Dual MAME & Jamma cab setup???

[teknomedic]

Hello... I think this is my first post here, lol... but I'm not sure.

Anyway...

I'm gearing up to add MAME to a current Jamma cab and I'm wondering if there's a way that I can use my PC with MAME and still be able to swap jamma PCBs in and out of the cab.  I'd like to use the same control panel for both PC and jamma but of course I don't want to fry my jamma PCBs.

My current plan is to purchase a few of the products at ultimarc.com including an ArcadeVGA... buy using the U360 or J-pac/i-pac can I still use standard jamma? ((I'm not sure abou the U360... but can I wire up the buttons/J-Pac & Jamma in together in series?... and then just make sure the PC is off when using jamma?))

Thanks for any suggestions or help in this.

[ARTIFACT]

I am interested in seeing what others have to say about this as well... I may be interested in doing the opposite. I am not sure I want to do that but I am curious to see what the BYOAC community has info-wise on this.

Good luck!

[Paul Olson]

If you use the jpac from ultimarc, you should be able to just swap the jamma plug between the two. I have seen dual jamma connectors on ebay which let you switch between two jamma boards; they may work with the jpac, but I don't know.

My cab was a Tekken II, and I had to have the kick harness unplugged when the jamma harness was plugged into the jpac. I don't really remember too much about it. I swapped back to the Tekken II board once soon after I converted the cab, but I never have since.

Paul

[teknomedic]

Thanks for the reply....

I was reading up on the J-Pac and it seems like it should work...  The swap won't fully work though... but I've got an idea.  The PCBs I have are all "jamma+"... like Killer Instinct with 6 buttons and Mortal Kombat with 5 buttons.

My thought is to wire the extra buttons into the J-Pac just as the directions say... but then continue the connection of the extra buttons to another harness for the PCBs.  ((I'll try to draw it with text))


                                                            |>-------> Jamma PCB                                                                                           
                                                            |                    ^
Standard Controls --------> Jamma harness<                     |
                                                            |>---------> J-PAC ----> MAME PC
                                                                                  |
Buttons 5 & 6 ---------------------------------------------^



I think this will work... when I have the Jamma board hooked up the J-Pac will act like a pass-through of the wire.  Then, when I hook the J-Pac back up to the jamma harness... I just unplug the "extra" 5 & 6 button harness, then with the J-Pac powered it should still see my extra buttons let the PC use them, and since the "extra button harness" is disconnected, there shouldn't be any problems.

I do have a possible issue though... when I was reading about the J-Pac, they say I should disconnect my power supply... but if I do this, I'll need to keep that to power my jamma boards.  If I keep the power supply installed and have the J-Pac hooked up to the PC along with the jamma harness... will I kill the J-Pac or PC... or maybe both???

[teknomedic]

If you use the jpac from ultimarc, you should be able to just swap the jamma plug between the two. I have seen dual jamma connectors on ebay which let you switch between two jamma boards; they may work with the jpac, but I don't know.

My cab was a Tekken II, and I had to have the kick harness unplugged when the jamma harness was plugged into the jpac. I don't really remember too much about it. I swapped back to the Tekken II board once soon after I converted the cab, but I never have since.

Paul

It seems like you did I was trying to explain... just without using the J-Pac as a passthrough for the non-standard buttons.

... Do you have any problems with the power supply and the J-Pac/PC??... or did you remove the power supply from the jamma connector and just use it for the monitor?

Also... when you did the swap... did you leave the J-Pac attached to the PC?... or did you disconnect it from the PC too?

[teknomedic]

Spoke with Andy at Ultimarc and he says that using the J-Pac and simply swapping the harness should work just fine.  ((I did not ask about my "pass-through" idea for jamma+ buttons though so I think I'll just test that myself when the hardware arrives and report back))

Andy does suggest NOT swapping  though because he said a lot of people that have done that either forget to power off before swapping... or plug in the jamma harness backwards which kills the J-Pac.. (not sure how people would do this myself... but I suppose MAME brings in a lot of noobs for arcades and I can see it happening)

I'm also speaking with someone that has installed two seperate jamma harnesses into his cab.  He's going to take some pictures and explain how the dual hanress works with this MAME & Jamma setup... I guess it work very well and it's pretty safe to all the hardware.  I'll report back when I learn more about that setup as well.

TK.

[ARTIFACT]

I'm also speaking with someone that has installed two seperate jamma harnesses into his cab.  He's going to take some pictures and explain how the dual hanress works with this MAME & Jamma setup... I guess it work very well and it's pretty safe to all the hardware.  I'll report back when I learn more about that setup as well.

Looking forwar to that!

[yukonblaze]

I guess I am not the only pondering this question.  What about the option of setting up the cab as jamma on one powerr switch and mame on another switch.  That way you could easily switch jammas when you want to play them and then power them down and boot up mame.  All the button, TB, and joysticks should be able to piggyback jamma/mame connection.  This is only my theory, not to be taken as truth!!!

