Terminator 2 conversion Board project

[Endprodukt]

Ok, I finally got a T2 cabinet and I want to convert it to Mame to play all the stupid positional gun games that I love. 

With the help of a friend we're designing a PCB that will be more or less plug 'n play with the cabinet. I don't like the idea of ripping a dedicated, working cabinet apart.
The board will be the "new" driver board. It will work with mosfets and will have connectors for the original ones on the driver board, as well as connectors for
an A-Pac and a Pacdrive/LedWiz.

We will upload the design for free with a part list as soon as it's finished. The first idea was a simple connector board that looked like this:



The next one will be way more complex of course... we're planning on working with mosfets to drive everything. Another important part will be safety features so the pacdrive, pc and other
parts are secured from overload.

Stay tuned!

[Endprodukt]

So this is the schematic (yeah... it's just paint for now;)) for the AC/DC transformation via the bridge rectifier and ONE "channel"... we need 10 in the end. 2 solenoids and 8 flashlamps.
The optical coupler will isolate the pacdrive from the 21v.

[Endprodukt]

Okay, we made some serious progress.




A little walk through:

On the bottom, there is connector P9 which is responsible for the 8 flasher behind the mirror. The original connector from the T2 machine will be plugged in there.
On the top you can see connector p10 which drives the coils and LED 1-4 (on the guns). What we do here is that we sepperate the 4 LED's to their own 4-pin connector as they
are driven with 5v and can be connected to the pacdrive directly.

This is not the final version, we will add an on-off switch for the solenoids so you can easily turn them off and play at night
The 13 pin connector to the right is just a direct connection between the guns analog pots and the A-Pac.
The 6 pin connector to the left of the 13 pin connector is 20v output to the coils and flashers. We will use

[Endprodukt]

No love for a T2 conversion pcb, hu?

I think we will build the prototype pretty soon, see how it works. After that we'll print the board. If anyone is interested, this is the time to let us know!

[Malenko]

Im interested in the results, but I dont have a T2 cab =)

[Endprodukt]

Small big update - we redesigned the board:


Actually we will now integrate an Arduino Micro with a special firmware instead of using an PacDrive and A-Pac. This board will be really plug 'n play then. More to come soon

[Endprodukt]

And another update, we integrated the Ardoino Micro, based on the 32u4 controller. It will be recognized as an LEDWiz and will drive all the flasher, solenoids, led's and convert the analog pots into two joysticks.

[Endprodukt]

Okay, one step further and almost done with the PCB:



And the schematics:



We're open to ideas and any input is very welcome if you see something wrong with the board/schematic.

We will change the 90° angles to 45°, this is just for the prototyp. also, all connector will be on the outside of the board.

[jm0]

I'm following this with interest as well.  Although I can't see the pics for some reason...?

So will you be producing a batch of these?  I have a Revolution X.

[Endprodukt]

Sorry man, this project has been abandoned due to no interest and me having a new pinball machine that I restored. We're starting to work on this again.

[rmwilson]

I would certainly be interested... I just bought a Alien 3 the gun cab - it has two positional guns and i am dying to make it into a mame box - looking to add a pc and play all the gun games! Brand new to all this but sounds like this might be my first step to solving my interface decisions.. still have to get mame and roms all configured ....

hit me up if this project gets going again ryan(dot)wilson (at) rogers (dot) com

[matsadona]

Just curious, but for what shooting games would you need flashers? Solenoids for forcefeedback/recoil are obvious…
The only game I could think of is Sea wolf, which is a kind of positional shooter 

Besides Operation Wolf, the Exidy series (Cheyenne & Chiller) are the best positional shooter if you ask me.

[jm0]

Sorry man, this project has been abandoned due to no interest and me having a new pinball machine that I restored. We're starting to work on this again.

Glad to see you are continuing to work on this!  I wish I could offer some input, but unfortunately I'm not that technically savvy lol.  I've always loved the rail/positional shooters especially T2 and would love to see this project realized