Opinions please

[J69]

So i just bought a new Electrocoin Spectrum 3 button Jamma cab. Mint condition, huge screen, everything fine (p1 joystick a little sticky but no biggy). came with carrier air wing and i just bought a new MVS 1 slot with Super sidekicks 2 and fatal fury. Both cool games but a little dated. But until i put in an extra button i have to stick to the older games cos KOF, AOF, and the newer Fatal Fury's all take 4 buttons.



So the way i see it is i have 3 options.

1 - Drill another hole in and add another button

2 - Make a new control panel from scratch myself from wood

3 - find an existing 4/6 button panel and modify it to fit my machine.

Only thing is im a total beginner when it comes to stuff like this and i dont know where to start. I dont want to start ripping apart my control panel if im not going to be able to get it back together properly and ---fudgesicle--- my machine up for good.

And also, will i need to buy a jamma+ harness for the extra button? because ive had a look at my current harness and to take that out and put a new one in looks like a job and a half!!!

Thanks

[Havok]

I would start with a whole new control panel. That way it can be in any configuration you want. The arrangement of the buttons isn't similar to standard fighters, so that reason alone would be enough for me.

I'll have to skip on the Jamma stuff - my cab is pre-Jamma, but I believe if you use a J-Pac, you can use your existing harness and just add another wire for another button and connect to the J-Pac directly?

[CheffoJeffo]

Congratulations on the new cabinet.

Given the position of the current buttons, I think that making a new panel is in order. You might be able to get away with drilling new holes more appropriately aligned for NeoGeo and patching the old holes, but I'm not sure you would be happy with the result.

My impression here is that you want this to be a NeoGeo cabinet, right ?

The good news is that the Neo Geo 1-slots are all JAMMA.

The bad news is that your JAMMA harness quite possibly does not have button 4 wired (since true JAMMA is 3 buttons).  You will likely have to stuff the wiring for button 4 into the appropriate slots on the harness (25 and c). This is not a big deal, although it may sound like it.

The first thing you should do is go to HardMVS and download the manual for the NeoGeo Motherboard you have.

http://www.hardmvs.com

Then I would have a look at the edge connector on your JAMMA harness and look at pins 25 and c (the pinout diagrams in the manual will show you where these are). If there are currently no metal pins inside those slots or if the ends of the pins are exposed (e.g. you can solder to them), then this shouldn't be a big deal at all.

If all of this is confusing, take a picture of the connector (on the "wired side") and post it so we can have a look.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

[J69]

Finally decided to just convert my cab into a neo geo 1 sot cab. im going to buy a neo geo cpo, strip my current cpo, cover all the holes in bondo, sand and start from scratch like the guy on hardmvs did.

anyone know anywhere to get neo geo cpo/sideart/1slot marquee?

[J69]

Congratulations on the new cabinet.


Then I would have a look at the edge connector on your JAMMA harness and look at pins 25 and c (the pinout diagrams in the manual will show you where these are). If there are currently no metal pins inside those slots or if the ends of the pins are exposed (e.g. you can solder to them), then this shouldn't be a big deal at all.

c25 and c26 are both empty, little copper/gold coloured tabs. so how do i manage to get a wire attached to that and then attached to my 4 th button? will any wire do etc?