

Could you help me with few more questions?
Q1: I found 4-button control board for monitor inside, but could not bring Setup menu on the screen - does it needs to have a signal source to work?
Q2: I have one of these Raspberry Pi-s laying around somewhere  (I think it is v3)  - do you think I could (should) use it for RetroPi setup. And if yes, do I need anything else to hock it up to Monitor in addition to VGA-HDMI adapter?
Q3: Does anyone knows how hard is it to disassemble the case? Ideally I would like to move it to my ‘mancave’ upstairs but this thing probably weights ~400+lb and it is so wide, it probably won’t even fit on staircase. It seems that the case is bolted together by woolens screws going through some ‘support planks’ that are stapled to the sides of the cabinet (I’ve uploaded a picture).
Q4: Out of curiosity, do you think it is a good deal? I’ve paid $325 for it, and the guy was kind enough to let me put it on his truck and deliver it to my garage.

...ohh there is one more question I had in mind - I noticed that there are few minor chips and scratches on the moving parts of the cabinet so I was wondering what kind of paint is it.  And is it really a paint (it almost feels like matte plastic on touch)

[lilshawn]

Could you help me with few more questions?
Q1: I found 4-button control board for monitor inside, but could not bring Setup menu on the screen - does it needs to have a signal source to work?
Q2: I have one of these Raspberry Pi-s laying around somewhere  (I think it is v3)  - do you think I could (should) use it for RetroPi setup. And if yes, do I need anything else to hock it up to Monitor in addition to VGA-HDMI adapter?
Q3: Does anyone knows how hard is it to disassemble the case? Ideally I would like to move it to my ‘mancave’ upstairs but this thing probably weights ~400+lb and it is so wide, it probably won’t even fit on staircase. It seems that the case is bolted together by woolens screws going through some ‘support planks’ that are stapled to the sides of the cabinet (I’ve uploaded a picture).
Q4: Out of curiosity, do you think it is a good deal? I’ve paid $325 for it, and the guy was kind enough to let me put it on his truck and deliver it to my garage.

Q1: yes you need a signal for the menu to work.

Q2: I probably wouldn't. the amount of dickery to get a usable signal out of the pi that you can feed this monitor is too much trouble IMO.

Q3: take the monitor out of the cabinet.... that's half the weight there. move them separately.

Q4 325 is a pretty decent price. you'd probably pay that for just the monitor alone and it seems to work just fine... delivery could be worth 100 depending how far it is. worth it.

[PL1]

Controls:
I’ve added a few pictures of the controls wiring in case anyone interested. They comes from HappControls and are connected to’ IPAC  four ULTIMARC’ controller.

Yes, that is an old-style IPac4 (keyboard encoder) from Ultimarc.

Noticed two things about the wiring.

1. Frame ground for the trackball -- the two thick green wires ending in a ring terminal (next to the hinge in the pictures) --
is currently not connected to ground.
- Frame ground is used to bleed off the static electrictricity generated by rolling the trackball.
- It prevents shocks to the player and electro-static discharge damage to the trackball's optical boards and optical (mouse) encoder.

2. It looks like one of the trackball optical encoder's mouse button inputs are connected to P2B4 (second row, closest to joystick)
- The IPac connections use half-insulated blue Quick Disconnects. (QDs)
- P2B4 has fully-insulated white QDs similar to ones used for mouse button connections on some Happ trackball harnesses.

For future reference: If you run into backspin with the trackball, it could be the optical boards (old "green" boards instead of new "red" boads) or the encoder. (many users have complained about Happ optical encoders suffering from backspin)


Scott

[jeremymtc]

Q3: Does anyone knows how hard is it to disassemble the case? Ideally I would like to move it to my ‘mancave’ upstairs but this thing probably weights ~400+lb and it is so wide, it probably won’t even fit on staircase. It seems that the case is bolted together by woolens screws going through some ‘support planks’ that are stapled to the sides of the cabinet (I’ve uploaded a picture).

Like Opt2not says, remove the monitor (and maybe the control panel) to move it, but it's probably not practical to disassemble the cabinet.

...ohh there is one more question I had in mind - I noticed that there are few minor chips and scratches on the moving parts of the cabinet so I was wondering what kind of paint is it.  And is it really a paint (it almost feels like matte plastic on touch)

It's most likely melamine laminate instead of paint. Not very easy to repair.

[Mr. Peabody]

The cabinet, with monitor, is 350lbs, max. Measure it and the space you need to move through. It it fits it will be easiest to pull it with a dolly, and have someone push while you pull. If you don't have a dolly, you can lay the cab on the stair case and standing next to each other push it up. I have had to move my same-size cabinet around and up things this way.


@lilshawn: I recall in the old Retroblast review that he was able to run it at 800x600. Perhaps he had a pre-9400.

[babun]

@lilshawn: I recall in the old Retroblast review that he was able to run it at 800x600. Perhaps he had a pre-9400.

This is very interesting point! So today I tried to connect my old ThinkCentre M72e PC (i5-3550, 4GB RAM, Win10) to D9200 and got some mixed results

1) Connected D9200, did regular boot, no configuration: Got Windows logo (blue windows tiles on black background + loading indicator), then "out of range" message.
2) Hocked up PC to my Dell 2412 monitor -> Installed 'quickrez', switched resolution to 640x480x32bit -> swapped to D9200 -> "out of range" message
3) Set 640x480 resolution directly on Display adapter and tried to boot with D9200 -> "out of range" message
4) Connected my Dell monitor -> Set 640x480 resolution directly on Display adapter -> Safe boot to Windows -> Swapped Dell with D9200  -> it's alive! 
5) When I got D9200 working, I've changed resolution to 800x600 (out of curiosity) and it worked too 0_o...until I rebooted PC and got same old "out of range" message

So as of now I can't seem to find a reliable way to make D9200 work at OS boot (No matter what I do, I  always get "out of range"  on the second loading screen - even when I try to boot in Safe mote at 640x480 resolution).
It seems that monitor is working fine, because I can see initial Windows loading screen, but once its switches to the second loading screen (with background, welcome message and loading indicator) - I am always getting "out of range" message 

[Mr. Peabody]

The refresh must be changing a little when it boots to Windows, and the monitor has no EDID to tell it what to do.