NEW Road Fighter machine/multiKonami

[paigeoliver]

I currently have a complete NOS Road Fighter kit on the way. According to the UPS tracking number it arrived at the local UPS center about an hour and a half ago. Doesn't waiting just suck? I wish I could just run over and get it, I am only like 2 miles away from it.

I am going to use this kit to build a brand new Road Fighter machine using mostly new components. I usually don't like to build cabinets, but I am going to build one for this one. I am going to go with a plywood cabinet. I haven't decided on a design yet though. I do know it is going to be a standard 24" wide cabinet. I am leaning towards ripping off the Starhawk cabinet, as that looks really easy to build. (picture of Starhawk cabinet attached below). The cabinet will either be white with the NOS sideart, or it will be stained light oak, with the NOS sideart. I haven't decided yet. I will likely paint one side of a test piece of wood, and stain the other, and see whatever looks best.

This cabinet will also be home to all my other Konami boardsets (other than Time Pilot). Currently the list is Road Fighter, Time Pilot '84, and Super Basketball. Either Scramble or Super Cobra will be added to that list later (once I finish ALL my other projects).

Like I said before, the components will be mostly new. I will be using a recycled coin door, and may use a used monitor as well. (If I can find a good one at a decent price).

The machine will also be wired for Jamma as well. I don't currently own any Jamma boards, but I do have a couple spare Jamma harnesses, so I might as well add that edge connector in as well, as it will give me more options in the future.

Or another wiring possibility is that I will wire it Jamma from the get go, and just stick a Konami to Jamma adaptor inside instead. That would probably be a better and cleaner approach anyway (not to mention the fact that it would leave me with a perfect unhacked Konami harness to switch into my rats nest of a Time Pilot cocktail).

No current updates on my MANY other projects. At the moment I have just been collecting parts to build them. Once I move into my place then the construction on Road Fighter, Pong, and the Space Firebird Mini will begin (as well as my other unnannouced projects).

[paigeoliver]

Ok, the kit came today and it truly was NOS. Everything was there except for the joystick. That is no big deal as Road Fighter came with a 2-way, and I need to use an 8-way so that Time Pilot '84 and Super Basketball work correctly.

It came with a set of great translucent leaf switch buttons too.

Another good thing is that the control panel overlay doesn't have button locations or joystick locations marked, which means I can install the proper 3 button Super Basketball layout without it looking wrong. (Road Fighter is a 2 button game).

[kspiff]

If you use plywood, I would highly recommend a couple coats of light stain/sealer and a few sanded coats of polyurethane.

Painting plywood properly (so the grain is totally sealed) is just too much mess and bother IMO.. and it never looks as smooth as you'd like (laminate or car finish-type smooth) w/o an air compressor sprayer..

So is this just a MAMEr or for the real PCBs?

[paigeoliver]

Real boardsets all the way. This one won't have any sort of computer inside at all. You should see the boardset that came with the kit, it is by far the cleanest newest looking boardset I have ever seen (the caps even looked shiny and new, and the edge connector showed no signs of ever having been used).

Of course like all konami boards it has the part numbers scraped off all the chips.

I noticed something else too. It seems like most of those konami games are not only the same pinout, but it seems like the run on the same hardware as well.

Also, the marquee is silk screened on plexi, so I will design my cabinet to take it uncut, rather than cut it down. It LOOKS to be the exact size to fit a Pac-Man cabinet, but I am just eyeballing it, I don't have a Pac cabinet here to compare.

Also, my kit is the version that comes with instructional stickers rather than a monitor bezel (the one on Klov has a bezel, but my kit doesn't mention one, and the original box isn't even large enough to put one in, so I guess they came both ways).

Anyway, the lack of bezel means that I am free to use any size monitor that I happen to acquire, rather than being forced to use a 19" one.

This kit is also giving me rather evil ideas of selling off my Time Pilot cocktail (minus boardset) since it can take my Time Pilot board anyway. Sure the dedicated Time Pilot cocktail is rarer than I, Robot, but it is nothing special, darn thing isn't even marked in any way other than the serial number sheet inside.

[kspiff]

Cool, I can't wait to see it.  Time Pilot, eh?  Tempting

I plan to eventually make a vertical JAMMA cabinet like this project, but for SNK LS-30 games.. lots of boards in that group, though, I'm starting to wonder if they'll even all fit in one cabinet.

I wonder how that one would do on location..?