80's Style Neo Geo Conversion-- Stargate > Mame™ > Neo Geo/Jamma!

[MameMaster!]

Hello Guys-- I got the itch to build-- but my wife wasn't receptive to more stuff in the basement. So I thought to myself-- "time for an 80's style cab conversion!".

My cab was an old broken down StarGate that I had turned into "Mame™ Invaders" a few years back (I've posted photos of that project here on ArcadeControls-- (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=70436.msg721296#msg721296). Well I had been really wanting to pick up a Neo Geo MVS cab for a while so I figured why not convert my Mame™ cab?

I made sure that it would remain a fully functional Mame™ cab, so I just swapped out the 2 player dedicated panel for a new Neo Geo panel that I built. For fun I replaced the marquee as well. In about 15/20 minutes I can turn it back into a Mame™ cab if I wanted to.

Ultimately I picked up an old StarGate control panel that was badly abused and cleaned it up. Getting off that old art was a real pain but I was successful. I then filled in the holes with my favorite wood filler, and sanded it all down.

I sacrificed my SuperGun to the project as I wanted the cab to run my 1 slot MVS board and other Jamma gear I own (ex Sega ST-V); allowing me to keep the games fresh. I have a number of MVS carts but I picked up a 150 in 1 to make sure that it was full of gaming joy! To run the coin door without rewiring-- I just took the supergun's credit button and added on wires with alligator clips that I connected to the coin door switches. Worked like a charm!

For art-- I hired arcadeoverlays.com to create my Neo panel and marquee. They were easy to work with, especially when we ran into some snags regarding sizing; but they did a great job and I'm happy with the results.

Re the video-- I'm still running a VGA PC monitor so that I can switch back to Mame™, so I was able to get a SVideo/VGA converter from "Screaming" over here.

The last addition which I originally didn't plan on adding were the credit LEDs. One of the guys here happend to be selling a set so I picked them up. They work great-- and now I have a fully functional Neo Geo arcade machine.

Here are the photos-- and for fun I added in some additional ones of my current basement game room.

PROFIT! 

[MameMaster!]

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[MameMaster!]

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[MameMaster!]

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[MameMaster!]

LOL-- that was my intent. My wife already asked why I didn't reskin the entire cab. 

[leapinlew]

Awesome.

I like that you now have my favorite game.

[TOK]

Awesome.

I like that you now have my favorite game.

My favorite game is Stargate. 

[Malenko]

thats awesome. I do kinda agree a full on NeoGeo reskinning would be bobby bad ass

[leapinlew]

thats awesome. I do kinda agree a full on NeoGeo reskinning would be bobby bad ass

Crazy talk! Mame Invaders artwork is awesome. If anything, get you any old generic cabinet, paint it red and your done.

[MameMaster!]

Yeah-- way too much money was sunk into the last re skin-- ain't gonna do it again. 

[Malenko]

yeah I kinda worded it really bad.....
I'd never advocate getting rid of the MAME invaders side art, but make a NeoGeo custom side art and stuff on a different cab. I shoulda said "full on convert another machine." my bad

[MameMaster!]

My original intent was to do a scratch built Neo cab--- but wife wife said only one more cabinet or one more pinball machine.....the choice was obvious! 

Now that I've been into Mame for almost 10 years-- I'm having a lot of fun with my pinball machines.