my 5 year saga to get my arcade machine working! help!

[BilldaCat]

Ok.. bear in mind, I am an idiot when it comes to wiring, so talk to me like I'm five.

I've had this machine for a good 8 years or so.. it originally worked, i loved it.. then it died.  No idea why.  No buttons responded, etc.  So I moved once or twice, wires have become unhooked.. I've tried to troubleshoot it with some people here (see previous posts by me), and in general I've been very intimidated since the concept of electricity is foreign to me.

and yet I'm a computer programmer.  go figure.

ANYWAY.. after I did some more reading and just tore apart the insides, I started thinking.. hey .. this is much easier than I thought it was.

So I did all the wiring of the controls today.. ground wire, buttons to ipac .. started plugging things in.. hit the power.. jamma monitor does the little 'zzt i am on' sound.. no picture though.

I start following wires around, and there's a lot of seemingly extra buttons and switches that I can't figure out for the life of me what they ever did or are there for.

Some pictures are below.. the questions I have

1)  why am I getting no picture (duh)
2)  what is the loose wire thingy (i dont know what this is called), and should this be going somewhere?

Ok.. pictures with comments:



Connector coming off the monitor.. wasn't plugged in, I connected it.



this shot probably isn't helpful.  jumble of wires.



connector for vga cable to pc.



some of the wires are ending up here.  i don't know what this is, or where to connect it.



the big power supply is not turning on.  there's a loose plug (the kind that would go into a PC power supply) not hooked to anything.



front of the machine.. wiring block where monitor wires are going on the left (notice how many wires i've cut, many not knowing what they did to begin with, many were stuff going to the ipac.. when i rewired, i went straight from the buttons to the ipac.. who needs a wiring block?  i don't get it)... MYSTERY SWITCHES directly to the right of the wiring block.. ipac on right.


so.. yeah.  please let me know if i can provide more photos, better descriptions, etc.. I don't really know where to go from here.

thanks!

[M.Lanza]

It seems like you're trying to convert this to mame right?

You'd probably be better off if you remove all of the electrical components
from the cabinet and start reinstalling from scratch.

You'll probably have a better chance at figuring out what each component
is and how each of them work.

You can start by checking this out.

http://arcadecontrols.com/BBBB/acwiring.html

[SirPeale]

It's really hard to tell what's what, but that's no fault of yours.  Where do you live? 

I think I'm seeing a JAMMA harness there, why didn't you go with a JPAC instead of an IPAC?  Would have saved you a ton of wiring.

[BilldaCat]

I'm outside of Charlottesville, VA.

The machine was a functional MAME machine when I got it, worked fully.  Nothing's been replaced.. same monitor, same IPAC.. no idea why it was wired the way it was, it seems to me like there's a LOT of extra wires, some led to absolutely nothing.

First step would be getting the monitor working.. but I'm just not getting any signal when I plug into the VGA connector.  Is there something I could test to find where the problem is?  Would more pictures of the monitor and the wiring around it help?

Every wiring guide I've come across seems to be for the controls, and I think those are functional now that I've rewired them .. if there's any monitor resources that would help me, please point me there.  Thanks!  Really would like to get this working in the next 2 weeks before my dad visits.

[BobA]

If it was a working Mame arcade setup you should have a PC in there somewhere.   I think you have to provide more pictures and it maybe easier just to strip it down and rewire a clean setup.  The jamma connector with will have alot of wires going to nowhere if it is not being used.    You did not say what type of monitor you have but going by the little bit of the back I would guess an arcade monitor so you are probably connecting to a PC which supports 15 mhz video via soft 15 or the such.   Just guessing but starting from scratch will give you a better system they sorting thru alot of wires that are not needed.

[BilldaCat]

If it was a working Mame arcade setup you should have a PC in there somewhere.   I think you have to provide more pictures and it maybe easier just to strip it down and rewire a clean setup.  The jamma connector with will have alot of wires going to nowhere if it is not being used.    You did not say what type of monitor you have but going by the little bit of the back I would guess an arcade monitor so you are probably connecting to a PC which supports 15 mhz video via soft 15 or the such.   Just guessing but starting from scratch will give you a better system they sorting thru alot of wires that are not needed.

Sorry, it is indeed an arcade monitor.  The PC is not in there at the moment (somehow, I've misplaced it, so I was using my regular PC to test to see if I could get a video connection.. the old PC had ArcadeOS on it).  If my PC doesn't have MAME or ArcadeOS or what have you on it, I should at least still get a signal when I plug in, right?