[teknomedic]

I guess I am not the only pondering this question.  What about the option of setting up the cab as jamma on one powerr switch and mame on another switch.  That way you could easily switch jammas when you want to play them and then power them down and boot up mame.  All the button, TB, and joysticks should be able to piggyback jamma/mame connection.  This is only my theory, not to be taken as truth!!!

I see what you saying (I think, lol).... so I'd basically install two power supplies with maybe with a 3 position switch and two full jamma harnesses.... then wire everything up duplicate... then maybe use the 3 way switch for no power in the middle to anything... and maybe power up for Jamma and down for PC

It should work... but seems like a lot of work (I'm a lazy gamer over here, )... I wonder though if there'd be any risk of power feedback coming from the "ON" power supply following the connections from the PS to the monitor down to the "Off" PS and into any boards attached??? 

[teknomedic]

Another person contacted me about another way that works for him...

So I've got at least two methods that are currently setup and working in these other peoples cabs and it sounds like both are fairly safe for the hardware... I just have to wait for pictures and detailed descriptions.

Once I understand how they're setup I'll report both methods back here for anyone that's wondering.

TK.

[crzywolf]

I guess I am not the only pondering this question.  What about the option of setting up the cab as jamma on one powerr switch and mame on another switch.  That way you could easily switch jammas when you want to play them and then power them down and boot up mame.  All the button, TB, and joysticks should be able to piggyback jamma/mame connection.  This is only my theory, not to be taken as truth!!!

I see what you saying (I think, lol).... so I'd basically install two power supplies with maybe with a 3 position switch and two full jamma harnesses.... then wire everything up duplicate... then maybe use the 3 way switch for no power in the middle to anything... and maybe power up for Jamma and down for PC

It should work... but seems like a lot of work (I'm a lazy gamer over here, )... I wonder though if there'd be any risk of power feedback coming from the "ON" power supply following the connections from the PS to the monitor down to the "Off" PS and into any boards attached??? 

Also you would be getting feedback through the monitor connection . It would be safer to use a dual jamma adapter(with some modified wiring).

[diverdown]

My cab is set to either Jamma boards or mame PC.

Basically I cut all the wires from the CP and then joined them back together with molex connectors. I then wired an Ipac4 (4 player cab) to the inverse molex connectors.

i have a Jpac too.


To swap from Jamma to mame i undo the molex connectors and plug them into the ipac molex leads. The unplug the jamma harness from the PCB and plug it into the Jpac .


BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU DO WITH THE 12V OUTPUT FROM THE JAMMA P/S AS IF YOU PASS 12V THROUGH YOUR IPAC/JPAC IT GETS FRIED!!!!

THIS COULD BE AN ISSUE IF YOUR COIN DOOR NEEDS 12v.


I use mame 99.99% of the time so i just unplugged the 110v output from the arcade distribution box to the arcade P/S so the arcade P/S is "dead" and no 12v issues, nor 110v live plugs sitting next to a PC that I am forever fiddling with.


If this does not make sense tell me and i will think before i type

[teknomedic]

So you fully swap everything then...

I gave the swappable controls some thought too... but it seemed like a big hassel for setup.  How long would you say it takes you to swap everything?

[GMZombie]

ya know i did this for a buddy a while ago he wanted a mame machine that could play mame games + at the time it wasnt on mame golden tee 99. anyways i did run into a little bit of a problem as i built the cab myself so i didnt have anything existing to start with. this posed as a problem as sometimes the button wouldnt work right on mame...for some reason. after golden tee came out on mame i updated it and removed the old board...but then again i wired up the controls to the ipac and to a jamma harness. just some info on this for ya.

[diverdown]

So you fully swap everything then...

I gave the swappable controls some thought too... but it seemed like a big hassel for setup.  How long would you say it takes you to swap everything?

the time it takes to pull out 2 molex connectors and plug em into another connector, plug in the 110V PS and pull the jamma harness out of the Jpac and into the PCB....... Got to be 45 seconds max.


I then have a 4 player jamma cab/ or 4 player mame machine

[diverdown]

one other point. Because I have 2 connectors to swap I wired half the wires leading FROM the CP to a male connector and half to a female connector.  I then reversed the genders FROM the JAmma harness.  This way I can only link up the right connector to the right connector and keep my key mapping correct. Otherwise the potential is to get your 1 and 2 player controlls all swapped around


make sense?

[ARTIFACT]

diverdown:

You know what... A detailed article on how to build such a clean swappable system would be a KILLER ADDITION TO THE WIKI...

what do you think?

[teknomedic]

A bump for more opinions.... also trying to keep this alive for when I get some solid details on a couple of methods that others have done.

I know one set of pictures and a description should be coming Monday or Tuesday so long as the person has the time to take the pictures and explain the setup.


TK.

[CheffoJeffo]

You may want to check the wiki under Multigames, Game Enhancements and JAMMA Adapters.

Alternatively, search the forums for "MultiJAMMA" ... I have one of Clay's kits and have used it to switch between JAMMA boards and a MAME box.

AND, there is one currently for sale in B/S/T.

[teknomedic]

Thanks, I posted there so I'll have to wait until I get a reply...

