Golden Tee Fore project (update on an old thread)

[TOK]

My first "dedicated" project announcement!

The older versions of Golden Tee in MAME have turned out to be about the most requested drinking and BS'ing games when friends are over. I've really wanted some newer golf games, and even tried the EA Tiger Woods games on my cab. While they have better graphics then the older versions of GT, they just aren't as approachable or fun.

My next cab was going to be a MAME golf/bowling cab, but I managed to find a dead, new-ish Golden Tee Fore. They are still a bit pricey in working condition, but surprisingly affordable when dead. 

It was about a 3 hour drive to pick it up, and when I got there, the seller also had a working JAMMA cab with Namco's Soul Edge in it that I couldn't resist. My truck has a pretty stubby bed on it, and came home pretty packed.


The cab you can't quite see is a factory Neo Geo mini. I suggested my buddy take it because he has somewhat limited space. Its a cool little cab, and if he didn't snag it, I would have grabbed it anyway. Its complete other than the two slot board set. I can try to get better pics of that if any Neo Geo fans are interested.

After getting it in the garage, it really set in how HUGE this cab is. I've played them in the bar, I've looked at the plans when I was considering building my own, but until I actually realized this thing was going to be in my house, I had no idea how much bigger it is than the typical arcade cab. It is just going to fit through my doors, and that is after I pull the CP out of it and remove door trim. The garage is kind of my "staging area" where everything gets cleaned up and worked on before coming inside. The Soul Edge is a big Dynamo 25", and these two took up so much space that I had to move some of my more bulky tools and a motorcycle to what is eventually going to be my bar/arcade behind the garage.

I dusted it off the GT and took a quick look to see what was going to be needed. I knew the monitor chassis had been removed, but I plugged it in, crossed my fingers and fired it up just to see if it would play blind.
One barely audible click later, the show was over. No whirring hard drive, no lights, no smoke, nothing. 


The Soul Edge takes coins and works great. Needless to say, after the Golden Tee's anti-climactic performance it easily stole the show and all work ceased. We were pretty beat from all the moving and driving anyhow.
Maybe it'll get its own thread when I start really cleaning it up.


The next day, I really started checking the GT out. I'm totally familiar with MAME and PC's, but working on dedicated stuff is a bit new to me. This is actually a pretty nice way to start learning because the actual heart of the game is PC based and familiar. Verified that the power fuse was good and I had AC on the output side, then AC up to the supply.

The game has a modified PC style supply. Since it looked like an ATX type, I wasn't sure if it was supposed to run immediately when powered or if it required some response from the board like a PC. I did some searching and found that it should run all the time when powered. The power supply was dead, and replacement is necessary before I go any further.


An interesting bit of trivia for old school PC gamers... Its got a 3Dfx video card with a pass through cable just like the original PC versions. I paid more for my first Diamond Monster 3Dfx card than this cab cost. 

Its nice to say that now, because it definitely won't be true by the time this thing is playable.

[nipsmg]

Nice.

I had a gt2004 board/hd and everything for nearly 3 years and never did anything with them.  Then I needed some cash and put it on sale on E-Bay.  A guy won the auction, and was coming to pick it up on Thurs.   On Wednesday, I got a call from a guy who had a free stripped 2005 cabinet.  I HAD ALREADY SOLD THE BOARD! .. talk about bad timing.

But, it's ok, I'm working on finishing mameing up the cabinet now!  I absolutely love the removable control panel on these, and I actually pried off the GT2005 panel off the slide and built my new knevil inspierd control panel attached to it for the same effect.  It should be up and running this weekend!

Good luck with yours. Note: There's a dip switch setting on these board that will allow them to be run on a Std resolution monitor, even though they're normally run on a Med Res monitor.  So you may be able to find a cheaper monitor replacement.

[TOK]

The non-working monitor in there was a medium resolution, but when I was checking everything out, I found the board was set of standard res. I'm not sure how big the difference is running in medium res without seeing machines side by side.

[TOK]

I got the power supply for the machine. I know a lot of guys just hack the harness onto a PC supply, but I didn't want to do that and create some other problem that would complicate troubleshooting. About the same price as an ATX supply, anyway.