Starting from scratch is fine.. I mean, I've already ripped out a lot of wires and rewired the buttons, so I'm part of the way there.. I just don't get how to hook up the arcade monitor to the PC (or why the existing connection isn't working).

I'll get some more pictures of the monitor tonight.. actually, I'll take a quick video and kind of explain things, that'll probably come out better.

Thanks for the help so far!

[BobA]

Arcade OS is an old mame front end that only worked with certain video setups when an arcade monitor was used.   If you do not have the right video card and cable and software setup you may not get a signal on your monitor.  There is nothing to provide your monitor with a signal.   It might glow or show some life but if the brightness is not up it might just look dead.

Here is a link to the monitor setup info for arcadeOS.

PC2jamma Monitor Link

[BilldaCat]

Arcade OS is an old mame front end that only worked with certain video setups when an arcade monitor was used.   If you do not have the right video card and cable and software setup you may not get a signal on your monitor.  There is nothing to provide your monitor with a signal.   It might glow or show some life but if the brightness is not up it might just look dead.

Here is a link to the monitor setup info for arcadeOS.

PC2jamma Monitor Link

Ok.. thanks for being patient with me and the info.  Am I best off putting ArcadeOS on a PC, or is there something newer that people are using now that would work for my current setup?

[BobA]

ArcadeOS was a great setup for older DOS based PCs and worked with really slow/old computers.    Now there is no end of choices for frontends to run the latest Mame versions.   See the wikki for info on frontends.   

[FrizzleFried]

Arcade OS is an old mame front end that only worked with certain video setups when an arcade monitor was used.   If you do not have the right video card and cable and software setup you may not get a signal on your monitor.  There is nothing to provide your monitor with a signal.   It might glow or show some life but if the brightness is not up it might just look dead.

Here is a link to the monitor setup info for arcadeOS.

PC2jamma Monitor Link

He should get at minimum the BIOS screen/boot screen before going in to windows...even if it's doubled or even out of sync... something.

[BobA]

He will get it if the cable is connected properly.    Could also be a dead monitor of course.   Maybe connecting to a PC monitor to the old pc and going from there is a way to check but as far as I know there is no computer in the cab so I would not expect to see anything on the monitor.

I think he says the pc is not in there now so I would not expect anything on the monitor even if it was working.

[BilldaCat]

the original PC was missing.. i dragged my current PC (without ArcadeOS, just windows) over to it, plugged it in, and got nada on the monitor.. not even the boot screen.   the monitor certainly hums when i power it on though.

[Turnarcades]

the original PC was missing.. i dragged my current PC (without ArcadeOS, just windows) over to it, plugged it in, and got nada on the monitor.. not even the boot screen.   the monitor certainly hums when i power it on though.

It's likely it was indeed using Arcade OS with a cable hack to connect it to the monitor. The much neater solution these days is to use a J-Pac in cabinets with an arcade monitor and the proper JAMMA connector, as well as the ArcadeVGA card to get the PC signal converted to send the right signal to the monitor. If the JAMMA wiring is still intact, you will be better off getting these components to simplify the wiring and also let you use any front-end system you want.

[SirPeale]

Crank up the screen control on the flyback.  Does the screen go white?  That's a good sign.  If not...

[BilldaCat]

Crank up the screen control on the flyback.  Does the screen go white?  That's a good sign.  If not...

I have no idea what that first sentence means.

I'm guessing I'm best shelling out for a J-Pac and an ArcadeVGA card.. simplifying the wiring in this beast and getting it to something I could understand would be a big plus.  Will take a video of the inside of the cabinet tonight.

[SirPeale]

Hold on there, cowboy...before you go getting a whole bunch of new stuff, let's see what you have that's working first.

The screen control is a knob on the flyback.  It's a large usually back object on the back of your monitor.  There are two knobs, one for focus, and one that says screen.  It's a coarse brightness adjustment, more or less.  If you crank it all the way up and your screen turns white, there's a good bet nothing's wrong with your monitor and you can rule it out.

[BilldaCat]

ok.. video of the machine:



couldn't find the knobs you mentioned, but messed with the thing that had brightness/contrast on it.. nothing.

[TheShanMan]

I didn't watch the video, but the flyback is what has that big wire that goes to the suction cup thing on the tube.

[BilldaCat]

ok, found it.  mine didn't have the two knobs labeled.

neither knob seemed to do anything.

