Neo-Geo MVS Mini - Update 05/10/15 105% - Death and Rebirth

[jeffhlewis]

Yeah, while I was doing touch ups I was like "should I?"

I decided against it because i didn't want the orange peel texture on the posterboard (plus I couldn't sand it).  The color is actually pretty close if you look at it in person, the flash throws it off.

The best thing would be to get a new old stock bezel from a real mvs machine but due to the custom size that just isn't happening.

[javeryh]

Wow - this thing is really moving along.  I can't believe how fast you put it all together.  It looks awesome!!   

[jeffhlewis]

DONE DONE DONE!!! (well, almost)

Without further adieu, here's the (just about) finished Neo Geo MVS Mini!  The only remaining issues are 1.) Side and front decals (which I will be ordering soon), 2.) Purchasing a small PS2 keyboard (my mobo won't boot without one attached), 3.) Messing with the sensativity of the SmartStrip (sometimes it doesn't play nice with the marquee light), and 4.) Removing some pieces of plexiglass film here and there (there's some remaining on the control panel.

Also I need to take a video with my fancy HDV camcorder so everyone can see it in action.  Here's some nice pics on a beautiful day outside with my Nikon DSLR:


























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BIG shoutout to everyone here on the BYOAC forums  - without everyone's help and past project examples I would have never been able to get past day 1 on this project. 

Video coming soon, and I'll get some more pictures up when the decals are in.

[Ginsu Victim]

           
VERY NICE! LOOKS GREAT! BRAVO!
           

[Hunk_4TH]

Holy crap! That's very impresive  Very professional looking!!

[ivwshane]

Very nice!!!

I hope mine turns out that clean.

[jeffhlewis]

I threw together a video last weekend finally and posted it on youtube, if you actually go to the youtube page you can watch it in higher quality (it was actually recorded in HD with my HDV camcorder).



Just a quick run through of the features, lights, boot up, MaLa theme, and a couple games (Fatal Fury 2, SF3: Third Strike, Super Contra, Mortal Kombat 2).  I'm getting my arse kicked in all those fighting games because I'm trying to play sideways to avoid getting in the way of the camera, haha.

Enjoy!

[Malenko]

I love everything except the red bezel, but I understand why you used it. neither one of my neos has much of a bezel, justa small black one behind smoked glass. Still I love it

[jeffhlewis]

I looked at a lot of Neo cabinets and it almost seemed like a 50/50 split which ones had red or black bezels.  I think I instinctively chose red because my old Dynamo 25" MVS cab (sold it a couple years back) had a red bezel.  After I was done making it and getting everything set up, I came across official MVS marketing materials from the early 90's that clearly show black bezels being the original equipment.

I liked how the red one came out so I said screw it...I might go back later and make it black.

thanks for the compliments!

[Timstuff]

Wow, that thing is gorgeous! Well done!

[shumafrein]

Excellent work, your cab finally inspired me to do mine, is there any way you could let me have a copy of your arcade plans?

[Gatsu]

I'm jealous. Looks really really good though man. Excellent work.

Hope you take up more projects in the future.

[Axe]

 

Groovy!

[payment_due]

Man this cab is absolutely gorgeous.  I hope I can make mine somewhere near that nice when I'm done with it.

[jeffhlewis]

Hell if I can do it, anyone can.  This was pretty much my first woodworking project that involved more than slapping a few pieces of scrap wood together.

[payment_due]

Well Jeff I have to say you've really inspired me. I noticed that it was your first woodworking project by reading your blog and I thought "hey if he's a beginner and can do it and make it that perfect, I should be able to also!"

My project is a fully built cab though, with damage here and there so I'll have to figure out (or be told) how to repair some of the items on the cab.  Regardless, thanks for the inspiration. 

[jeffhlewis]

Nice looking SF2 cab BTW.  I was really trying to find one of the Super Street Fighter 2 cabs (like this: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9956) before I decided to build, but never had any luck on craigslist.

Now that I've built a cab they're popping up all over craigslist, haha.  oh well!

[WhiteComet]

Whats craigslist?

also did u ever find a ST cabinet like that?

Have you a picture of your dynamo 25"?

[payment_due]

Whats craigslist?

Craigslist is sort of a 'want-ads' website. Check it out for yourself. It's a great place to find used tools, books, movies, (free arcade cabinets! lol) and so on. Many cities in the US have dedicated sections for them, for example http://austin.craigslist.org is for Austin Texas.

[jeffhlewis]

Whats craigslist?

Welcome to the internets  j/k - craigslist is a very popular classifed ads site - there's one for almost every medium to major sized city market.  It serves the same purpose as newspaper classifieds but it's free.  It's almost single-handedly killing off newspaper classified ads.  It's also just about the best place to find arcade cabinets and other items that are too expensive to ship on ebay.  http://www.craigslist.com

also did u ever find a ST cabinet like that?

After I moved from Virginia Beach to Wisconsin, one of them popped up on the VB craigslist for like $200.

Have you a picture of your dynamo 25"?