I installed it and fired up the machine to see if it would play blind again. The supply fired right up, I had hard drive activity (whew!) and the status and IDE lights on the board started flickering. After about 3 minutes of activity, the hard drive and IDE lights stopped, leaving just the two blinking Status lights. No sound. 

I went over the manual before firing the machine up, and the blinking green status lights are indicative of proper operation. That left me wondering if the machine was giving me some kind of message before going into regular mode. It has the Live!/Tournament option, so I was wondering if it was looking for dial tone or something along those lines.
My only arcade monitor at this point is the one in the Soul Edge. I looked it over, and decided again not to pull all that apart just to check the GT.

One of my buddies just gave me a 21" NEC CRT presentation monitor. Since the 3Dfx card in the GT has a standard VGA out, I figured I'd give it a shot. Maybe since this monitor was an older presentation job, it could display either standard or medium resolution from the game.

I hooked the monitor up and turned the GT on again. It booted right up, no sound again, and I could see a scrambled image in medium res mode. It was completely unreadable, but I could see the green/yellow startup I was familiar with from the setup options in the GT's that are in MAME.

It stopped at a screen with a line of red and a line of white text. The monitor will not support either standard or medium resolution at arcade frequencies, but at least I was able to discern that I have some kind of video out. Monitor shopping time. 

Here are better pics of the buddies Neo Mini. I asked if I could get it back off him if he decides not to do anything with it. You can see it has some battle scars, but it's a cool shaped cabinet. I know the woodgrain is original, but I'd bondo up the cracks, sand the whole thing down and paint it black.



He also took a VF2 cabinet that was originally going to be my next project. My wife actually liked this cab, and was a little bit upset that I got rid of it. She liked the white with chrome t-molding because it was so different than everything else I have. Guess that leaves my options open for another project, maybe an Astro City or similar "washing machine" cab. 

[Lutus]

The monitor can probably be fixed.

I have brought 5 monitors back from the dead.  Before dropping the big bones on a new monitor see if you can fix this one.

Now you will be getting into the "dedicated" arena!   

[TOK]

OK, since I'm basically dead in the water until I get a monitor I started working on free fixes. 
The trackball was filthy. The ball itself looked all yellowed and scratched, and when you spun it (if you could even call it spinning) it felt like the case was filled with rocks.

Its a Betson ball, my MAME cab trackball is a Happ. When I took it apart, it was like a cartoon scene of opening a closet door. The ball, the bearings and screws all came piling out, probably in an attempt to escape the disgusting grit and goo that also came flying out with them. I laid it all back together to take a picture. Its afe to say this thing had a few beers spilled on it. 


My initial feeling upon inspecting it was to just buy a new one. The prewired replacement for this ball is only about 60 bucks. That price, combined with the uncertain monitor cost made me decide to see how much I could clean it up.
I took it completely apart and washed all the funk out of the case. Pretty nasty stuff, but the glossy Betson plastic cleaned up pretty nice.

I separated the bearings and encoder wheels from the shafts, scrubbed up the bearing exteriors and soaked them in oil. There were very visible wear lines on the roller shafts. I decided to try some Brasso and a felt wheel on my rotary tool to clean them up.


As I let them soak, I began working on the ball itself. Every bad ball washing joke I ever heard went through my mind as I attempted to clean and polish this filthy ball. It came out pretty decent. There are a couple very minor spots of discoloration, but not noticeable unless you're staring at them. I wish I had taken a "before" close up, the whole thing was a brownish yellow.


The rotary tool polished the rollers up very quickly, they appear to have pretty much returned to a chrome luster. There are still wear lines where the ball rides them, but they are totally smooth and you can't be felt if you run a finger over them.


I cleaned the encoder pickups, put it all back together and gave it a test spin. It feels great! The gritty feeling is gone, and the wear lines on the ball shafts seem to have no effect on its performance. Amazing what just an hour of cleaning can do.



Off to look for monitor deals! 

[TOK]

The monitor can probably be fixed.

I have brought 5 monitors back from the dead.  Before dropping the big bones on a new monitor see if you can fix this one.

Now you will be getting into the "dedicated" arena!   