CUE IDIOT ALERT

so, i eventually realize.. hey.. the power supply fan isn't even whirring.  nothing is getting power.  the hum must be from the power strip or something. 

i flick the switch on the left side of the machine, the one in the video i thought was just powering the lights.  power supply comes on.  yay!

i feel i'm making progress at this point.  i then go and grab my PC, and plug it in.

zzzzzzap.

i didn't get zapped, but the whole machine shut down.  i then tried to plug my PC in directly to the wall outlet.. nothing.  i am sad.  machine won't come back on.  not getting power out of my garage outlet any more.

i then realize the outlet i have the power supply plugged into has a couple buttons on it.. i hit one of them, power is restored.  took my PC inside, still wouldn't power on.  gave it a few more minutes, tried again, fires up.

i am obviously incompetent enough that i may get myself electrocuted and am getting a little concerned.

so .. what's next? 

[BilldaCat]

bump.. wondering why things got shorted out and what to try next (obviously hesitant to try the same hookup and risk frying something, including myself)

[bkenobi]

You've got enough lose wires in there from the looks of it that you probably have a short.

[BilldaCat]

Ok.. so since the inside of the cabinet is a utter mess, am I better off ordering the new materials (jpac, arcadevga) and rewiring the whole thing at this point?  or is this salvageable?  considering the mess I've made of the wiring block and such ..

blahhhhhhhhhhh

[bkenobi]

One thing you could start with is just putting electric tape on all lose wires that have metal exposed.  That will keep you from shorting anything while you are testing.  I wouldn't start buying stuff until you know what's bad.  You may find it's all junk (or it's all junk now ), but at least you can make sure before dropping the change.

[DashRendar]

It's salvageable.  You might want to use some cable management to keep the wires from shorting out though.

Any exposed wires should be covered, so the exposed metal wires can't touch any other exposed metal wires and short out the connection.

Don't be afraid to use some zip ties to get that snarled mess under control.

When you tripped your circuit breaker, you may have had the machine plugged into an ungrounded outlet, or the power load may have been too much for that circuit.  Or, as mentioned before, it could be a short.

When you plugged your PC in, I assume/hope you had the power off to everything?

[Turnarcades]

Ok.. so since the inside of the cabinet is a utter mess, am I better off ordering the new materials (jpac, arcadevga) and rewiring the whole thing at this point?  or is this salvageable?  considering the mess I've made of the wiring block and such ..

blahhhhhhhhhhh

My theory is always that prevention is better than cure, so with that in mind, I'd never feel comfortable messing with someone else's wiring job and old components. If you can afford it, I'd rip the lot out and start again - once things go tits up like they already have, it never quite feels the same again as you'll be playng away and wondering if it's all just gonna pack up and die.

It's a bit like owning an iffy second-hand car. If it breaks down you can fix things, but in the long run it will always play on your mind about the last breakdown and you'll never feel as confident about it again.

[bkenobi]

I agree with the wiring, but why replace all components too?  If the wiring is all as bad as in those pictures, I would probably rip most of it out and redo it.  I would personally start by checking the stuff that's basic though (like is the PSU wired up correctly) and then move up to the VGA cable.  If those are good, you should be able to test the display.  I wouldn't turn everything on though (lights, CP, etc).  Anyway, good luck!

[BilldaCat]

ok.. narrowing it down.  pictures:




those 2 white things obviously connect together.  it's apparently the power to the monitor, from what i can tell.  the blue little u-shaped clip.. i don't know what that connects to.

when i hook up everything else in the machine and leave that part disconnected, the power supply whirrs up, etc.  when i connect that, nothing.  the power supply will try to come on, but shut down within a second.

so, i guess the questions now are:

1)  is that blue thing supposed to connect to something?  if so, what?
2)  .. i don't know enough to formulate what the other questions would be.  i'd be surprised if the monitor itself is actually dead.. i mean, it's just been inactive for a while.. i guess it could die, but i'd blame the shoddy wiring job and my incompetence before i suspected a dead monitor.

any idea as to what i should do next?

[BilldaCat]

oh, and everything appears power-related.  in the top pic.. the white/blue thing on the side, they are bundled together with cable ties and run down to that white connector in the middle of the first pic.  from there, you can see it connecting to a bunch of black wires.. the ones going up run to the power switch for the whole machine, the ones below go into cables of which 1 plugs into the power supply of the machine, and the other runs to a power strip which is where the speakers and other stuff plugs into.

[BobA]

In your top pic I see an isolation transformer.   The AC for your monitor should come from the transformer.  When you say you hear a fan is it on the power supply for the cabinet or the fan in your PC supply?   Not sure about the blue connector on the white wire without having some idea where it comes from.

[BilldaCat]

isolation transformer.. is that the thing with the red wires running out of the bottom?

that tag on the 2nd pic (shows the french side) mentions something about an isolation transformer being needed.

those 2 red wires don't connect to anything.  so .. that could certainly be an issue.

the fan i am referring to is the fan on the power supply for the cabinet.

i'll try to figure out where that blue thing is going.. i'm pretty sure though it runs down into that white connector in the middle of the first pic.

