The Gameover Machine

[Qwintin]

For my first arcade project, i wanted
1) to make things simple. I wanted to have my own arcade cabinet without  ...
2) I also wanted to have it not dedicated to only few games, and using light guns because there are plenty of nice-to-have arcade games and i have limited room in my house   negociations with my future-wife were not that easy and i don't think there will be another project later one 

This explained why at first i considered about buying a non working arcade cabinet. All i'd have to do is to resell parts that are inside, make some room for a pc+screen, buy a jpac and that's it. After some investigation, i finally bought an upright of Virtua Striker 2. Because i just loved the design. It's sooo massive... So cool But it's not Jamma. And the arcade screen was working, so after having seen the rendering of it i simply couldn't live with the idea of replacing it with a pc screen.

And my wishes of easiness went away


I'm at a point where the arcade cabinet is almost playable, still a lot of things need to be done (mostly small polishing ones)... but i began to feel proud of this project and i finally found some time to create this WIP. So i'll try to relate what i've done so far and in the future.  Feel free to comment, give tips, ask for news or praise 

[wetwaterwalker]

Pics or it didn't happen! But seriously welcome to the forum sounds like a great project! I am in the middle of building my first machine too and without the help of these great people I couldn't have done it.


So good luck and post lots if pics!

[Qwintin]

yep, pics were in the way :-)

That's what the cabinet looked like when i bought it:



Everything was working, even the coin door ^^ and the cabinet had stereo speakers.

So the plan was:
*buy a jpac + an arcadevga
*solder a jamma-sega model 3 converter
*make 3 new holes in the existing control panel and wire that to the converter
*play

[Qwintin]

Converter Sega Model 3 to JAMMA

The first thing i made was to build a converter to make my cabinet being JAMMA-compatible. Yes, remember i bought my cabinet  without paying attention to that point and then i had to proove myself it was still a feasible project, so i started with the thing that were making of my cabinet different of a standard mame machine project. A friend of mine gave me for testing purpose his own computer with an arcade VGA and a JPAC.

After few searches on the internet, i found out documents that would help me a lot, like the Sega Model 3 pinout.

Sega Model 3 pinout

I checked the CN2 connector of my own Sega Model 3 and it was mostly the same and for the VIRTUA on 2. Thus combined with the JAMMA connector pinout, i knew it wouldn't be that difficult to build my converter. Also i wanted to build my converter without destroying the existing working system (i could have soldered the existing strings on the JPAC but i wanted my converter to be removable if i wanted to play the original virtua striker game later on)... So i bought the parts needed for it:

a female JAMMA connector

a unknown-name part, bought in an electronic shop. I'll call that a male pin-connector ^^

Finally, i made some soldering work. The JAMMA female connector is linked to 3 male pin connectors: one for the controls, one for the video and the last one for the ground. I also had to solder an audio jack connector to a small male pin connector, it will be used to send directly the audio signal from the computer to the speakers of the cabinet. I found a lot of videos on internet, this one was particulary helpfull


The result was quite satisfying. I never soldered before and even if it was somehow difficult to touch the right things and not the others, even if the connections were most of the time not resistant at all... at the end, after few hours (yes it took some time though, i never done that i said ^^), the converter was working almost flawlessly upon my own surprise: all controls were working except one button (string was not connected anymore, probably the connection broke while manipulating the converter) and the coin door (in an extra-confident period i connected also the coin door lock pin... i just cut this string and it started working ^^), video was just fine, and the sound was working from time to time (just another string that desoldered itself during a manipulation, i guess).

Here you can see the converter connected (i don't want to unconnect or move it too much now, it's too risky 'cause strings may desolder themselves again) and the audio connector i made:

JAMMA - Model 3 connector

audio connector

audio connector

So after this step, i could already play using the old control panel to games installed on my friend's pc. How nice is that ?

[PL1]

a unknown-name part, bought in an electronic shop. I'll call that a male pin-connector ^^

Pretty close guess.

It's usually called a header, pin header, or pin strip header, depending on manufacturer.


Scott

[Qwintin]

thanks Scott

[wetwaterwalker]

Wow! I'm digging this build.  That's pretty intense with the custom Jamma harness

[Qwintin]

Light Gun Sensor

Yet another thing i hadn't in mind when i started this project: i wanted to use light guns, but how the heck could i integrate its sensor bar in the cabinet? I could have tried to cut a hole in the bezel to place it, but the plastic would potentially break instead of being sharply cut. Moreover, i was afraid that putting this sensor bar bellow the glass of the screen would have had bad impacts on the accuracy of the light guns.

So, i decided to go for another solution. I didn't find anything about this, so seriously i don't have any clue on how people are mounting their light gun sensor bar... i guess each build has its own solution...

I took a small wooden angle that i painted in black, and made 3 holes in it. One in the middle, big enough to pass an USB plug through and the 2 others, smaller, just for the screws. And then i took risks. Oohh man. I  drilled into the cabinet so that the USB wire of the sensor bar can reach the computer inside. In the way, the metal grid in front of the speakers got the same treatment.

But finally, the result is just fine. It's discrete and responding nicelly to the light guns. The only small problem i have is that the sticky rubber provided with the sensor bar is not sticky enough and after few days the bar detaches itself. I just need to glue it in a more definitive way...

[Qwintin]

Yo there,

here is a pic showing a first test with friends of the future gameover machine 

[Qwintin]

Hello everyone,

the time goes by and i've plenty of things to do, but i don't forget my arcade project!

I just finished the artwork for the control panel and the marquee. I just ordered all these plus a couple of joystick and the T-molding for my new control panel... i'm pretty excited 

Enjoy!


marquee


control panel

[Qwintin]

hey hey... it's been a long timei didn't post any progress!

and you know what? there is some progress! 

first of all: the control panel is done. Fixed and wired. Yeahn and i'm pretty satisfied of the result ^^


and, i fixed leather holsters for the light guns. They have been ordered and made by a professional craftsman. I take no credit for that.



the cabinet is almost done physically. Pics of the marquee will arrive soon

[Qwintin]

Hey dudes!!

It's done, my arcade project isn't a WIP anymore :-)

Progress Done since last post:

• The marquee has been placed.
• The windows machine inside has been configured. Twice. Yeah, If you want to make a Mame-Machine, i strongly suggest to often backup the work made on the games/frontend configuration... just in case, your motherboard strangely dies in the process just as mine did Well it took some time to find a old computer that could accept my AGP graphic card, and restart the config from scratch....But finaly, it's done
• Tested it again and again whole nights long with beers, friends and friends of beers.

Outro:

It was a long, expensive and even scary at some moments but it was intense, cool and really satisfying. It's really worth all the efforts and pennies i put in it. I can only encourage persons that doubt about themselves to test and try this great adventure by their own: whatever your project, there is a lot of chance someone already faced the problems you gonna have, google is your friend, and people in here are really kind guys and very helpful. You won't be alone 

I would just like to thank anyone that has been involved at a time, or who just by their realizations gave me the will to carry on this build to the end... 
i
... And, what an end !