I'd consider the repair, but the whole chassis was taken. All I have is the tube. I got prices on refurb chassis, and they're like $125 to $150. For that, I think I'd rather throw in a bit more and get a complete working used monitor, or maybe just spring for a new one.

I'd love to see both standard and medium resolution screen shots of Golden Tee Fore side by side to see if there is an image quality difference.

[TOK]

I was on a bit of a roll this morning. I stripped the control panel to cut a new plexi overlay and I also pulled the dead monitor out. thats about as far as I can go today.


Next will probably be pulling out the guts and repairing some lower edge damage. Although the cab is overall in pretty good shape, its big and heavy, and the back corners got a little beat up. If the thing was working or an easy fix, it probably wouldn't be getting all this attention. 

[Lutus]

The monitor can probably be fixed.

I have brought 5 monitors back from the dead.  Before dropping the big bones on a new monitor see if you can fix this one.

Now you will be getting into the "dedicated" arena!   

I'd consider the repair, but the whole chassis was taken. All I have is the tube. I got prices on refurb chassis, and they're like $125 to $150. For that, I think I'd rather throw in a bit more and get a complete working used monitor, or maybe just spring for a new one.

I'd love to see both standard and medium resolution screen shots of Golden Tee Fore side by side to see if there is an image quality difference.

Oh, I either missed that in the initial post or something.

If it is just tube, then yeah, just get a whole new unit.

[TOK]

Time to dig this old fossil of a thread up! I've actually been working on this cab, but not much worthy of posting.

I didn't have a spare arcade monitor while working on this, and I've been wanting a VGA converter, so I bought one of the Yaton/Y Plus converters off ebay. It works great, though only for standard res. When I had my GT board set for medium res, it messed up the colors.


Here is a giant cab with a tiny monitor. 


The other day I went and picked up a Neotec 27" monitor. This cab was made for a 25, and even thought its a huge cabinet, the 27" just fits. The Wells that was in there just had a metal frame mount, so I made a shelf out of wood and brackets at the top to secure it. What a difference from the computer monitor!
The Neotec looks huge and has a fantastic image, though it's only standard res (I bought it from an op that needed a medium res monitor and thought this was the medium res or tri-sync version, which it isn't).




Next up is to make a new monitor surround and cut a new bezel. The old one is kinda beat.

(mods feel free to move this if you want... Restorations forum didn't exist when I originally posted this.

[leapinlew]

 

[nipsmg]

Nice, I'm envious and WISH I hadn't sold that GTFore board now.  Oh well.

How much was that VGA converter?  I tried one of JROK's RGB -> TV converters and I was never able to get it to work properly for some reason, although he was VERY responsive about helping me troubleshoot, and I have heard NUMEROUS other success stories.  *shrug*

[TOK]

The JROK board is probably better made, but I read about a problem with it that made me go with the one I did.
On some games, and Golden Tee is one of them, the horizontal adjustment can be so far off that you can't correct it with just the monitor controls.

The Y Plus encoder has a position adjustment on the board. Its crucial for games which have game info (club selection in this case) on the extreme edges of the image.

Think I paid around 30 bucks for it. He posts them as auctions with a Buy It Now, but just keeps adding another one as the previous one sells. Do a seller search for Yaton and you'll find it.
One thing worth knowing depending on what you want to use it for is what appears to be a composite and audio output on the board (yellow/red/white) is actually a RGB input using a generic jack. This will only output video on the two VGA ports.

edit for typo...

[briktop11b]

I looked on ebay and didnt find it could you post a link or post the name of the device so i can search for it. I have a GT 2005 red board that i am working on a dedicated cab for and i would like to use an LCD. Thanks.

[maddags]

Very nice. 

I too tried to search ebay for it and had no luck. Also tried searching Y plus encoder.  Could you please post a link or any other info. 

thank you

[TOK]

Here is the ebay store... http://stores.ebay.com/Y-PLUS

The one I got needs 5 volts, and no adapter is included. I was able to tap that easily off the Golden Tee harness since its basically PC guts. I'm going to use this now for some kind of JAMMA/Supergun type setup.

[maddags]

 

Thanks for the reply.