[bkenobi]

I'm not an electrician or an arcade repair person, but if I had to guess, that blue wire is probably a case ground.  If that's true, then it shouldn't keep things from working.  Case ground is a backup ground for safety as much as anything AFAIK.

[BilldaCat]

ok.. i'm done.  after getting shocked hitting the power switch a couple times, i've decided it's best for me to just rewire this thing.. at least i'll educate myself a bit more, and understand how it works.

so.. with my current setup.. what do I need to get?  arcadevga and a j-pac?  is my i-pac basically worthless?

[BilldaCat]

Ok.. bear in mind, I am an idiot when it comes to wiring, so talk to me like I'm five.

I've had this machine for a good 8 years or so.. it originally worked, i loved it.. then it died.  No idea why.  No buttons responded, etc.  So I moved once or twice, wires have become unhooked.. I've tried to troubleshoot it with some people here (see previous posts by me), and in general I've been very intimidated since the concept of electricity is foreign to me.

and yet I'm a computer programmer.  go figure.

ANYWAY.. after I did some more reading and just tore apart the insides, I started thinking.. hey .. this is much easier than I thought it was.

So I did all the wiring of the controls today.. ground wire, buttons to ipac .. started plugging things in.. hit the power.. jamma monitor does the little 'zzt i am on' sound.. no picture though.

I start following wires around, and there's a lot of seemingly extra buttons and switches that I can't figure out for the life of me what they ever did or are there for.

Some pictures are below.. the questions I have

1)  why am I getting no picture (duh)
2)  what is the loose wire thingy (i dont know what this is called), and should this be going somewhere?

Ok.. pictures with comments:



Connector coming off the monitor.. wasn't plugged in, I connected it.

YEAR 6 BEGINS.

i now have a j-pac and an arcade vga cord.  I am unsure of how to hook them up.

My main confusion stems from the picture here.. that white thing in my hand eventually terminates into an absolute jumble of wires, some of it going to wiring block and then soldered to a VGA connector.  I'm pretty sure that is toast, I've cut enough wires that I don't think the VGA connector wires are still connected.

I'd like to gut as much of this as possible anyway and do it right, since I have the right equipment now (I think).  So .. basically my question is, if I go cutting those wires.. what do I do with the wires coming out of that white thingy?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I'll assume that is the RGB hook up for the monitor.

There really should only be 4 or 5 wires that you need on that: Red, Green, Blue, Horizontal Sync (h-sync), and Vertical Sync (v-sync). Sometimes the hsync and teh vsync can be wired together to a single wire, and that's called composite sync (csync).

On a standard VGA plug these are pins

Pin 1       RED       Red video
Pin 2       GREEN    Green video
Pin 3      BLUE       Blue video
Pin 13   HSync    Horizontal sync
Pin 14   VSync    Vertical sync

Usually you can visually see numbers printed on the plug.

Did you ever identify exactly what monitor you have? That will help us tell you what pins on that connector go to each of those pins on the VGA.

[BilldaCat]

I'll assume that is the RGB hook up for the monitor.

There really should only be 4 or 5 wires that you need on that: Red, Green, Blue, Horizontal Sync (h-sync), and Vertical Sync (v-sync). Sometimes the hsync and teh vsync can be wired together to a single wire, and that's called composite sync (csync).

On a standard VGA plug these are pins

Pin 1       RED       Red video
Pin 2       GREEN    Green video
Pin 3      BLUE       Blue video
Pin 13   HSync    Horizontal sync
Pin 14   VSync    Vertical sync

Usually you can visually see numbers printed on the plug.

Did you ever identify exactly what monitor you have? That will help us tell you what pins on that connector go to each of those pins on the VGA.

I'll check tonight on the monitor type.

I guess my next stupid question is ..  once I have those wires, what next?  I solder them to the right pins (red, blue, green, etc) on the J-PAC, and then I'm basically good to go?  (after running the vga cable from the j-pac to the arcadevga card).

My PC also bit the dust so I'd be in need of a new cheap machine to run this puppy.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

The things that need to be addressed is the whole power issue, the video signal you're feeding to the monitor, and then the cable itself.

The diagram and wiring it into the harness connected to your monitor should take care of the last issue.

As for the power, someone said they thought they saw an isolation transformer in one of the pictures. Knowing what type of monitor you have will help make sure of if this needs to be connected or not. Basically it helps keep the rest of the power in the cab 'isolated' from the high voltages in the monitor. It's a safety feature. These wire up pretty straight forward: you've got two wires coming in from your main AC, and two coming out to go to your monitor.

