Re: Picked up a 2-slot MVS -- NOW WORKING!

[Crowquill]

Here's a rather lengthy account of how my day went at the auction and how I ended up with my MVS cab. I'll probably edit it later when I'm not so tired and rambling.

The auction was supposed to start at 10 and I had just over an hour drive to get there. In my rush to get through my breakfast, I accidentally spilled coffee onto my pants. Annoying, but I changed and took off making sure I had everything: Extension cord, drinks, wire strippers, screwdriver, and pliers. I also made sure to bring my dolly just in case. An hour and 10 minutes later and I was there. Lots to see. I make a quick pass through the place and headed over to register. I then realized that I forgot to switch my wallet over to my clean pants. No driver's license=no registering for the auction (even though I had some cash with me). I decided to stick around anyway.

As the auction went on, I talked to a few of the guys there. I eventually asked one nice guy to bid for me since I couldn't, promising him I'd give him the cash BEFORE bidding. He agreed and from the dead row I won a dedicated 2-slot Neo-Geo MVS cab for $50 (wish I could remember his name now, but he's my new best friend anyway). The monitor chassis was gone, and it looks like maybe it'd gotten smacked when moving it as one of the sides had started to separate from the rest of the cab. because of this the speaker panel had fallen down and the marquee was missing.  I'd hoped this would help it go really low since the 19" Neo-Geo's in Dynamo cabs went for around $75 with working monitors. Even though it looked rough on first impressions, nothing is physically damaged on the cab and tacking it back together should be quick and easy. I bid on it not knowing what games were in it (although I could see two carts in it from the back and Samurai Shodown 3 arwork was on the cab). It turns out that I got 3 Count Bout and BUST-A-MOVE (one of the games I was definitely going to pick up anyway).

Tomorrow I'm going to piece the cabinet back together and hook all the loose wires back up to see if it will play blind. I took out the main PCB and popped it into my JAMMA cab and it came up (although with funky sound since pinouts are different). Both games worked and so did my King of Fighters '99 that I'd bought off of eBay a while back in anticipation of picking up an MVS. At some point in the not-too-distant future I'm probably going to try to pick up a 4-slot board. Now that I have the dedicated cabinet, I have all the bells and whistles (credit displays, memory card slot, headphone jacks).  I can print a new marquee at work or just hold out for a 4-slot marquee. I have a Bust-a-move marquee, but it was cut down to fit another cab. I'll post some pics later.

[Zero_Hour]

Congrats. Worth it just for Bust-A-Move, IMO, but sounds like you got much more for your $$$.

[Crowquill]

Just a quick update to this story. I was back in my hometown to see my newborn nephew and was talking to a friend that collects games. In passing I mentioned that I had a NeoGeo cabinet but eventually I needed to get a working monitor for it. His response was something to the effect of "I have a spare 25" sitting in my garage if you want it."

I hadn't had a whole lot of luck locally finding one, much less for free. 

It was a WG K7131 that I'm guessing was originally from a 4-player TMNT cabinet judging from the dates on the monitor and the Konami sticker on the frame. The frame the monitor was in wouldn't fit into my cab, so I transplanted the tube and chassis into the frame that had come in the cab with the empty tube.

Since the power supply was missing I put in a spare Peter Chou that I had. The original power supply was one of these. I wish I could have found one for a decent price as the cab still had all the power wiring ending in the molex connectors that would have plugged into this supply. As much as I would have liked to keep it original, I couldn't justify spending $45 when I could just do some re-wiring. Rewiring it wasn't as time-consuming as I thought it was going to be anyway.

I crossed my fingers and flipped the switch...success!

Tomorrow I'm going to get the speaker panel back in place and install the marquee I printed at work. Friday I'll pick up a new fluorescent fixture and I should be done until I get around to doing the cap kit.

BTW--are there any other cabinets where the marquee light's power runs through the isolation transformer? It appears to all be the original wiring.

[Q*Bert_OP]

BTW--are there any other cabinets where the marquee light's power runs through the isolation transformer? It appears to all be the original wiring.

Nope. You need to run the power from when the ac ENTERS the Iso. Xfmr, but not leaves. If the power for the monitor and marquee light are powered from the Iso Xfmr's secondary winding, you are not isolating anything at all.