Aussie Leisure Allied Cab help....

[timsatari]

Any Aussies that have modded an upright LAI cab may be able to help with this! I'm trying to work out what I need to keep / change for the power supply of the cabinet...

I'm currently modding my LAI upright (ex-Sunset Riders / 4 player) for a MAME cab. I've cleaned the interior a lot and now I'm trying to work out exactly what I need from the guts... ie. I'm using a PC / Ultimarc J-Pac so all I really need is the power for the monitor. Having no experience with these machines I was hoping someone could shed some light on the pic below.

1) On the left is the JAMMA cable that will attach to the J-Pac
2) in the centre looks to be the main power box that feeds the Jamma harness etc.
3) on the right is the peter chou voltage regulator
4) on the rear right is another box with 'mains 240v' sticker (there's also a green wire hanging out that's not connected with anything - is this some kind of ground wire?
5) last pix are the back of the cab / power supply components..

My question is - if I'm only keeping power to the monitor, can I get rid of anything, or is it simply best to keep it all as is? What about wires that don't have anything connected to them anymore (ie. the control panel will be connected to Jpac..).

[timsatari]

another pic

[timsatari]

last pic of back...

[mattv]

They sold cabinets of a rather similrr design here in New Zealand under the "chastronics" brand. But mine doesn't have that cool plugboard that yours does.

Anyway, the power supply can go, power your PC from the mains. if you do keep it avoid attaching to you your jamma harness for now.
The trouble with the cabinet power supply is there is the strong temptation to attache the molex connector that runs between it and the JAMMA loom - if you do that then plug your jpac in up the wrong way (50/50 chance) all the magic smoke will come out of the jpac, and probably out of your computer.
Last I checked the local supplier of Jpac's in our part of the world was charging DOUBLE the going rate, so avoid destroying them if you can :-)

I see you have a transformer in there too. It should be set up so that the power from the wall (240V) passes through that, is steped down to 120V which then feeds the monitor / tube.
For the love of god man - do not take the transformer out!

There are two good reasons for this
1) almost every monitor/tube I have seen is 120 Volts, if you attach it straight to the mains (240V in Aus) the magic smoke may well escape in a most impressive way.
2) some electrical isolation thing that I don't really understand too well, but it sounds pretty important.

Also, make sure that your monitor chassis is grounded, that the control pannel is grounded and that the coindoor is grounded just to be on the safe side.

So yeah, Transformer stays, power supply goes. easy.

Might pay to wait for somebody else to confirm this - it works for me in a very similar cabinet tho.

[microwrx]

What can you remove?  Depends on what you want to do.  If you want to power the marquee, fan etc. from your PC (usually the same 12V connectors) you could pull out the power supply depending on what sort of transformer you have and if it is directly supplying the 110V to the monitor or not.  You could move the connectors for the controls etc. from the control box and just zip tie them to the side of the cab or somewhere else out of the way.

For my Aussie 4 player cabinet (not LAI) I kept the control box but moved it out of the way so I could fit the PC in, I mounted the chassis to the side as high as I could for the same reason and removed the cash box and it's timber platform which took up most of the room.  I left everything powered by the cabinet as it was so I can, if I want, still use it to play JAMMA PCB's  The only exception to this is the speakers.  I wired an amp from a cheap set of PC speakers to the same style of Molex connector as the existing one in the cab so that I can swap the cabinet speakers between the JAMMA connector and the PC soundcard.

A friend of mine with a similar cabinet ripped everything out and completely rewired everything directly to the JAMMA harness to get rid of the box and tidy up the wiring.  His cabinet is very clean and tidy but if he ever wants to replace or move something he has to de-solder it all.

I guess I'm just lazy.  Here's a few pics so you know what I'm getting at.


The control box was originally in the middle, where it is now was a large shelf under which was the cash box and screwed on top of the shelf was the monitor chassis.  By removing that I was able to gain so much more space.  I think this is what you need to do in your cab, get rid of the timber shelving/platforms/stands so the inside of the bottom of the cab is clear and then start placing things where you need them to be.