The next question is the video signal itself. You indicated you've got a JPAC and a ArcadeVGA... If your original wiring harness was not half destroyed, you wouldn't even need to worry about wiring up the VGA socket, as the plugs would be taken care of by the JPAC, so to proceed we're going to need a clear idea of what wiring IS there.

The ArcadeVGA will output a proper signal for the monitor once it's installed on a computer and the drivers installed. Traditionally that would go into the JPAC via it's VGA plug, then the video gets to the monitor via the JAMMA wiring harness. Since as I understand it you've already disconnected the monitor from the original JAMMA connector, we're either going to be bypassing the vga portion of the jpac, or rebuilding the jamma harness. If you're thinking about starting fresh you might as well just reuse the ipac you had before since I'll assume that's how you had the buttons rigged up to begin with.

Unless you plan on having another JAMMA board in there at some point in the future, the JPAC is going to be a little redundant.

So the next question I'd have for you is how do you WANT to proceed? Either method will work, both will require wiring stuff back up.

[BilldaCat]

The things that need to be addressed is the whole power issue, the video signal you're feeding to the monitor, and then the cable itself.

The diagram and wiring it into the harness connected to your monitor should take care of the last issue.

As for the power, someone said they thought they saw an isolation transformer in one of the pictures. Knowing what type of monitor you have will help make sure of if this needs to be connected or not. Basically it helps keep the rest of the power in the cab 'isolated' from the high voltages in the monitor. It's a safety feature. These wire up pretty straight forward: you've got two wires coming in from your main AC, and two coming out to go to your monitor.

The next question is the video signal itself. You indicated you've got a JPAC and a ArcadeVGA... If your original wiring harness was not half destroyed, you wouldn't even need to worry about wiring up the VGA socket, as the plugs would be taken care of by the JPAC, so to proceed we're going to need a clear idea of what wiring IS there.

The ArcadeVGA will output a proper signal for the monitor once it's installed on a computer and the drivers installed. Traditionally that would go into the JPAC via it's VGA plug, then the video gets to the monitor via the JAMMA wiring harness. Since as I understand it you've already disconnected the monitor from the original JAMMA connector, we're either going to be bypassing the vga portion of the jpac, or rebuilding the jamma harness. If you're thinking about starting fresh you might as well just reuse the ipac you had before since I'll assume that's how you had the buttons rigged up to begin with.

Unless you plan on having another JAMMA board in there at some point in the future, the JPAC is going to be a little redundant.

So the next question I'd have for you is how do you WANT to proceed? Either method will work, both will require wiring stuff back up.

Ok -- I don't plan on having another board in there.  The buttons are still rigged up to the I-PAC that's in there, pretty sure I did all the rewiring right but obviously haven't been able to get to a point to test that yet.

Not sure if the video I posted earlier of the guts of my machine helps or not, but here it is again:

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

That video is being marked as being private.

[BilldaCat]

That video is being marked as being private.

whoops.  should be good now.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Wow what a mess..


I'm going to guess that that is a K7000 based on the remote board.
http://www.wellsgardner.com/pdf/Spec/K7000.pdf

So that makes the video input on the monitor go (from back of the cab to the front):
Red (VGA Pin 1)
Blue (VGA Pin 2)
Green (VGA Pin 3)
Ground (The outside sheild, or pins 5 or 10)
V-Sync (VGA Pin 14)
H-Sync (VGA Pin 13)

You'll notice in the PDF that there is a +V/H Sync and a -V/H Sync. I'm not sure which a standard video card is going to produce so if it doesn't work on the first set of Ground/V/H, you can just move the pins down on the connector. It shouldn't hurt anything to run it a few seconds to see that it doesn't work. Since you've got an arcadevga card, you'll be able to tell that during the bios posting of the pc.


As for all the rest of the wiring.. I'm not sure you're going to need a whole lot of it. You've got the buttons wired into the IPac. That should work just fine. The jamma connector that's left in there isn't going to do you much good since it's not really hooked up to anything anymore. Same for the power supply that it's in there. The isolation transformer for the monitor runs off it's own connection to AC mains, so that arcade PSU is redundant at this point.

What you'll want to do is get something like a 'smart strip' or a 'usb power switch' to allow the computer to control the cutting on/off of the monitor, marquee lights, speaker amplifier.
Smart Strip:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000L9A7ZS?

USB controlled power switch:
http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKPS01&Show=ExtInfo

You probably will want to just sell the JPac.