Pac-Man Cabinet

[Gilrock]

I bought this cabinet like a year ago with plans to make it a Jamma cab and run a BitKit, Mistercade, and original boards.  The side art wasn’t too bad except someone had painted a huge black stripe along the front edges of the sides. I really wanted to do stencils but after waiting a year I figured I’d just get vinyl and could always go back and stencil later.  So I got the vinyl side and front art installed and new T-molding.

Past couple weeks I built this control panel, and a switching power supply setup.  I got everything up and running with the jamma harness just sitting in there loose. The BitKit is up and running now.

Then I wanted to try the original board.  Using a jamma to Pac-Man adapter I tried the board and had garbage all over the screen. It was working when I pulled it from the cab so I figured the jamma wiring wasn’t working for it.  I went to the trouble of cleaning up the original power supply board and harness and got it setup laying behind the cab to test the board with it. The pcb was having the same random sprite issue as with the jamma harness.  There was a daughter card wrapped in cardboard and taped to the main board so I pulled it all apart and removed the ribbon cable. Reseated the ribbon cable and tried it again on the original harness and now it’s working. Then I moved it over to the jamma harness and it’s still working so now I’m saying “this is cool”.

When I bought the cab the Pac-Man board wasn’t working so he moved a pcb from a Ms Pac-Man into this cab.  I said can I buy the bad board to see if I can fix it so I got it for $30.  I’ve taken a quick stab at changing the D7 and D8 diodes because they were all black and someone had done a bunch of scraping along the pads and traces.  It’s still showing no signs of life so I’ll have to post for help on klov I guess.  I had never seen a Pac-Man pcb so didn’t know what was normal.  So I noticed the board has something different than the daughter card which I assumed it was turns a Pac-Man to a ms Pac-Man. Well then I see a label on the board that says “Super ABC” and has a “twobits.com” address on it.  Looked it up and it’s a multi game Pac-Man kit that costs like $289 so I guess my $30 for the board wasn’t a bad deal.

Now I’m a little torn.  The original power supply and harness is still working and I’ve got the original control panel. I’m kinda itching to restore this back to just a Pac-Man cab.  But then I’d need to build another cab for my BitKit / Mistercade.  Guess I don’t have to decide right away. I haven’t done anything that prevents me restoring it later.


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[Mike A]

Restore it back to a Pac Man.

Build a JAMMA cab.

I have spoken.

[Gilrock]

Restore it back to a Pac Man.

Build a JAMMA cab.

I have spoken.

LOL…I did consult you about this purchase the day I bought it and you knew I wanted it for a Jamma cab.  It looks like I’ll be able to play the original boards so I guess we’re fussing over the power supply and harness…you know the thing that looks like a scary fire hazard…haha.  Actually it looks a lot better after today.  Amazing what an air compressor can do to 40 year old dust and grime.  Either way this thing was destined for an LCD and a 60-in-1 from that cab butcher I bought it from.

[Gilrock]

I’ll need to acquire another monitor.  Damn I was supposed to be knocking projects off my list not creating new ones.

[bobbyb13]

Restore it back to a Pac Man.

Build a JAMMA cab.

I have spoken.

Hard to argue with this guy!
Then of course between building a functional monitor and building a cabinet you will be busy.

I have difficulty just sorting out which cabinet I want to try to reproduce.

[Mike A]

If you are looking for JAMMA cab ideas,

I have some thoughts.

[BadMouth]

I owned a Pacman cabinet for a few years.  Pacman gets boring.  The original board stopped working, so I had someone repair it and add 4-in-1 multipac chips.  (Pacman, Ms. Pacman, & speed hack versions of each)
Got bored with that after a while and sold it.  I regret selling the cab, but only because of its aesthetic appeal.  I wish I'd MAMEd it.
Ms. Pacman is great for guests if you have the space, but IMO the Pacman games alone aren't worth it if you only have room for a few cabs.

You've already got the CP set up for a wider variety of games, roll with it and keep the disconnected original parts in place inside the cab for preservation.

[Mike A]

No.

[Mike A]

Restore it to Pac Man.

Get a Pac Man cabinet to JAMMA PCB adapter.

Then you can play some other games with MAME or other PCBs.

[meyer980]

Nice work so far! That CPO looks good except the modern looking pacman on the left side. It just looks odd with all the classic artwork around him - a current style pacman image just kind of stands out.

Good work on the troubleshooting steps. I vote leave the multi-pac in there.

[Gilrock]

I’m sure the purists already thin the vinyl side art is an abomination…lol

[Gilrock]

Restore it to Pac Man.

Get a Pac Man cabinet to JAMMA PCB adapter.

Then you can play some other games with MAME or other PCBs.

Yeah I’ve already got one.  I bought so much crap for this and some items I really didn’t read careful enough.  I bought a Pac-Man cab to JAMMA PCB adapter first.  That product says it requires a switching power supply so then I saw the kit that gave me the switching power supply with what I thought was the same card so I was pissed I had bought the card separately.  It wasn’t till I started building this out I realized the card that came with the power supply is not the same.  It just allows the use of a switching supply in the original cabinet so it had nothing to do with Jamma.  And I had gotten the multi game harness for a Pac-Man cab and parts to make two control panels so I could have one with a 4 way joystick and another with an 8 way joystick.  So it seems like no matter which option I use the original power supply gets replaced unless I restore it to just a pure Pac-Man cab.

By the way I also have the RiddleTV switcher in there now and it’s working so that was pretty cool being able to switch between the original PCB and the BitKit alll from the control panel.

And for the comment about control panel graphics I just bought what was available for a multi game panel.  To be honest the clash between old versus new Pac-Man images didn’t even stick out to me.  I guess it’s just you nerds.  Nobody coming to my house would ever think that…lol.