The PC speaker amp looks messy but I couldn't figure out how to mount the PCB without the buttons falling off and where it would be easy to access so just chopped off the top of the speaker box.


Hee you see the J-PAC (player 1 & 2 from the JAMMA harness), Mini-PAC (player 3&4 plus credit buttons for players 1,2,3&4) and to the right the monitor chassis mounted to the inside of the cab.  The wiring looks messy because I have paper name tags on both the male and female connectors so It's easy to change player 3&4 back to the regular cabinet wiring with the Molex connectors. (in the first pic you can see the connectors for player 3&4 plugged into the control box with wires hanging out resting on the keyboard).

Good luck with it.  If none of this was of any use let me know and I'll remove it to tidy the page up for you.

JJ
edit.  Just noticed mattv's post just before mine.  I haven't had any issues with power from the cab to the J-PAC but yeah, dont plug it in backwards!  The monitors are 110V (US power) hence the need for the transformer.

[timsatari]

Thanks both Mattv and Microwrx...I'm working through this so I'm gonna have more questions - this was all very helpful though! Don't remove any part of the post Micro, I'm studying this over the weekend! One thing for sure with these projects is that you don't rush them..!

Now, I understand I need to keep power for the monitor (I'll connect the PC direct to mains) and that I may be able to remove the power supply. I'm just not sure what the hell each item in my pics are! I'll quote some Mattv's post to assist you guys with what I need to know... MY RESPONSES WILL BE IN RED CAPS..

Anyway, the power supply can go, power your PC from the mains. if you do keep it avoid attaching to you your jamma harness for now.
OK - POWER SUPLY CAN GO - WHICH BOX IS THIS EXACTLY?

The trouble with the cabinet power supply is there is the strong temptation to attache the molex connector that runs between it and the JAMMA loom - if you do that then plug your jpac in up the wrong way (50/50 chance) all the magic smoke will come out of the jpac, and probably out of your computer.
WHAT IS MOLEX CONNECTOR?

I see you have a transformer in there too. It should be set up so that the power from the wall (240V) passes through that, is steped down to 120V which then feeds the monitor / tube.
For the love of god man - do not take the transformer out!
IS THE TRANSFORMER THE SILVER THING SEEN FROM THE BACK OF THE CAB?

Also, make sure that your monitor chassis is grounded, that the control pannel is grounded and that the coindoor is grounded just to be on the safe side.
HOW CAN I CHECK?

So yeah, Transformer stays, power supply goes. easy.

[microwrx]

OK, The power supply.  This is the box that takes the 110V feed from the transformer, converts it to DC and to the appropraite voltages you need.  It'll be the one you listed as the Peter Chou voltage regulator, the grey one bottom right of your first pic.  Keep in mind by removing it you won't be able to use JAMMA PCB's in the cab AND you'll have to power everything else that requires 12V or 5V from another source.  Like I said the 12V stuff can be powered from your PC as most of them will use the same Molex connector that you usually get supplying 12V in your PC.

Molex connectors.  Molex is a brand but pretty much all the plastic plugs you have on that control box are Molex connectors, You have a 6 pin for the video, a 9 pin for the coin, 12's for the control panel, 4's for speakers etc.  You can remove the plugs from the control box itself as they are held in by tabs but having them the way they are makes life easier as they are labelled for you.

The transformer is the grey metal thing in the middle of your last pic with KT-9201 stamped on the top.  It is solely there to convert your 240V mains power to the 110V required in the cab for the monitor and power supply.

With your ground (or earth), that's what the green (with yellow stripe) wire is for.  Anywhere you have one of these wires hanging loose it's good to fix them to something metal in the cab that is already grounded.  I can't exactly figure out how to explain how you'd test it though.  Basically everything that requires grounding need to get to the ground wire of your power (the third pin on your power plug that isn't there on some devices).  That wire literally goes to ground, your home will have a ground spike outside driven into the earth to which all your power points' ground pins will be connected (with a green/yellow wire).

edit.  I just noticed in your last pic there is also a copper braid cable in there.  This is most likely an earth/ground wire also.  I had another cab that had this stuff all through it for the earth strap.