Yup, here's two pictures.  I originally tried to refurb it (I still own like 10 mvs carts that I planned to use it with).  The problem was a broken monitor; everything else worked fine.  Calling around to various arcade shops I couldn't find anyone who would even look at the thing (I offered an arcade distributor a couple hundred bucks on the side + parts to fix it and he turned it down).  I eventually gave up, gutted the parts out & sold them, then sold the cab to some dude for like $50.  All said and done I broke even so it was a fun experience.  Hopefully the guy I sold it to made use of it.

[jeffhlewis]

UPDATE -

Eccs19 got me the vinyl side decals, and I finally had time to put them on.  So that's a wrap, the machine is 100% and in its final resting place. 

Now I'm off to play Shinobi and bash my head against the wall as I lose over and over again (but hey at least now it's free).

Thanks to everyone once again for all the help and support! 

[Hunk_4TH]

You're Neo mini is just amazing!! You've done a great job with it!!! 

[Gatsu]

now thats a sweet cab. I've always liked the SNK cabs. simple yet stylish.

[Santoro]

nice work. 

[Yvan256]

If I didn't see the building photos I would have thought it was an official mini Neo-Geo cab that I wasn't aware of. Looks like a commercial cab to me in those last two photos!   

As a fan of Neo-Geo cabinets... All I can say is 

[jeffhlewis]

Hate to dredge this up - but I've gotten a lot of interest in the Nintendo double sided cab that I cannibalized for parts over the past year.

If you live near Chicago, there's one for sale on Craigslist for cheap - with vs. Tennis: http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/ele/1442831684.html

Would be awesome if someone picked it up. I would if I had a basement!

[ghaleon1965]

Your arcade cabinet looks great.  Would it be possible for you to make your blueprints public?  I would like to make (or contract out) a replica of the Neo Geo Mini like yours.  Peace.

[jeffhlewis]

I had a rather tragic hard disk crash that caused me to lose the original Adobe Illustrator files for the marquee and CPO, as well as the original photos for the construction. Thank god that I was able to pull some backup photos from this build log!

However - I do have drawings laying around here somewhere. Send me a PM and I'll give you what I've got.

Been a while since I've posted here but the machine is sitting right behind me and gets lots of love when friends are over, haha. It's a great little cabinet!

[PL1]

Ghaleon1965 -- You'll need a few more posts before you can send PMs, but you could drop him an e-mail.

Click on the icon under his avatar.


Scott

[jeffhlewis]

Haven't revisited this thread in ages, but I'm doing some pretty substantial work on the machine and figured it might warrant an update or two.

This might also serve as a cautionary tale for "What happens when my fancy Mame project cab sustains its first injury" 

When I originally created this Mini Neo Geo MVS cab, it was running on:

-Pentium 4 2.53 GHZ CPU
-512 MB of RDRAM (quite a bit back then!)
-GeForce 6800GT
-7200 RPM IDE Hard Disk
-Windows XP SP3 (a really heavily modified version of it)
-Mame v0.126
-MaLa Front-End v1.04

After many happy years of gaming on this thing encompassing hundreds of hours of play (often by drunk people), three trips in a moving van, 2 broken buttons, and 2 replaced lightbulbs, the power supply gave its last gasp about a month ago.

I've upgraded my desktop computers three times since I built this thing, and I have always kept my previous desktop parts hanging around in the hopes of upgrading the cabinet's internals one day. For years I treated it as a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" kind of situation (the configuration of Windows and MaLa is a pain in the ass!) but with the power supply kicking the bucket, I have no excuse now.

So - the machine is currently being upgraded to:

-Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.0GHz
-4GB of DDR2 1066 SDRAM
-NVidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB
-120GB SSD Hard Disk
-Windows 7 Professional
-Mame v0.161
-MaLa Front-End v1.82 Beta

Completely updated romset is being added to Mame, with tons of new games. I contemplated upgrading the monitor to better/newer one with DVI inputs but due to the difficulty of extracting it without breaking anything, that's something I'll save for another project. I also contemplated upgrading the front end software to something like Hyperspin, but again - just too much work for the scope of this project.

I'll post some progress pics soon!
-Jeff

[jeffhlewis]

Updates:

The new mobo, video card and SSD have been mounted to the old wood plank...this video card is a monster so I may need to secure it down somehow so it's not wobbling around. Excuse the mess, it'll be much cleaner once everything is ready to go back into the cab:


I'm hoping the new SSD will greatly reduce the noise and heat in the cab (the old 7200 RPM HDD was a tad noisy and gave off a ton of heat), with the added bonus of loading games faster:


New power supply came in and works like a charm (bought a cheapie off of Amazon for about $35). I lopped off one end of molex and soldered on my quick disconnects to use with the coin door:


Windows 7 was installed, activated, and patched up. I also went through and turned off all non-essentials (IIS, indexing service, etc.) using Black Viper's "Tweaked" settings.

In researching front-ends and MaLa specifically (since I was using an ancient old version of it), I discovered that MaLa appears to be dead  Bummer. I'm still going to give it a shot with the 1.82 Beta version to see if it pans out. I debated switching over to Hyperspin, but I just don't think I have the patience or desire to completely port my theme to a new FE if I can avoid it...anybody have an opinion on other front ends that might be better?

Until then, I'm rebuilding my theme in the newer MaLa layout editor:



Once my rom lists are updated, roms/chd's verified, etc., I'll be copying everything back over to the new SSD and configuring.