I've not heard of Clay before... or his mulitjamma, do you know where I can learn more about these... does he have a website??

TK.

[CheffoJeffo]

Thanks, I posted there so I'll have to wait until I get a reply...

I've not heard of Clay before... or his mulitjamma, do you know where I can learn more about these... does he have a website??

TK.

You may want to check the wiki under Multigames, Game Enhancements and JAMMA Adapters.

Or .... www.multigame.com

[teknomedic]

Maybe I should just order from that site... I don't need 4 boards... just two... and even if I order 4 it's only $183.... the person selling here wants $180 and I don't think that includes shipping yet. 

[teknomedic]

With your setup... have you had any problems with Jamma+ buttons?  I need to setup my CP for games like Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat.  Thanks for any tips.

[teknomedic]

You may want to check the wiki under Multigames, Game Enhancements and JAMMA Adapters.

Alternatively, search the forums for "MultiJAMMA" ... I have one of Clay's kits and have used it to switch between JAMMA boards and a MAME box.

AND, there is one currently for sale in B/S/T.

Well... I hope you're happy, I'm now out $183 because of that Multi-Jamma, lol... j/k

Look like I'll be trying this Multi-Jamma kit thing then.  I'm still very interested in hearing other (cheaper) ways of doing this in case this doesn't work out the way I hope.  I'll also post back here once everything arrives and update how it all works out and how easy it is to setup.  Lastly, when I hear back from a few of the others that have this up without the use of a Multi-Jamma, I'll pass the info along for those that can't spend the $$$ on one of Clay's kits.

TK.

[slider2732]

I actually hit this problem with a driving cab...Top Speed.
I needed to have the original game playable, or, with the swap of a few things be able to play more games via MAME.
Glad to say it isn't too hard at all and doesn't use any fancy gadgetry like *PAC interfaces.

The set up now has the lot swappable in about a minute and it's a 3 stage process.
1. Unplug PCB power supply and plug in PC one (will fit a switch in the near future).
2. Connect Ground wires from the original wiring together using a molex (this caused headaches at first, as I didn't want to mess with the original wiring).
3. Plug Jamma header on to Top Speed PCB (it would cause a few glitches if left on the PCB).

The monitor input is split, as Top Speed has a seperate video header and both methods are therefore always connected. No output from the PC gives no feedback signal, nor the other way round with the Top Speed PCB.

For steering I used a mouse hack, the +5V and Ground for the original steering stuff being derived from the PC power supply.
The gearshift has the extra and usually unused 'NC' switch connected for gear shifts in MAME. This works great for loads of games, except Pole Position, which still requires like a double clutching to get it to change gear. The former mouse buttons are used for switching gears, left for Low, right for High.


Another method for running the PC is to directly JAMMA it, something i'm working on and have everything except what you'd think would be a simple 5V to 3.3V conversion circuit. So I still have to use a power supply on the motherboard 
Video out, sound and controls are all easy enough with a PS/2 keyboard hack and, if run from Compact Flash or USB stick instead of hard drive, you can have a none whining solution about the same size as a regular JAMMA PCB

[teknomedic]

A couple of good ideas in there thanks.

Something I didn't think of... when I was thinking of doing the joysticks and buttons I was in the thought of needing to swap everything... But, should I be able to do the same thing by simply breaking or connecting the grounds instead?

[diverdown]

Well... I hope you're happy, I'm now out $183 because of that Multi-Jamma, lol... j/k

Look like I'll be trying this Multi-Jamma kit thing then.  I'm still very interested in hearing other (cheaper) ways of doing this in case this doesn't work out the way I hope.  I'll also post back here once everything arrives and update how it all works out and how easy it is to setup.  Lastly, when I hear back from a few of the others that have this up without the use of a Multi-Jamma, I'll pass the info along for those that can't spend the $$$ on one of Clay's kits.

TK.

my way was cheap - maybe $10 for the connectors.....



I don't think it needs a wiki as all i did was wire up my cp to a molex connector and then wired the ipac4 out to a molex connector..... and the jamma control wires out to the same size connector, then just swap the connection between the jamma and ipac4 connectors.

[slider2732]

I believe one of the *PAC interfaces is geared toward Ground + connection, in keeping with practically all arcade cabs. But obviously the problem is when wiring to a keyboard hack.
So I ran the Grounds that connect to other switches out to a small loom and manually connect all with a molex when I want to run the original PCB's. They aren't connected till all are connected by the connector, as it were.
 

[throwgali]

This is my first post and I am fairly new to the arcade building scene but...

I just recently started designing the outlay of my first cabinet and ran into a similar problem. I want to run a modded xbox along with a pc for mame. My solution right now it that I am wiring the CP into a db25 cable and then plugging that into a parallel port switch with both my modded xbox's ipac and pc ipac also being routed into this switch box via hacked db25 cables. I can just mount the switch on the side of my cab and then manually switch between systems when I want to. I my mind this should work but again this is all in theory at this point and I will start construction within the week so I'll let you know how that turns out.

Cheers
Ron

[diverdown]

Sounds a  good solution